Opinion ID: 2229271
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: did any of the elements of the offense with which defendant is charged occur prior to the effective date of the law?

Text: Section 12.1-01-01, NDCC, quoted earlier in the opinion, deals with retroactivity of the statute under which Jelliff is charged and provides that an offense is committed prior to the effective date of the statute if any of the elements of the offense occurred prior thereto. To determine whether Jelliff committed acts which, if proved, constitute a violation of § 12.1-23-07, NDCC, we must determine what the elements of the statutory offense are, and whether they all occurred after the effective date of the statute. The general definition of the term elements of an offense appears in § 12.1-01-03(1), NDCC, which provides: No person may be convicted of an offense unless each element of the offense is proved beyond a reasonable doubt. An accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty. The fact that he has been arrested, confined, or charged with the offense gives rise to no inference of guilt at his trial. `Element of an offense' means: a. the forbidden conduct; b. the attendant circumstances specified in the definition and grading of the offense; c. the required culpability; d. any required result; and e. the nonexistence of a defense as to which there is evidence in the case sufficient to give rise to a reasonable doubt on the issue. Although the lower court did not specifically state the basis of its decision to dismiss, we could speculate that the court must have concluded that, because statutory violations can occur either by single acts or a continuous series of acts, the prosecution had elected to prosecute as one offense a continuous series of acts and that, therefore, the prosecution is barred because some of the acts in the series occurred prior to the effective date of the statute. We reject this analysis because no such election has been shown and, in fact, the complaint alleges only a single statutory violation on or about July 28, 1975. We could also speculate that the lower court concluded that culpability is an element of the offense, and that the affidavit disclosed that the State intended to prove culpability by acts committed before the effective date of the statute, which Jelliff says is contrary to the explicit provisions of § 12.1-01-01(2), NDCC. The fallacy in this argument is that it appears to assume that culpability existing prior to July 1, 1975, would prevent proof that culpability also existed after July 1, 1975. The statute contains no language that would support Jelliff's position. A person violates the statute if he disposes of, uses, or transfers any interest in property which has been entrusted to him as a fiduciary   . [Emphasis added.] The number of instances of improper conduct or the value of the property misapplied is not specified in the statute, and does not appear to be significant. If one has misapplied any entrusted property on only one occasion with the requisite attendant circumstances, culpability and result, without a defense to the crime, he has violated the statute. The relevant elements of the offense in this case consist of: (1) the disposal, use or transfer (2) of any interest in property (3) which has been entrusted to the defendant (4) as a fiduciary or in his capacity as a public servant (5) in a manner he knows is not authorized (6) and that he knows to involve a risk of loss or detriment to (7) the owner of the property or the government. Each alleged withdrawal of trust funds, knowingly applied to personal use in an unauthorized manner, conceivably involves a risk of loss to the owner of the property. All of the elements are present, and the statutory offense is complete upon each separate misapplication of entrusted property. Any different interpretation would produce absurd results. A determination that the statute contemplates a series of transactions exclusively, rather than single instances of forbidden conduct, would lead to the unreasonable conclusion that anyone who had misapplied entrusted property before the effective date of the statute could, as part of the same series of transactions, continue to violate the statute with impunity after the statute has become effective. We have held repeatedly that statutes must be construed to avoid ludicrous and absurd results, Pollock v. McKenzie County Public School Dist. # 1, 221 N.W.2d 521 (N.D.1974), and that courts endeavor to construe statutes so as to effectuate the legislative purposes which prompted their enactment. Hughes v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 236 N.W.2d 870 (N.D.1975). Certainly a construction of a criminal statute which nullifies its punitive provisions contravenes the purpose of the enactment and leads to illogical and absurd results.