Senate Bill 5223 (Z-0149.1), prefiled 01/10/25, read 01/13/25, and referred to the Senate Law & Justice Committee, would amend existing Washington law by changing procedures for photographing, fingerprinting, and transmitting identifying data for persons arrested for felonies or gross misdemeanors. The bill revises RCW 10.98.050 and RCW 43.43.735 to require that prescribed fingerprints and identifying data, along with statutory violations, be transmitted to “the section” within 72 hours of arrest, and it clarifies duties and discretion of law enforcement agencies, juvenile court administrators, and judges at preliminary hearings or arraignments. The Washington State Patrol requested the bill; affected entities named include sheriffs, county directors of public safety, chiefs of police, local directors of corrections, juvenile court administrators, prosecuting attorneys, and relevant courts and clerks. The changes are procedural: they modify existing statutory duties and authorities rather than creating new crimes or changing criminal penalties. For felony defendants the bill makes it mandatory at preliminary hearing or arraignment that the judge ensure fingerprinting and transmission has occurred and to order responsible officials to initiate and transmit the form if not; for gross misdemeanors the judge has analogous discretionary duties. The amended RCW 43.43.735 continues to require law enforcement to cause photographing and fingerprinting for arrests that are felonies or gross misdemeanors, authorizes (but does not require) juvenile court administrators to cause photographing and fingerprinting when juveniles are brought directly to juvenile detention, allows an exception when a person arrested for a gross misdemeanor is not taken into custody, and preserves agency discretion to record additional identification data (for example palmprints) when necessary. The bill text repeatedly refers to “the section” and to transmission of a disposition report and cites RCW 10.98.010 for which entity transmits that report, but the extracted facts do not define “the section,” provide the prior statutory text for comparison, or include RCW 10.98.010, so those specifics are unclear from the material provided.

If enacted, the bill would make it routine for law enforcement to photograph and fingerprint everyone arrested for felonies or gross misdemeanors and require that those identifying records and listed charges be sent to a central “section” within 72 hours. At felony arraignments or preliminary hearings judges would have to confirm fingerprints and transmission have occurred and must order responsible officials to do so if not; for gross misdemeanors judges would have discretion to do the same. Juvenile court administrators may but are not required to process juveniles brought to juvenile detention, and officers still retain discretion to fingerprint people who are cited and released or to collect extra identifiers when needed. The most affected parties are local law enforcement agencies (sheriffs, chiefs, county directors, and local corrections directors), judges handling arraignments, and prosecuting attorneys who will receive disposition reports. Agencies will likely face clearer operational duties and modest added workload or processing costs to ensure timely fingerprinting and transmission and some exposure to compliance risk if the 72‑hour requirement is missed. The bill references a receiving entity called “the section” and cites other statutes for disposition reporting but does not define that section here, so the exact administrative destination and some implementation responsibilities remain unclear.