Opinion ID: 2623059
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: forging a shondel/batchelder reconciliation

Text: ¶¶ 19 Because we conclude that the possession of a controlled substance and the possession of drug paraphernalia statutes do not overlap fully, the Shondel doctrine does not apply. This determination is an adequate basis to support our result. We feel constrained, however, to address the fate of the Shondel, doctrine in the face of its previously unacknowledged conflict with United States v. Batchelder, 442 U.S. 114, 99 S.Ct. 2198, 60 L.Ed.2d 755 (1979). ¶ 20 Were we to conclude that Utah's constitutional guarantee of uniform operation of the laws was coextensive with the equal protection guarantees found in the United States Constitution, Batchelder would supplant the Shondel doctrine. We have, however, determined that article I, section 24 of the Utah Constitution, while embodying the same general principles as the United States Constitution, may, under certain circumstances, provide different and greater protection of individual rights. See State v. Merrill, 2005 UT 34, ¶¶ 31, 33-34, 44 n. 4, 114 P.3d 585. ¶ 21 Batchelder has drawn criticism' for its apparent, although perhaps inadvertent, failure to recognize the potential equal protection mischief that might occur when two criminal statutes are identical in every respect except for their respective penalties. Criminal law professors Wayne LaFave, Jerold Israel, and Nancy King spoke to this flaw in their treatise on criminal procedure: In assaying the Batchelder reasoning, it is useful to think about three types of situations in which a defendant's conduct may fall within two statutes. They are: (1) where one statute defines a lesser included offense of the other and they carry different penalties (e.g., whoever carries a concealed weapon is guilty of a misdemeanor; a convicted felon who carries a concealed weapon is guilty of a felony); (2) where the statutes overlap and carry different penalties (e.g., possession of a gun by a convicted felon, illegal alien or dishonorably discharged serviceman is a misdemeanor; possession of a gun by a convicted felon, fugitive from justice, or unlawful user of narcotics is a felony); (3) where the statutes are identical (e.g., possession of a gun by a convicted felon is a misdemeanor; possession of a gun by a convicted felon is a felony). The Court in. Batchelder had before it a situation falling into the second category, but [it] seems to have concluded that the three statutory schemes [were] indistinguishable for purposes of constitutional analysis. But in terms of either the difficulties which are confronted at the legislative level in drafting statutes or in the guidance which is given to a prosecutor by the legislation, the three schemes are markedly different. The first of the three is certainly unobjectionable. Such provisions are quite common (robbery-armed robbery; battert-aggravated battery; joyriding-theft; housebreaking-burglary), and usually are a consequence of a deliberate attempt by the legislature to identify one or more aggravating characteristics which in the judgment of the legislature should ordinarily be viewed as making the leiser crime more serious. They afford guidance to the prosecutor, butas noted in Batchelder do not foreclose the prosecutor from deciding in a particular case that, notwithstanding the presence of one of the aggravating facts, the defendant will still be prosecuted for the lesser offense. By contrast, the third of the three is highly objectionable. It is likely to be a consequence of legislative carelessness, and even if it is not such a scheme serves no legitimate purpose. There is nothing at all rational about this kind of statutory scheme, as it provides for different penalties without any effort whatsoever, to explain a basis for the difference. It cannot be explained in terms of giving assistance to the prosecutor. Where statutes are identical except for punishment, the prosecutor finds not the slightest shred of guidance. It confers discretion which is totally unfettered and which is totally unnecessary. And thus the Court in Batchelder is less than convincing in reasoning that this third category is unobjectionable simply because in other instances, falling into the first' category, the need for discretionary judgments by the prosecutor has not been and cannot be totally eliminated. As for the second of the three categories, it clearly presents a harder case. Here as well, the dilemma is likely to have been created by legislative carelessness . . . overlapping statutes are very common at both the federal and state level, and it can hardly be said that in every instance they are a consequence of poor research or inept drafting. Drafting a clear criminal statute and still ensuring that in no instance could it cover conduct embraced within any existing criminal statute in that jurisdiction can be a formidable task. (This fact alone may make courts somewhat reluctant to find overlap per se unconstitutional, although the consequence of such time as the legislature decides what to do about the now-identified overlap, is hardly a cause for alarm.) Moreover, in the overlap scheme the two statutes will at least sometimes assist the prosecutor in deciding how to exercise his charging discretion. Wayne H. LaFave, Jerold H. Israel & Nancy J. King, Criminal Procedure § 13.7(a) (2d ed.2007), available at http://www.westlaw. corn (internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis in original). The third type of overlapping statutes recognized by the professors is precisely the statutory scheme to which the Shondel doctrine is properly directed, and we conclude that the doctrine should endure to address this unusual and rare phenomenon. In all other circumstances, including those presented by Mr. Williams, we choose to follow Batchelder. ¶¶ 22 Just as the Wyoming Supreme Court's application of Batchelder overcame Mr. Johnson's equal protection challenge to his conviction in Johnson v. State, 2003 WY 9, 61 P.3d 1234 (Wyo.2003), our application of Batchelder to our possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia statutes turns back Mr. Williams' claims. This result is based not only on Batcheleder's rejection of the unrealized risk of discriminatory prosecution as a reason to limit prosecutorial discretion but also on the Batchelder Court's willingness to look to congressional intent to ascertain whether the overlapping statutes were enacted in error or were purposely enacted to be separately and fully enforceable. Following the Supreme Court's lead and undertaking a similar search for the Legislature's intent as implicated by Mr. Williams' case, the result is clear. We have no difficulty distinguishing between a statute directed at the act of possessing a controlled substance and one targeting the possession of drug paraphernalia. The Legislature clearly conveyed its purpose; it intended to enact two separate and independent criminal statutes. See Batchelder, 442 U.S. at 121, 99 S.Ct. 2198. That intent, drawn from the plain language of the statutes, is sufficient to immunize the statutes from attack on equal protection grounds. Id. We are also not left with the impression that prosecutors are abandoned to their own predilections when choosing to charge a defendant with one, or both, of misdemeanor paraphernalia possession or felony possession. Prosecutors are not. A prosecutor is foreclosed, for example, from prosecuting for possession of drug paraphernalia a defendant who possesses a controlled substance free of paraphernalia regardless of the prosecutor's sense of mercy or compassion, deserved or otherwise, for the defendant.