Court Opinion

ID: 9686659
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:00:23.298331+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:21.202028
License: Public Domain

SNELL, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s finding that section 724.3 merely requires that the defendant have knowledge that he or she possesses a weapon within the general meaning of that term rather than as statutorily defined.
Penal statutes are to be interpreted strictly and doubts therein resolved in favor of the accused. City of Cedar Falls v. Flett, 330 N.W.2d 251, 254 (Iowa 1983).
Both the federal statute and the Massachusetts statute, which the majority rely on, do not contain language requiring knowledge. The Iowa statute clearly does. I believe the presence of this language in the statute distinguished the Iowa statute from those relied upon by the majority. Criminal statutes are to be strictly construed and any ambiguities are to be resolved in favor of the defendant. U.S. v. Hepp, 656 F.2d 350, 353 (8th Cir.1981).
The impact which the inclusion of the term “knowingly” can have in a criminal statute was discussed in People v. Corkrean, 152 Cal.App.3d 35, 199 Cal.Rptr. 375 (1984):
... Whether a criminal intent or guilty knowledge is a necessary element of a statutory offense is a matter of construction to be determined from the language of the statute, in view of its manifest purpose and design.... As indicated, the Machine Gun Law prohibits possessing or “knowingly” transporting a machine gun. The statute thus is distinguishable from the narcotics possession and transportation law (former Health & Saf.Code § 11500; see now Health & Saf.Code, §§ 11350, 11352) because the latter does not use the word “knowingly” with respect to any of its prohibited acts. (See People v. Daniels, supra, 118 Cal.App.2d [340] at p. 344, 257 P.2d 1038.) In Daniels the court found this difference between the statutes dispositive. The court held that by its selective use of the word “ ‘knowingly’ ” in the Machine Gun Law, the Legislature manifested a clear intention to punish any possession, but only knowing transportation....
Id. at 38, 199 Cal.Rptr. at 377-78.
In a Colorado case, the defendant argued that for the jury to have found him guilty of possessing a weapon in violation of section 18-12-108, C.R.S. 1973 (1976 Supp.) it must have determined that he “intentionally” possessed the weapon and that his act of possession was “voluntary” as required by § 18-1-501(5), C.R.S. 1973 (1978 Repl. Vol. 8) and § 18-1-501(9) C.R.S.1973. People v. Tenorio, 197 Colo. 137, 144, 590 P.2d 952, 957 (1979). The court held:
To convict one of possessing a weapon, the jury must find, not mere possession, but that the defendant “knowingly” possessed the weapon and that he understood that the object possessed was a weapon.
Id., 590 P.2d at 957.
Finally, Kermit Dunahoo, in his article on the new Iowa Criminal Code, interpreted section 724.3 as follows: “This means that the offender must have knowledge both of his possession of the weapon and of the offensive quality.” Dunahoo, The New Iowa Criminal Code, Part II, 29 Drake L.Rev. 237, 571 (1980).
I believe that the inclusion of the term “knowingly” demonstrates a legislative intent to distinguish mere possession of an offensive weapon from knowing possession of an offensive weapon. The term “knowingly” manifests a requirement that the defendant know he or she possesses a weapon and that the character of the weapon is offensive. I believe that the evidence in this case was insufficient to prove that the defendant knowingly possessed an offensive weapon.
OXBERGER, C.J., joins this dissent.