The Washington Court of Appeals has strengthened enforcement of the requirement that persons found to have committed domestic violence in protection order cases must surrender their firearms and other dangerous weapons. The Court’s opinion in Grenadinah Dela Llana v. Darrion Holiwell ruled it is an abuse of discretion for a trial court to (1) terminate firearm surrender enforcement proceedings without credibly accounting for the location of missing firearms, and (2) refuse to impose the coercive remedial contempt sanction of indeterminate incarceration.1
Guns and domestic violence are a deadly combination. Our Legislature has recognized the danger of gun violence to survivors of domestic violence. According to our Legislature, there is a “heightened risk of lethality to petitioners when respondents to protection orders” continue to have access to firearms.2 More ominously, “[w]hen an abusive partner has access to a gun, a domestic violence victim is 11 times more likely to be killed.”3
Our courts are responsible for enforcing their civil weapons surrender orders.4 “[L]aw enforcement and judicial processes must emphasize swift and certain compliance” with weapons surrender orders and courts must “verify timely and complete compliance with orders to surrender and prohibit weapons.”5
After a restrained person has been ordered to surrender his or her weapons, a court “compliance review” hearing is held.6 At this hearing the burden of proof is on the restrained person to “provide proof of compliance with the court’s order.”7
Grenadinah Dela Llana filed a petition for a domestic violence protection order against Darrion Holiwell in January 2022. Following the issuance of a temporary DVPO, Holiwell, a former King County Deputy Sheriff, was ordered to immediately surrender his firearms and other dangerous weapons.
The King County Regional Firearm Enforcement Unit supplied a report to the court showing Holiwell had purchased 70 firearms between 1995 and 2014 when he was convicted of three felonies and fired from his job. The report listed each firearm’s make, caliber, gun type, barrel length, and serial number and the identity of the seller.
Holiwell claimed he did not possess or control any firearms. Relying on Holiwell’s purchase history, the trial court determined that Holiwell was not in compliance with the surrender order. Holiwell offered to document what had happened to his guns and the court gave him until June 30, 2022, to provide an accounting of the location of his 70 firearms.
When June 30 arrived, however, Holiwell came to court empty-handed and the trial court found him in contempt.
There followed a series of approximately 20 hearings over the next 18 months in which the trial court and Dela Llana’s counsel attempted to secure compliance by Holiwell. During the 18 months, Holiwell failed to surrender or account for his 70 firearms or prove he had made any effort to account for them. The court attempted to coerce Holiwell’s compliance by imposing increasing financial sanctions and discrete terms of incarceration of five, then 10, then 30, and finally 70 days of imprisonment. Nothing worked; none of the 70 guns were surrendered or accounted for and Holiwell remained in contempt.
Dela Llana had testified that Holiwell possessed a pistol and shotgun in 2021, and for a year after he was ordered to surrender his firearms, he denied under oath that he possessed or controlled them. Then, in 2023, Holiwell’s counsel surrendered the pistol and shotgun.
Dela Llana’s counsel repeatedly asked the trial court to impose the remedial contempt sanction of indeterminate imprisonment to coerce compliance but the court repeatedly denied the request. Limiting its role to that of “friend of the court,” the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office did not join in the request for the imposition of indeterminate incarceration to coerce Holiwell to surrender or account for his firearms.
Finally, in January 2024, the trial court issued an order (1) rejecting the contempt sanction of imprisonment until compliance as being “ineffective to compel Holiwell’s compliance” and as not being “the right outcome in this matter,” (2) imposing a $100,000 financial sanction payable in 30 days, and (3) terminating the surrender proceeding by ordering no further hearings would be held until Holiwell purges his contempt by surrendering the outstanding weapons.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals said “Dela Llana argues the trial court abused its discretion by declining to impose her requested contempt sanction of incarceration until compliance with the surrender order and by terminating the weapons surrender proceedings. We agree.”
Quoting from the statute, the Court said the trial court’s duty in firearm surrender enforcement proceedings was to “emphasize swift and certain compliance” and to “verify timely and complete compliance” with orders to surrender firearms.
The Court said the tools provided by statute to enforce weapon surrender include search warrants, arrest warrants and “contempt proceeding[s] to impose remedial sanctions.” The contempt sanctions available to the trial court include financial sanctions and imprisonment which “may extend only so long as it serves a coercive purpose.”8
The Court ruled that the trial court had “discontinued its oversight of Holiwell’s compliance with the surrender order until such time as Holiwell surrendered the outstanding weapons” and in so doing “effectively released Holiwell from his legal obligations without credibly accounting for the location of approximately 70 weapons. This is an abandonment of the statutory duty imposed on the court” by the weapons surrender statute.
The Court said Holiwell was “responsible for accounting for” his weapons and that “Holiwell had failed to comply with this statutory mandate.” Rather than hold Holiwell accountable, the Court said the trial court “imposed a [financial] sanction with “little coercive value” (because he is indigent) and “ended its oversight without ensuring compliance.”
Concluding, the Court ruled the trial court’s order was “outside the range of acceptable choices” and therefore “manifestly unreasonable.” The order entered by the trial court “only enables his continued defiance of the surrender order” and “failed to ensure ‘swift and certain compliance with court orders prohibiting access, possession and ownership of all firearms.’”
It has now been almost four years that Dela Llana and her family have been without the protection from gun violence to which she is entitled under the law. It is hoped this decision will remedy Dela Llana’s plight and help save lives by improving firearm surrender enforcement by our courts.
William Braun is a retired federal prosecutor who has volunteered with KCBA’s Domestic Violence Legal Advocacy Project for the last 18 years, providing pro bono representation to victims of domestic violence in protection order and weapon surrender proceedings in King County Superior Court and in the Court of Appeals.
1 Dela Llana v. Holiwell, No. 86474-2-I (Wash. Ct. App. Nov. 3, 2025) (unpublished), https://courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/864742.pdf.
2 RCW 9.41.801(1).
3 RCW 7.105.900(3)(a) (legislative findings).
4 RCW 9.41.801.
5 RCW 9.41.801(1) and RCW 9.41.801(6)(a).
6 RCW 9.41.801(6)(a).
7 RCW 9.41.801(6)(a). Braatz v. Braatz, 2 Wn. App. 2d 889, 413 P.3d 612, rev. den., 190 Wn.2d 1031, 421 P.3d 445 (2018).
8 RCW 7.21.030(2)(a) and (b).
