Can someone help me understand this US court document?

Factual Questions
1

To me, I can follow some of it. It looks like there was a warrent on the person, the person went to court, pled guilty and was convicted on a felony of firearm possession and perhaps drugs.

I’m not used to looking at these so I’m not sure how the flow goes or how items are notated.

What are all those “Return of Service” entries on 08-21-03? How about the two entries of “Trial Stricken” on 9-19-03?

Here’s a link to the document - names and personal info have been removed

For the record, I’m not seeking legal advice. I’m just trying to understand the information.

2

DISCLAIMER: Not a lawyer unless we’re in a Terry Pratchett novel. Never attended law school. Did study in a law library once, but that was just 'cuz they’re the best place on most campuses to study. And I was studying Sociology Theory anyway, not law.

Per quick Googling, return of service means that law enforcement attempted to serve papers of some kind. The phrase doesn’t mean they were or were not able to ACTUALLY deliver said papers. I will assume that they were served on the 8 22 03 since that is the last reported return of service. There is a chance that there were actually eight different items to serve to various parties, but I suspect not.
Trial stricken in court has the following meaning [1] in at least one jurisdiction:
“(TSTKIC) - A trial stricken in court at the time the trial was set to occur for reasons other than a party failing to appear.”
In your case, looks like the accused plead guilty and was sentenced on 09 17 03. As a result, I imagine the trial was stricken from dates after the 19th because, well, the guy had already been sentenced. Hard to try him again.

[1] http://www.courts.wa.gov/jislink/?fa=jislink.codeview&dir=stats_manual&file=ct2cancl

3

So we could guess there was some sort of trial set, but after the guilty plea, they didn’t need the other set trial.

4

I don’t know a THING about your jurisdiction, but in at least one where I’ve sat in on criminal court, X cases are scheduled per day.
Sometimes the court will be able to burn through X cases and go home at lunch.
Other days something goes sideways and the court makes it through X-30 cases, and a bunch of people get scheduled for the next day or the day after.
Maybe the accused you’re researching was scheduled for 09-18 and 09-19 “just in case” the situation didn’t get resolved on the 17th.
To be honest, given how peculiar rules of court and scheduling are from town to town, I got no clue why they’d do that. Seems like you’d just schedule him for the 17th and reschedule as needed.

5

Got ya. That makes sense.