Court Opinion

ID: 9793665
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:51:20.623826+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:06:31.902157
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice,
dissenting:
I concur in Part I of the Court’s opinion which concludes that the information charged only a single offense.
As to Part II, the distinction which the majority draws between “receiving” and “possessing” stolen property simply overlooks the Idaho statutes. When the criminal statutes relating to personal property crimes were redrafted and recodified in 1981, the crime of receiving stolen property, formerly contained in I.C. § 18-4612 in effect in 1965, the year the tribal resolution was adopted bestowing jurisdiction on the state, was carried over into I.C. § 18-2403(4). The old code section 18-4612 read:
“18-4612. Receiving stolen property.— Every person who, for his own gain, or to prevent the owner from again possessing his property, buys or receives any personal property, knowing the same to have been stolen, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison not exceeding five years, or in the county jail not exceeding six months, or by fine not exceeding $1,000, or by both such fine and imprisonment.”
The new section 18-2403(4) reads:
“A person commits theft when he knowingly receives, retains, conceals, obtains control over, possesses, or disposes of stolen property, knowing the property to have been stolen by another or under such circumstances as would reasonably induce him to believe that the property was stolen____”
The operative parts of the old section and the new section are substantially the same, i.e., a person commits a crime when he receives personal property knowing the property to have been stolen. I.C. §§ 18-4612 and 18-2403(4) are the same crime. The legislature has expressly said so in 1981, in I.C. § 18-2401(1):
“Conduct denominated theft in this chapter constitutes a single offense superseding the separate offenses previously known as embezzlement, extortion, false pretenses, cheats, misrepresentations, larceny and receiving stolen goods.”
The legislature then, in subparagraph (2) of I.C. § 18-2401, stated that an accusation of theft under the new consolidated chapter could be supported by evidence of any of the other types of property crimes prior to the consolidation. Subsection (2) states:
“(2) An accusation of theft may be supported by evidence that it was committed in any manner that would be theft under this chapter, notwithstanding the specification of a different manner in the indictment, information or complaint, subject only to the power of the court to ensure fair trial by granting a continuance or *422other appropriate relief where the conduct of the defense would be prejudiced by lack of fair notice or by surprise.”
In this case, the information read in relevant part:
“GRAND THEFT BY POSSESSION STOLEN PROPERTY, I.C. 18-2403(4) and 18-2407, a Felony, on or about May 26, 1984, in that said defendant did willfully, unlawfully, intentionally, knowingly, and feloniously possess stolen property, to-wit____”
It is clear from I.C. § 18-2401(2) that the foregoing charge in the information could be proved by evidence that the defendant received stolen property. The majority opinion acknowledges that the 1965 tribal resolution extended jurisdiction to the crime set out in the old I.C. § 18-4612. Since that section and the new section, 18-2403(4), both make it a crime to receive stolen property, the distinction which the majority attempts to draw between those two criminal statutes misapprehends the action which the legislature took in moving the old I.C. § 18-4612 into the new provision, I.C. § 18-2403(4), the section under which the defendant was charged. Since “receiving” stolen property was a crime under both the old and the new statute, no distinction can rationally be drawn between the crimes charged therein.1
Furthermore, the majority opinion’s statement that you can possess stolen property without receiving it misses the point. Under the old statute receiving stolen property is a crime, as it is under the new statute. Accordingly, under either statute, receiving stolen property is the same crime. That is what the legislature was referring to when it stated in the new consolidated statute, I.C. § 18-2401(2), “An accusation of theft may be supported by evidence that it was committed in any manner that would be theft under this chapter [which includes either “possessing” or “receiving”], notwithstanding the specification of a different manner in the ... information....”
The cardinal rule of construction of any written document is to carry out the intent of the drafters. Here, we are construing the 1965 Tribal Resolution, adopted by the Tribal Executive Committee.2 To suggest that the Indians understood and intended that the jurisdiction they were extending to the state would or would not take effect based upon the distinction which the Court’s opinion draws between the words “received” and “possessed” is difficult to imagine. When it is remembered that the victim of this crime was an Indian, and when it is remembered that the apparent reason for the Indians granting jurisdiction to the state was to obtain the protection of the state criminal laws and the benefit of state and local law enforcement for the members of the tribe, it is difficult to imagine that the Indians, in giving jurisdiction to the State of Idaho over the offenses of “receiving stolen property,” ever could have comprehended, much less intended, *423the distinction or the result which Part II of the majority opinion achieves. It is their ordinance which we are construing, and we should construe it in a way which carries out the apparent intent of the Indians, which was to obtain the benefits of state laws and law enforcement to protect the members of their tribe. I, for one, cannot believe that the Indians ever intended the result which the Court reaches today.
Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the district court.
SHEPARD, J., concurs.

. Nearly all of the crimes set out in the Indian ordinance granting jurisdiction to the state are described in classes of offenses, rather than particular offenses. Receiving stolen property would appear similarly to be a class offense designation, not a description of the particular offense set out in I.C. § 18-4612, as the majority opinion asserts. But even if the designation in the tribal ordinance was specifically to I.C. § 18-4612, that section included jurisdiction over the crime of receiving stolen property, which is now contained in I.C. § 18-2403(4), the section under which the defendant Major was charged.

. "NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, by the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, the governing body of the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, in the aforesaid counties of the State of Idaho, at a duly constituted meeting of said Committee, that consent is given to the assumption by the State of Idaho of concurrent criminal jurisdiction within the Nez Perce Indian Reservation over the following offenses:
"Drunkness, Disturbing the peace, Contributing to the delinquency of a minor, Procuring intoxicants for minors, Simple assault, Battery, Kidnapping, Embezzlement, Fraud, Forgery, Receiving stolen property, Extortion, Indecency and obscenity, Vagrancy, Trespassing and malicious injuries to property. Public nuisance and abatement thereof. Cruelty to animals, and carrying concealed and dangerous weapons in public places (the carrying of firearms in pursuit of treaty hunting rights expressly excluded).” (Emphasis added.)