Court Opinion

ID: 9541995
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:30:30.288555+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:05:39.041989
License: Public Domain

UHLENHOPP, Justice
(dissenting).
I. It appears to me that respondent’s analysis of the statute is realistic and that an attempt to separate the crime and its punishment is not realistic.
The prisoner receives the lighter punishment of § 204.410 if he proves accommodation. This indicates the heavier punishment of § 204.401(1) (a) must assume no accommodation. Otherwise what factual basis underlies the disparate penalties? To say that the element of accommodation or non-accommodation goes only to the penalty and not to .the crime itself is a refinement which will be hard to explain to the prisoner who gets ten years under § 204.401(1) (a) rather than one year by virtue of § 204.410.
This statutory device of casting a burden on the accused could be applied generally. A statute could provide life imprisonment for homicide unless the prisoner proves no malice aforethought, then ten years. The justification would be that there is only one crime but two penalties. Or a statute could impose 20 years for robbery unless the prisoner proves he was unarmed and unaccompanied, then ten years; or ten years for larceny unless he proves the property was worth less than $20, then five years.
II. We cannot amend the sections involved. We must take them as we find them. This appears to require that § 204.-410 be simply nullified as unconstitutional, leaving § 204.401 standing as it is. The repair work to the statute, if any is to be done, will have to be by the legislature. The legislature evidently attempted to grant leniency to the accommodator, but did so in an unconstitutional way.
The writ should therefore be sustained only in part.