Opinion ID: 1516529
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: N.J.S.A. 2C:29-3b(4) provides:

Text: b. A person commits an offense if, with purpose to hinder his own apprehension, prosecution, conviction or punishment, he:         (4) Volunteers false information to a law enforcement officer. Our most rudimentary guide in this case is the doctrine that penal statutes must be strictly construed. In re Suspension of DeMarco, 83 N.J. 25, 36 (1980); State v. Carbone, 38 N.J. 19, 24 (1962); State v. Gantt, 101 N.J. 573, 592 (1986) (Handler, J., concurring); 3 Sands Sutherland, Statutory Construction ¶ 59.03 at 6-7 (4th ed. 1974). The rule that penal statutes are to be strictly construed has at its heart the requirement of due process. No one shall be punished for a crime unless both that crime and its punishment are clearly set forth in positive laws. In re Suspension of DeMarco, supra, 83 N.J. at 36. Penal statutes must be sufficiently definite so that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited. Town Tobacconist v. Kimmelman, 94 N.J. 85, 118 (1983). As the United States Supreme Court stated in Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108-09, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 2298-99, 33 L.Ed. 2d 222, 227-28 (1972): Vague laws offend several important values. First, because we assume that man is free to steer between lawful and unlawful conduct, we insist that laws give the person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited so that he may act accordingly. Vague laws may trap the innocent by not providing fair warning. Second, if arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement is to be prevented, laws must provide explicit standards for those who apply them. Penal laws cannot be extended by implication or intendment. Where more than one reasonable interpretation may be made, or where the language is ambiguous  and the ambiguity is not manufactured by the defendant  the construction must be drawn against the state. State v. Carbone, supra, 38 N.J. at 23-24; Sutherland, supra, ¶ 59.03 at 6-7. With these principles in mind, we focus our inquiry in this case on the meaning an ordinary citizen would ascribe to the word volunteer in N.J.S.A. 2C:29-3b(4). Certainly one volunteers information when he blurts it out or otherwise advances it without prompting. However, most people do not believe that one volunteers responses to a law-enforcement officer's inquiry. See, e.g., The Random House Dictionary of the English Language 1600 (9th ed. 1983) (defining volunteer: to offer [oneself or one's services] for some undertaking or purpose[;] ... to give, bestow, or perform without being asked ...). In this case, the State reasons that because a person has a constitutional right to refuse to answer inquiries by law-enforcement officials, any responses to such inquiries are consensual and, therefore, volunteered. We disagree. Although the defendant was not constitutionally or statutorily compelled to answer the state trooper, an ordinary person stopped for a motor vehicle violation does not think he is volunteering answers to a law-enforcement officer's inquiries. Few persons under such circumstances think that they can refuse to answer. On the contrary, most believe that failure to respond will only lead to further involvement with the police officer. 3 W. LaFave, Search & Seizure, ¶ 9.2, at 52-55 (1978). See generally United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 544-57, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1871-73, 64 L.Ed. 2d 497, 509-11 (1980) (recognizing the substantial assertion of governmental authority involved when a law-enforcement officer stops an automobile and the likelihood that a citizen would feel constrained to respond to the officer's questions). In this case defendant was signaled by a state trooper to pull over and stop. His compliance with that signal cannot be characterized as a voluntary choice. Nor can his subsequent response to the officer's inquiry of his name. The fact that defendant had the choice to supply either a true or false name does not negate the practical imperative to respond that was created by the officer's inquiry. An ordinary citizen would not consider such an essentially mandated response to be voluntary, and thus simply could not anticipate that N.J.S.A. 2C:29-3b(4) would apply in such a case. See State v. Lee, 96 N.J. 156, 166 (1984); In re Suspension of DeMarco, supra, 183 N.J. at 36. In this context, therefore, the word volunteer is too ambiguous to justify a conviction.