Court Opinion

ID: 9527199
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:28:16.677115+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:37.718475
License: Public Domain

*432Hennessey, J.
(dissenting). The defendant is charged with an escape in violation of c. 268, § 16, due to his failure to return from a temporary furlough authorized by c. 127, § 90A. A statement of facts was stipulated by the parties. It is not shown that the defendant fled the jurisdiction. I conclude that the judge was not warranted in entering a finding of guilty based merely upon the defendant’s inaction in failing to return. “Liability for the commission of an offense may not be based on an omission unaccompanied by action unless: (a) the omission is expressly made sufficient by the law defining the offense; or (b) a duty to perform the omitted act is otherwise imposed by law.” Am. Law Inst., Model Penal Code, § 2.01 (3) (Proposed Official Draft May 4, 1962).
Words, except for technical words, are to be construed according to their common and approved usage. G. L. c. 4, § 6. It is not consistent with common usage to hold that a failure to return constitutes an “escape.”
General Laws c. 268, § 16, does not itself purport to make the failure to return from furlough an escape. It could not; at the time of its enactment there was no furlough program in Massachusetts. To hold that the revision of G. L. c. 127, § 90A, imported the escape statute into it by implication and so made the defendant’s inaction a crime punishable by imprisonment is too strained a construction of that enactment for me to accept. There is no question that the Legislature can make such inaction an escape; I do not believe that it did so. Section 90A on its face says nothing about a prisoner’s conduct. It merely authorizes the commissioner of correction to grant, and incur expenses for, furloughs for specified reasons, with or without the accompaniment of a correction officer. The final sentence deems that the furloughed prisoner “be considered as in the custody of the correctional facility and the time of such, absence shall be considered as part of the term of sentence.” The clear purpose of this sentence was to ensure that a prisoner on furlough would continue to receive good time credit.
Had the Legislature, by such an enactment, intended to create a crime it would have been simple to say so. In G. L. *433c. 127, §§ 85 through 86G, the Legislature had provided for work release from a house of correction and other penal institutions and defined escape in these contexts. Without such a precise declaration of intent, the majority opinion amounts to legislating the creation of a crime where none existed heretofore.
The Commonwealth’s argument that the Legislature could not have intended that failure to return go unpunished is unconvincing. The Legislature could well have intended that such mere failure be handled as an internal problem of prison discipline and as a matter for consideration by the parole board, leaving the escape statute to deal with cases of actual flight from the place of confinement.
In a sense the legislative intent is not relevant here. Nor is it relevant that the Legislature may have overlooked something that it intended to do. It is not enough that the Legislature may have had a certain intent; the proper steps must be taken to effectuate it. Where a statute is ambiguous it may be appropriate to seek the elusive legislative intent to interpret it. But where, as here, the statute’s meaning is apparent on its face, we should not strain to distort that meaning to effectuate a supposed intent which the Legislature could easily have expressed, but did not. “We do not inquire what the legislature meant; we ask only what the statute means.” Holmes, Collected Legal Papers, 207 (N. Y. 1920).
The Commonwealth points out that the defendant was forewarned that failure to return would be punished as escape, and signed a statement demonstrating this knowledge. While this no doubt resolves any due process problems of notice or vagueness that might otherwise arise, it is irrelevant to the question before us. No statement by correctional officials or prior admission by a defendant can establish a crime where none exists by law.
Criminal laws are to be strictly construed and are not to be extended by mere implications. Commonwealth v. Paccia, 338 Mass. 4, 6 (1958). In my view, that rule should be controlling here. Traditionally, penal statutes have been strictly construed in favor of the defendant. Sutherland & Horack, *434Statutes and Statutory Construction (3d ed.) § 5604 (1943). “The rule that penal laws are to be construed strictly, is perhaps not much less old than construction itself.” United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76, 95 (1820).
An appropriately strict construction of both G. L. c. 268, § 16, and G. L. c. 127, § 90A, leaves the defendant’s inaction outside the prohibitions of the criminal law of Massachusetts as of the date of his trial. This legislative oversight should be remedied by the Legislature,1 not by the court.
The trial judge correctly denied the motion to dismiss the indictment, which was proper in form to charge an escape under c. 268, § 16. The motion for directed verdict was not appropriate for filing in a case heard by a judge without a jury.2 Nevertheless, I would treat it as effectively raising the issue that the proof did not warrant a finding of guilty. Therefore, as the stipulated facts do not establish guilt of that crime I would reverse the judgment of conviction.

It now has been. See St. 1973, c. 1062.

A request for ruling would be appropriate.