Title: Esco v. State

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

179 So. 2d 766 (1965)
Howard Edward ESCO
v.
STATE of Alabama.
6 Div. 38.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
September 30, 1965.
*767 Norman E. Moon, Birmingham, for petitioner.
Richmond M. Flowers, Atty. Gen., Bernard F. Sykes, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Roy E. Hicks, Legal Research Aide, Montgomery, opposed.
COLEMAN, Justice.
Defendant was tried on an information, filed by the solicitor, which charged:
The state amended the information before arraignment by striking the words:
A jury found defendant "guilty of changing or concealing his name, as charged in the Solicitor's Complaint." The Court of Appeals affirmed and we granted certiorari.
The authority for convicting defendant is found in § 229, Title 14, Code 1940, which recites:
Defendant contends that the offense of which he was convicted is the offense created by the third alternative of the statute and that the third alternative is void and unconstitutional because it is repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
The Court of Appeals, in affirming the conviction, observed that the progenitor of § 229 was held valid in Morris v. State, 144 Ala. 81, 39 So. 973. We granted certiorari to review the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
In Morris, this court did hold that the act was under the police power, was clearly within the legislative competence, and did not violate the constitutional prohibition against imprisonment for debt which was the only constitutional provision considered in that case. In Morris, however, the indictment was not based on the third alternative of the statute. The indictment was *768 based on the second alternative of the statute. The indictment there recited:
Upholding the validity of the second alternative is not upholding the validity of the third alternative, and Morris is not decisive of the question here, which is whether the third alternative is valid and constitutional.
Examination of § 229 shows that, when a person changes his or her name with any one of three alternative intents, the act of changing the name is made a crime. The three intents are: (1) intent to defraud, (2) intent to avoid payment of any debt, or (3) to conceal his or her identity.
This court has said:
Under that principle, the validity of the second alternative, against the objection there made, was sustained in Morris v. State, supra. The validity of the first alternative was not considered in Morris and is not at issue here, but we know no good reason why changing one's name with intent to defraud another may not be made a crime.
In the instant case, however, we are concerned with the third alternative, which is different. The difference between the first two alternatives and the third is that the element of fraud is an ingredient of the first two, but not of the third, Burnam v. Commonwealth, 228 Ky. 410, 15 S.W.2d 256.
The element of fraud or other criminal purpose is not present in the third alternative. The intent to defraud is included in the first alternative and the intent to avoid payment of a debt is included in the second, but neither of those intents is included in the third. We must assume then that the intent to defraud is intentionally omitted from the third and that to be guilty under the third, neither the intent to defraud nor the intent to avoid payment of debt is necessary. We ought, then, to consider what character of act it is that is forbidden by the third alternative.
The general rule is well settled that identity of name imports, prima facie, identity of person. Ex parte Davis, 200 Ala. 577, 76 So. 935. It would seem to follow that a difference of name imports, prima facie, a difference of person. A change of name, then, it can be argued, always imports, at least prima facie, a difference in identity. To some extent, a change of name always conceals the nominee's identity. When the change is with intent to defraud another, the act of change is intended to injure another and the state, under the police power, may make the act of changing the name, with such intent, a crime, but can the state, consistent with due process, make the act a crime when the act has no connection with or relation to the public welfare, health, safety, or morals?
The Kentucky Court has said:
"We recognize the legislative power to define what acts or omissions shall constitute criminal offenses so long as the exercise of the power does not infringe constitutional rights and privileges, express or necessarily implied. Taylor v. Commonwealth ex rel. Dummit, 305 Ky. 75, 202 S.W.2d 992. But there is no power to declare to be a crime an act which has no relation to the comfort, welfare and safety of society or an act which could not be avoided by the utmost care and circumspection, or which, in its nature, is and *769 must be under all circumstances innocent, or the nonperformance of which is impossible...." Commonwealth v. O'Harrah (Ky.), 262 S.W.2d 385, 388.
The New Mexico Court said:
The Illinois Court said:
This court has said:
The acts prohibited by the third alternative include that of the child who takes the name of his foster parent, that of the divorced wife who takes again her maiden name, that of the woman who takes the name of her husband. All these persons, as well as the author writing under a fictitious name, the public celebrity seeking privacy by using an assumed name, and the detective using an alias to facilitate crime detection and law enforcement are guilty under the third alternative.
Traveling incognito, without fraudulent purpose, can hardly be regarded as reprehensible. Authors of standing have employed a pen name; e. g., Mark Twain; S. S. Van Dine; Publius in The Federalist. Even this court itself, from earliest to recent times, has recognized the propriety of concealing the identity of parties to a cause. Anonymous, Minor 52; Anonymous, 2 *770 Stewart 228; Anonymous, 34 Ala. 430; Anonymous, 35 Ala. 226; Anonymous, 55 Ala. 428; Anonymous, 89 Ala. 291, 7 So. 100; Anonymous, 206 Ala. 295, 89 So. 462; Anonymous v. State, 272 Ala. 172, 129 So. 2d 684; Anonymous v. Anonymous, 277 Ala. 634, 173 So. 2d 797.
This court has said:
and again:
Examination of the original statute considered in Morris v. State, supra, and § 229, Title 14, Code 1940, discloses a change of some significance. Act No. 477, Acts of 1903, page 438, recited:
In the 1907 Code, § 6937, and in subsequent codes, there has been omitted the exception where the name was changed "in the manner provided by law." Under the 1940 Code, the change to conceal identity is a crime, even if the change be made as provided by law.
The legislature has provided that the court of probate shall have jurisdiction as to the change of name of a person upon his filing a declaration in writing stating the old and the new names. § 278, Title 13, Code 1940.
Thus, the state, in one statute, provides one of the methods of changing a name, which change, in some degree and in some places, must conceal identity, and, in the other statute, § 229, the state makes the change for such purpose a crime.
It may be said, of course, that the state may punish, as a crime, an act which uses the courts to perpetrate fraud, and that omission of the original exception, in cases of change as provided by law, is, therefore, justified. We consider under the third alternative, however, a change of name which is not intended to perpetrate fraud. There is an inconsistency between simultaneously effective statutes, where one authorizes an act and the other statute makes the act a crime.
The legislature has also gone to some lengths to conceal the former name and identity of an adopted child who takes the name of the adopting parents. Upon receipt of copy of final order of adoption, the registrar of vital statistics is enjoined to make a new record of birth in the new name, with the name or names of the adopting parents, and then to seal and file the original certificate of birth, and the sealed package shall be opened only on demand of the child, his natural or adopting parents, or by order of a court of record. § 4, Title 27, Code 1940.
The third alternative was undoubtedly intended to serve a useful purpose, but it sweeps within its influence conduct, neither evil in nature nor detrimental to the public interest, which could not be proscribed as criminal. Kahalley v. State, supra; Connor v. City of Birmingham, 36 Ala.App. 494, 60 So. 2d 474.
*771 We are of opinion that the third alternative of § 229, Title 14, Code 1940, is unconstitutional because it is so vague and indefinite as to deny the requirements of due process under the doctrine of Kahalley and Connor, supra, and that a conviction under the third alternative should not stand.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the cause is remanded to that court.
Reversed and remanded.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and LAWSON, GOODWYN, MERRILL, and HARWOOD, JJ., concur.