The state Supreme Court last week upheld the conviction of an Oak Harbor man who exposed himself to a teenager at a garage sale in 2016.

The court’s 5-4 decision has statewide impact, according to Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks.

“It will allow the prosecution of many ‘elevated’ felonies due to prior misdemeanor convictions, consistent with the Legislature’s intent that repeat sex offenders should be punished more harshly,” he said.

The Washington Association of Prosecution Attorneys provided an amicus brief to the Supreme Court.

The case has a complicated legal history. Jeffrey D. Conaway exposed himself to a 17-year-old girl and then was arrested the next day after she saw him at a coffee shop.

The prosecutor charged him with felony incident exposure with a special allegation of sexual motivation. Under the law, the crime becomes a felony if a person has a previous conviction.

In the earlier case, Conaway pleaded guilty in 2007 to incident exposure for exposing himself to girls at the Oak Harbor swimming pool. He received a deferred sentence. At a later hearing, the judge found that he had complied with the conditions of the deferred sentencing, allowed him to change his plea to not guilty and dismissed the case.

In the 2016 case, the jury found Conaway guilty and he appealed. The Appeals Court ruled that the superior court erred in allowing the prosecution to present testimony about Conaway’s first conviction to prove that the new charge was a sexually motivated crime. The Appeals Court reversed the conviction and sent it back to superior court.

Deputy Prosecutor Michael Safstrom refiled the charge as a felony, but without the special allegation of sexual motivation. The prosecution again sought to prove that Conaway had been previously convicted of indecent exposure through the docket entry of his 2007 guilty plea.

The jury found Conaway guilty of felony indecent exposure.

While he served his nine-month sentence long ago, the case continued to wind its way through the appeals process.

The defense and prosecution argued in the appeal over the definition of “conviction,” specifically whether the initial guilty plea qualifies as a conviction if the successful completion of a deferred sentence later results in a change of plea and dismissal.

“While Conaway admits that he pleaded guilty to indecent exposure, he argues that defendants who plead guilty based on the understanding that they will receive a deferred sentence with the chance of an ultimate dismissal should not, in fairness, be ‘blindsided by the resurrection of the charge in a later prosecution,’” the opinion explained.

The Supreme Court majority, however, agreed with the prosecution and concluded that the purpose of the recidivist statute is to elevate the seriousness of penalties for those who commit repeat offenses.

“Nothing in the text or history of related statutes suggests a defendant’s prior conviction must be erased when later offenses confirm a defendant has not been rehabilitated,” the ruling states.

In the dissenting opinion, four justices found that the deferred sentence and “provisional plea” did not amount to a previous conviction under the common law meaning of the term “conviction.”