Court Opinion

ID: 9659088
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:31:57.036527+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:03.819766
License: Public Domain

NEUMAN, Justice
(dissenting).
No one could quarrel with the righteousness of punishing Cathy Jackson for her contemptuous conduct. But she has now been convicted of a crime whose elements the State would be unable to prove but for substantial rewriting of the law. I therefore respectfully dissent.
By motion for judgment of acquittal, Jackson challenged the sufficiency of the State’s proof on two essential elements of the crime: release “pursuant to this section” and required appearance before “any court or magistrate.” The district court denied her motion, apparently persuaded by the State’s dual response that: (1) by posting bond, Jackson brought herself within the ambit of chapter 811, and (2) the phrase “any court or magistrate” includes any other person or place designated by the court. For the reasons that follow, I am convinced that the district court’s rul*706ing — and the majority’s affirmance of it — is not supported by the law or the facts.
Neither Jackson’s plea for delayed mitti-mus, nor the court’s order for her release, invoked the authority of chapter 811. Indeed, the statute’s terms make no provision for it. Although section 811.1 states that defendants are “bailable both before and after conviction,” section 811.2(1) plainly narrows the field of qualified applicants to those released “pending judgment or entry of deferred judgment.” (Emphasis added.) Another section authorizes bail “[ajfter conviction, upon appeal to the appellate court.” Iowa Code § 811.5. But nowhere in section 811.2 is there language authorizing release on bail following entry of judgment before notice of appeal is given.
The majority can only get around this gap in the statute by disregarding customary rules of statutory construction and rewriting the substantive law with which this absconding defendant was charged.
First the majority reasons that bail statutes should be read broadly, consistent with the “modern” view that bail is the rule, not the exception. That may be true when faced with the decision to grant or deny bail. The maxim does not apply when the State is prosecuting a defendant for the crime of failure to appear. We are obliged to construe penal statutes strictly, not broadly. State v. Davis, 271 N.W.2d 693, 695 (Iowa 1978). Doubts about a statute’s meaning or purpose are supposed to be resolved in favor of the defendant. Id.
Second, the majority buys the State’s argument that delay of the mittimus somehow extends the judgment, thus retaining Jackson within the scope of section 811.2. Reasoning that the sentence is incomplete without the commitment, and the sentence is the same as the judgment, the majority concludes that the judgment is incomplete — and hence “pending” — without the mittimus. This is contrary to the very authority the majority cites for this proposition. See State v. Klinger, 259 Iowa 381, 383, 144 N.W.2d 150, 151 (1966) (In criminal cases the judgment is final when it terminates the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing to be done “but to enforce by execution what has been determined.” (Citations omitted.)).
The majority then confuses the finality issue further by suggesting that Jackson also qualified for bail based on her expression of an intent to appeal. I find this difficult to reconcile given the majority’s first premise that judgment was not yet final. What judgment was she appealing?
Finally, the majority has ratified the district court’s wholesale revision of the statute. The district court instructed the jury that Jackson could be convicted if she failed to appear before the court or return to custody as required. This plain rewriting of the statute to fit the circumstances should have been rejected. A court may not, under the guise of construction, extend or enlarge statutory terms. State v. Pilcher, 242 N.W.2d 348, 360 (Iowa 1976).
Instead of going to such great lengths to achieve a desired result, I would simply reverse defendant’s conviction and send her back to face the consequences for her ungrateful response to the court’s generosity: a finding of contempt and suitable punishment therefor.