Opinion ID: 1465546
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sufficiency of the Section 210 Indictment

Text: The present indictment for a violation of section 210 is framed exclusively in the words of section 210. It nowhere alleges in express terms that the defendant, Roxanne Porter, communicated the threat with any of the culpable mental states defined in section 10 of the code. See 17-A M.R.S.A. § 10 (1976). Because the insufficiency of an indictment to charge a criminal offense is noticeable by this court as a defect in jurisdiction, [9] we must consider whether an indictment so framed in the language of section 210 alone is defective for failure to plead any culpable state of mind beyond that implicit in the words of that section. The starting point for analysis of the code's requirement of culpable mental states is section 11(1) of the code. That provision declares the general principle of criminal liability that a person is not guilty of a crime unless he acted intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently, as the law defining the crime specifies, with respect to each element of the crime, except as provided in subsection 5.  [10] (Emphasis added) Section 11(5) specifically addresses itself to those exceptional statutes, defining crimes within the code, which do not expressly prescribe a culpable mental state with respect to some or all of the elements of the crime. As to such a statute, a culpable mental state is nevertheless required pursuant to subsections 1, 2 and 3, unless either: A. The statute expressly provides that a person may be guilty of a crime without culpability as to those elements; or B. A legislative intent to impose liability without culpability otherwise appears.  (Emphasis added) Section 210 nowhere expressly prescribes a culpable mental state. Although section 210 does not otherwise expressly state the legislature's intention to impose liability without culpability, such an intention appears upon fair examination of the language of section 210, as we construe it, in light of the relevant decisions of this court under the predecessor statute, section 3701 of Title 17. As a consequence, no culpable mental state need be pleaded or proven by virtue of the operation of section 11(5)'s general rule. In State v. Lizotte, supra at 442, we observed of former section 3701: It matters not whether the defendant had or had not the intention later to carry out the threat. The essence of an oral threat is that it is a verbal act and if that act is of such a nature as to convey the menace to an ordinary hearer, the statute is violated.  (Emphasis added) Similarly, under section 210, whether a communication constitutes a threat within the plain meaning of that word does not depend upon the subjective motivation (or intention) of the communicator. [11] A communication is a threat if it carries the promise of evil under such circumstances that a reasonable person receiving the communication would believe that such was to ensue at the hands of the communicator, or his allies. See, e. g., State v. Cashman, supra . Section 210 requires in addition that a threat, to be punishable, have as a natural and probable consequence either placing the recipient of the threat in reasonable fear that the threatened crime will be committed or causing the evacuation of a building, place of assembly or facility of public transport. That express requirement is analogous to the requirement that a threat be attended by probable disruptive consequences which we held by statutory construction to be an element of former section 3701. That additional requirement functions not only to insulate the Maine statute from First-Fourteenth Amendment attacks, see State v. Sondergaard, supra , but also to narrow the class of punishable threats to those which, because of their particularly injurious societal effects, merit application of the criminal sanction. The drafters' omission from section 210 of any of the code's culpable states of mind cannot be viewed as merely inadvertent. The legislature enacted section 210 in full awareness of the predecessor statutes and the case law interpreting them. See Advisory Committee's Comment to section 210. As previously noted, section 210 in language bears obvious similarities to its predecessors. A punishable threat, as restrictively defined in section 210 itself, adequately describes that conduct considered to be culpable for purposes of punishment as terrorizing. Although section 210 does not expressly provide that a person may be guilty of terrorizing without culpability (in the sense of one of the code's states of mind defined in section 10), the legislature's intent that such should be the case otherwise appears. [12] The indictment under which the defendant was convicted alleges all essential elements of the offense of terrorizing under section 210. The entry must be: Appeal denied. Judgment affirmed. POMEROY and DELAHANTY, JJ., did not sit.