Case Title: Idaho v. Lantis

Citation: 

Docket Number: 46171

State: idaho

Court: Idaho Supreme Court (criminal)

Date: 2019-08-23T00:00:00Z

Document:
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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF IDAHO 
Docket No. 46171 
 
 
STATE OF IDAHO, 
 
                                Plaintiff-Appellant, 
v. 
 
AARON EUGENE LANTIS, 
 
                                Defendant-Respondent. 
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Boise, May 2019 Term 
 
Opinion Filed: August 23, 2019 
 
Karel A. Lehrman, Clerk 
 
 
 
 
 
Appeal from the District Court of the Fourth Judicial District of the State of 
Idaho, Ada County. Gerald F. Schroeder, District Judge. 
 
The ruling of the district court is affirmed.   
 
Lawrence G. Wasden, Idaho Attorney General, Boise, attorney for Appellant. 
Kenneth K. Jorgensen argued. 
 
 Ada Country Public Defender, Boise, attorney for Respondent. Anita M. Moore 
argued.  
 
 
BEVAN, Justice 
I. NATURE OF THE CASE 
 
This appeal concerns the application of Idaho’s Disturbing the Peace Statute, Idaho Code 
section 18-6409, to the unique facts presented in this case. Aaron Lantis was convicted of 
misdemeanor disturbing the peace by sending sexually suggestive photographs of his ex-
girlfriend to her employer in an effort to get her fired. During trial, Lantis moved for a judgment 
of acquittal asserting that the statute did not apply to his actions. The magistrate court denied 
Lantis’ motion. Lantis was found guilty by a jury and he made the same motion post-verdict, 
which was likewise denied. He appealed to the district court, asserting the same grounds. The 
district court agreed with Lantis and vacated Lantis’ conviction, holding that Lantis’ conduct was 
outside the scope of the statute. The State appealed and we affirm the district court.  
II. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND 
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Aaron Lantis was charged with the misdemeanor offense of disturbing the peace in 
violation of Idaho Code section 18-6409. The State alleged he committed the crime by sending 
sexually suggestive photographs of H.H. (Lantis’ ex-girlfriend) to her employer in an 
unsuccessful attempt to have her fired. During trial, H.H. testified that Lantis’ conduct left her 
feeling humiliated, fearful for her job, and worried what recipients of the email in question 
thought of her. After the State rested, Lantis made a motion for judgment of acquittal pursuant to 
I.C.R. 29(c) and a motion to dismiss pursuant to I.C.R. 48. Both motions were denied. Lantis was 
found guilty by the jury.  
Following the verdict, Lantis made a post-verdict motion for judgment of acquittal under 
Rule 29, asserting that the State’s evidence was insufficient to sustain a conviction since it failed 
to prove an actus reus falling within Idaho Code section 18-6409. This motion was again denied 
by the magistrate judge. Lantis then appealed to the district court, which reversed the jury’s 
verdict and vacated the judgment of conviction. The district court held that the State failed to 
present evidence supporting a conviction for disturbing the peace because, while the conduct was 
“clearly offensive,” it was “outside the statutory definition of disturbing the peace.” Lantis also 
raised a constitutional challenge, alleging that the statute was void for vagueness as to his 
conduct. The district court did not reach that issue since it decided the case on statutory 
construction grounds. The State then appealed.  
III. ISSUES ON APPEAL 
1. Did Lantis’ act of sending compromising pictures of H.H. to H.H.’s employer fall within 
the purview of Idaho Code section 18-6409? 
2. If Lantis’ conduct does constitute disturbing the peace as defined in section 18-6409, is 
the statute void for vagueness and overbreadth? 
IV. STANDARD OF REVIEW 
On review of a decision rendered by a district court while acting in its intermediate 
appellate capacity, this Court directly reviews the district court’s decision. In re Estate of 
Peterson, 157 Idaho 827, 830, 340 P.3d 1143, 1146 (2014). This Court exercises free review 
over statutory interpretation because it is a question of law. State v. Dunlap, 155 Idaho 345, 361, 
313 P.3d 1, 17 (2013).  
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The constitutionality of a statute is also a question of law over which this Court exercises 
free review. Alcohol Beverage Control v. Boyd, 148 Idaho 944, 947–48, 231 P.3d 1041, 1043–44 
(2010).  
V. ANALYSIS 
A. 
Statutory Analysis. 
The objective of statutory construction is to derive the intent of the legislature from the 
words used and the context of the statute at issue. State v. Smalley, 164 Idaho 780, ____, 435 
P.3d 1100, 1104 (2019). Deriving such intent must begin with the literal language of the statute. 
Id. “If the statute is ambiguous, then it must be construed to mean what the legislature intended 
for it to mean.” In re Adoption of Doe, 156 Idaho 345, 349, 326 P.3d 347, 351 (2014) (citation 
omitted). In such circumstances, legislative intent is determined by examining “the literal words 
of the statute . . . the reasonableness of proposed constructions, the public policy behind the 
statute, and its legislative history.” City of Idaho Falls v. H-K Contractors, Inc., 163 Idaho 579, 
583, 416 P.3d 951, 955 (2018). 
Statutory “[p]rovisions should not be read in isolation, but rather within the context of the 
entire document.” Smalley, 164 Idaho at ____, 435 P.3d at 1104. This Court must give effect to 
all the words in the statute so that none will be void or superfluous. Id. If the language of a 
statute is unambiguous, the intent of the legislative body as reflected by the statute’s plain 
language 
must 
be 
given 
effect, 
and 
the 
Court 
need 
not 
consider 
rules 
of statutory construction. Id.  
In applying these criteria, we must also remember that “statutes which are 
in pari materia are to be taken together and construed as one system, and the object is to carry 
into effect the intention. It is to be inferred that a code of statutes relating to one subject was 
governed by one spirit and policy, and was intended to be consistent and harmonious in its 
several parts and provisions.” City of Idaho Falls v. H-K Contractors, Inc., 163 Idaho at 583, 416 
P.3d at 955 (internal citation omitted). 
Given the disparate, yet reasonable constructions of the statute offered by the State and 
the district court, we conclude that the meaning of “disturb the peace” is ambiguous. A statute “is 
ambiguous where reasonable minds might differ or be uncertain as to its meaning.”  Id at 582, 
416 P.3d at 954 (internal citation omitted). We therefore must “look to rules of construction for 
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guidance and consider the reasonableness of proposed interpretations.” Id. We will therefore 
begin by looking at the statute from its historical beginnings. 
B. 
A Historical Perspective. 
This process becomes complicated in the case before us. It requires more than simply 
quoting a standard of review and looking up the meaning of words in an online dictionary. 
Indeed, the statute we are called upon to interpret was originally adopted by Idaho’s territorial 
legislature in 1863–64. See Idaho Cr. & P. Act §118 (1864). Thus, we are tasked to analyze this 
statute, adopted in Idaho’s frontier days, against a factual scenario born in the internet age. The 
conduct at issue involves behavior that even defense counsel concedes in briefing was 
“offensive.” Sending salacious emails to an ex-girlfriend’s employers with the motive to get her 
fired is at once offensive and even reprehensible. Even so, our analysis must focus on whether 
such conduct was what our territorial legislators had in mind when they adopted a statute that 
prohibited disturbing the public’s peace in 1864 – a statute whose words have largely remained 
unchanged in the intervening 150 years. We conclude that the statute was not intended to reach 
so far, and it thus cannot be overextended to address the personal sensibilities of one offended by 
offensive emails in our modern age of Facebook posts and Twitter feeds. 
The statute as originally crafted made it a misdemeanor to  
wilfully [sic] and maliciously disturb the peace or quiet of any neighborhood or 
family, by loud or unusual noises, or by tumultuous and offensive conduct 
threatening, traducing, quarrelling, challenging to fight or fighting. . . . 
 
Idaho Cr. & P. Act, §118 (1864). This language was amended thirteen years later by the Idaho 
Territorial Legislature. The statute remained within the act for Crimes Against the Public Peace, 
but added the word “person” to its reach of potential victims: 
Every person who maliciously and willfully disturbs the peace or quiet of 
any neighborhood, family or person, by loud or unusual noise, or by tumultuous 
or offensive conduct, or by threatening, traducing, quarreling, challenging, to 
fight or fighting. . . is guilty of a misdemeanor. 
R.S. Title X, §6959 (1887) (emphasis added). Title X continued to identify this crime as one 
within the umbrella of “Crimes Against the Public Peace.” 
This statutory language has remained unchanged for over 130 years, even though the 
statute was renumbered and retitled in 1972.1 See S.L. 1972, ch. 336, § 1; S.L. 1972, ch. 381, § 
                                                          
 
1 Additional amendments were made in 1994 and 2007 which are immaterial to the question before us. 
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14. At that time, the crime itself was given the label of “Disturbing the Peace”; it was moved to 
Title 18, chapter 64; and the chapter was given a new title: “RIOT, ROUT, UNLAWFUL 
ASSEMBLY, PRIZE FIGHTING, DISTURBING PEACE”2 (capitalization in original).  
Thus, the language of the statute in 2016, when Lantis was charged with this crime, is 
identical to what it was in 1887. Once again, for ease of reference, the statute reads: 
Every person who maliciously and willfully disturbs the peace or quiet of any 
neighborhood, family or person, by loud or unusual noise, or by tumultuous or 
offensive conduct, or by threatening, traducing, quarreling, challenging to fight or 
fighting, or fires any gun or pistol, or uses any vulgar, profane or indecent 
language within the presence or hearing of children, in a loud and boisterous 
manner, is guilty of a misdemeanor. 
I.C. §18-6409 (2016). 
C. 
Analysis 
Based on this language, Lantis was ultimately charged with “willfully and maliciously 
disturb[ing] the peace of a person, to wit: [H.H.], by offensive conduct, by sending an offensive 
email and/or pictures to [H.H.’s] employer.” The case went to trial and the jury was instructed 
that the State was required to prove, among other things, that Lantis “maliciously and willfully 
disturbed the peace or quiet of [H.H.] by offensive conduct.” The jury found that these elements 
were met and found that sending the offensive email to H.H.’s employer and its board of 
directors disturbed H.H.’s personal “peace.” The question which we now address is whether 
disturbing one’s personal peace, through transmitting offensive material to a third party, is a 
violation of a law originally crafted in the late 1800’s.  
To resolve this question we must determine whether the legislative body, before Idaho 
was even a state, intended this statute to cover the type of behavior alleged here. Behavior which, 
no-doubt may disturb one’s personal peace, but which is not the kind of conduct which would 
disturb the exterior peace and quiet of the victim or of those in close proximity to the person 
exhibiting the offensive conduct. We hold that the statute does not prohibit such conduct. 
The State correctly points out that the statute, read broadly in the disjunctive, as we are 
bound to do,3 would appear to create criminal liability for any individual “who maliciously and 
                                                          
 
2 As noted by the legislature in its statement of purpose in 1972, “[t]he act effectively re-enact[ed] . . . the ‘Old 
Criminal Code’, which existed in full force and effect in the state of Idaho on December 31, 1971. No changes or 
amendments [were] made to the old criminal code in th[e] act.”  
3 See Smalley, 164 Idaho at ____, 435 P.3d at 1104 (quoting State v. Cota-Medina, 163 Idaho 593, 600, 416 P.3d 
965, 972 (2018) (The word “or” is a “disjunctive particle used to express an alternative or to give a choice of one 
among two or more things.”)   
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willfully disturbs the peace or quiet of any . . . person, by . . . offensive conduct. . . .” Id. This 
was precisely how the jury was instructed. But parsing the words of the statute in such a way 
ignores other language in the statute and the “spirit and policy” of the statute’s “several parts and 
provisions.” City of Idaho Falls v. H-K Contractors, Inc., 163 Idaho at 583, 416 P.3d at 955.  
As noted above, it is significant that this statute, as originally adopted in 1863–64 was 
part of the “Crimes and Punishment” section of the law, which prohibited disturbances to the 
public peace. The statute, as amended in 1887 to add the word “person” to the statute in Title X, 
remained codified in the “Crimes Against the Public Peace” portion of the code. Once the statute 
was renumbered and moved into Chapter 64 of Title 18 in 1972 it was identified as “disturbing 
the peace,” and placed in a chapter that dropped the “public peace” moniker, but which retained 
the original intent of the statute, by including it within a system of statutes designed to govern 
public disturbances such as riot, rout, unlawful assembly and disturbing the peace. We view this 
detail as significant, since the statute before us is part of that larger system which continues to 
criminalize crimes against the public peace.  Cf. State v. Neal, 159 Idaho 439, 445, 362 P.3d 
514, 520 (2015) (a statute’s placement “in the center of a series of statutes dealing with 
managing traffic safety vis-a-vis other vehicles” was relevant to this Court’s determination of the 
statute’s meaning).  
Thus, as we scrutinize the meaning of “disturbing the peace,” we also acknowledge the 
other series of statutes within Title 18, Chapter 64 which require breaches of the public peace. 
For example, to riot requires the “use of force or violence, or threat thereof, disturbing the public 
peace.” I.C. §18-6491. The same chapter prohibits an unlawful assembly, wherein two or more 
persons “assemble together to do an unlawful act . . . or [to] do a lawful act in a violent, 
boisterous or tumultuous manner. . . .” I.C. §18-6404.  
The district court, acting in its appellate capacity, relied upon this factor as establishing 
the intent of the legislature, that Idaho’s disturbing the peace statute:  
[P]rohibits disturbing, for lack of a better term, the ‘exterior’ or ‘sensory’ peace of 
a neighborhood, family or person. It does not prohibit offending someone’s 
‘internal’ sensibility by sending an email to them or to their co-workers, as 
occurred here. It does not prohibit embarrassing someone by sending an offensive 
electronic communication.  
We agree with this reasoning. It supports the conclusion we reach here, holding that to 
violate Idaho’s disturbing the peace statute, one must disturb the exterior or sensory peace of a 
neighborhood, family or person. Disturbing the mental wellbeing of another or one’s internal 
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peace is not encompassed in what the legislature intended in adopting this statute. This is 
particularly fitting here where the offending conduct involved the transmission of electronic 
communication to third parties who were not alleged to be victims of the offensive emails 
themselves. We recognize that this conduct certainly resulted in mental anguish to H.H. 
personally – but Lantis’ act, the actus reus of disseminating offensive pictures to third parties, is 
not an act of disturbing the public peace, and H.H. is therefore not a victim under this statute.4 
This result is likewise supported by acknowledging the related terms within the body of 
the Disturbing the Peace statute itself, which include loud or unusual noise, gun fire, challenging 
someone to a fight, loudness or boisterousness, or tumultuous conduct. Such words color our 
view of the legislature’s intent in prohibiting one from disturbing the peace.  
While the State argues that the legislature’s inclusion of the word “traducing” in the 
statute points to a legislative intent to include disturbing one’s internal peace through slandering 
that person, we disagree. Once again, reading the statute as a whole, for a person to be convicted 
of disturbing the peace through traducing another, any slander or shame directed towards another 
would have to be made in a public arena, or communicated to the public in such a way as to 
disturb the public peace of the victim or the public generally, and not just as a means to disturb 
another’s internal sensibilities. Traducing was included in the statute as it was originally adopted 
in 1864, in the “crimes against public peace” section. It retains such a requirement in its current 
iteration. Thus, notwithstanding the disjunctive words in the statute when taken in isolation, the 
legislative intent is more properly resolved by analyzing the legislative pronouncement as a 
whole. The words used in the statute should not be addressed in a vacuum. State v. Neal, 159 
Idaho at 445, 362 P.3d at 520 (quoting Lockhart v. Dep't of Fish and Game, 121 Idaho 894, 897, 
828 P.2d 1299, 1302 (1992) (“Language of a particular section need not be viewed in a vacuum. 
And all sections of applicable statutes must be construed together so as to determine the 
legislature’s intent.”). “Statutes and ordinances should be construed so that effect is given to their 
provisions, and no part is rendered superfluous or insignificant.” Friends of Farm to Mkt. v. 
Valley Cnty., 137 Idaho 192, 197, 46 P.3d 9, 14 (2002).   
                                                          
 
4 We note that Idaho’s legislature has recognized that Lantis’ conduct is the type of misbehavior that should be 
criminalized – and even made a felony -- when it recently adopted a statute prohibiting the dissemination of pictures 
in which another person’s “intimate areas are exposed.” See Idaho Code §18-6609(3) (2018); S.L. 2018, ch. 256, § 
1. 
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This result is likewise supported by utilizing a tool of linguistic analysis known as corpus 
linguistics. “[C]orpus linguistics may be thought of as a linguistic methodology that analyzes 
language function and use by means of an electronic database called a corpus.” Stephen C. 
Mouritsen, The Dictionary Is Not A Fortress: Definitional Fallacies and A Corpus-Based 
Approach to Plain Meaning, 2010 B.Y.U. L. Rev. 1915, 1954 (2010). Using corpus linguistics in 
a legal setting allows reviewing courts like ours to analyze the particular meaning of words in the 
context of their linguistic usage patterns. See Stephen C. Mouritsen, Hard Cases and Hard Data: 
Assessing Corpus Linguistics as an Empirical Path to Plain Meaning, 13 Colum. Sci. & Tech. L. 
Rev. 156, 160–61 (2012) (When terms are to “be interpreted according to their ordinary 
meaning, they implicate a set of empirical questions, many of which are amenable to different 
types of linguistic analysis. . . . [I]n the field of corpus linguistics, scholars . . . determine . . . 
those meanings that are consistent with common usage,” or “the term’s ordinary or most frequent 
meaning” based on empirical data rather than personal intuition.).  
Courts are beginning to utilize corpus linguistics as a means to aid the interpretation of 
statutory language in context and with the use of the empirical data available through extensive 
corpora, which catalogue millions of words. For example, in People v. Harris, 885 N.W.2d 832, 
(Mich. 2016), the Michigan Supreme Court turned to the Corpus of Contemporary American 
English (COCA) to interpret the word “information” and to “analyze [ ] ordinary meaning 
through a method that is quantifiable and verifiable.” Id. at 838–39 (quoting Mouritsen, Hard 
Cases and Hard Data, supra, 13 Colum. Sci. & Tech. L. Rev. at 202). The court there found that 
empirical data from the COCA supported a definition of “information” that resolved the question 
before it. See also State v. Rasabout, 356 P.3d 1258 (Utah 2015) (Lee, J., concurring) (urging 
courts to employ “corpus linguistics,” a method of interpretation which involves “access[ing] 
large bodies of real-world language to see how particular words or phrases are actually used in 
written or spoken English”). One of the chief benefits of a corpus-linguistics-style analysis is that 
it offers a systematic, non-random look at the way words are used across a large body of 
sources. See id.  
We agree with these sentiments, but we recognize that the parties did not argue these 
principles in their briefing or at oral argument. We simply reference the use of corpus linguistic 
tools as a support for our analysis set forth above, and as an motivation for counsel to consider 
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this “potential additional tool for our statutory interpretation toolbox,” id. (Durham, C.J. 
Concurring), when called for in the future.  
Given the historical perspective necessary to interpret “disturbing the peace” in this case, 
we turn to the Corpus of Historical American English, or COHA, which is a 400-million-word 
corpus of text from 1810 through 2000. While the Corpus of Founding Era American English 
(COFEA) could also be utilized, it predates the statute in question by nearly 100 years, so COHA 
was used instead because it can provide data more relevant to the specific time period in 
question. That research empirically shows that the phrases “disturb the peace,” “disturbing the 
peace” “disturbed the peace” and “disturbs the peace,” in a search from the time period of 1850 
to 1890 produced 69 responses. Of those responses, 61, or 88.4% referenced a public, external, 
physical peace; five (7.2%) were unclear in meaning or reference, and only 3 (4.3%) referenced a 
private, internal, emotional peace. Thus, utilizing COHA data for the 1850s to the 1900s supports 
our conclusion that “disturbing the peace” has a meaning that nearly always refers to public, 
external peace. We note this result because, according to the corpus data, the words, phrases, and 
contexts associated with the historic use of this phrase have connotations which relate to public 
and external ideas and notions of peace, more than private or internal ideas and notions. Thus, 
while our analysis independent of COHA fully supports our conclusion here, we note COHA’s 
findings as additional empirical evidence that our conclusion is correct.  
Because of our holding that Lantis’ conduct did not fall within the purview of Idaho Code 
section 18-6409 we do not reach the second issue concerning whether section 18-6409 is void for 
vagueness and overbreadth.  
VI. CONCLUSION 
Based on the foregoing, we affirm the district court’s conclusion that the disturbing the 
peace statute does not extend to email transmissions transmitted to third parties which disturbed 
the internal peace of the victim.  
Justices STEGNER and MOELLER, CONCUR 
 
BRODY, Justice, specially concurring: 
I concur with the Court’s opinion today, but write separately to address the use of corpus 
linguistics. I have no training or experience with corpus linguistics and have no opinion as to 
whether this tool supports or does not support the Court’s analysis of the statute at issue. 
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Whether to use corpus linguistics as an interpretive tool, how to use the databases, and how to 
interpret the results of a database search are all issues that will need to be addressed in future 
cases where the use of corpus linguistics is advanced by a party.  
Chief Justice BURDICK joins in the special concurrence.