Court Opinion

ID: 9714101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:30:35.82319+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:23.090040
License: Public Domain

*1373Thornton, J. (dissenting)
I dissent.
From the language of the majority opinion it is fair to say two or more meanings may be attributed to the word “obscene”. I think this alone entitled the defendant here to the benefit of strict construction of a criminal statute. Actually an examination of the complete definitions of obscene in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary and Black’s Law Dictionary, 4th Edition, shows that obscene, when considered offensive, revolting, disgusting or foul, is because it is based on the idea of unchastity or lewdness. That is the connotation of the word. See chapter 725, Code of Iowa, 1962, and 29 Words and Phrases, Perm. Ed., page 68 et seq., and 1963 pocket parts, pages 22 to 28.
However, the majority admits of two possible constructions. This brings into play the rule that in case of doubt the statute is construed most favorably to the defendant and strictly against the State. The majority opinion quotes from Kuhn v. Kuhn, 125 Iowa. 449, 452, 101 N.W. 151, 152, 2 Ann. Cas. 657, and State v. Hill, 244 Iowa 405, 408, 57 N.W.2d 58, 59, the statement of Chief Justice Marshall in United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. (U. S.) 76, 5 L. Ed. 37. A portion thereof is: “* * * though penal laws are to be construed strictly, they are not to be construed so strictly as to defeat the obvious intention of the Legislature. The maxim is not to be so applied as to narrow the words of the statute to the exclusion of cases, which those words, in their ordinary acceptation, or in that sense in which the Legislature has obviously used them, would comprehend.”
What the majority does here is decide what to it is obvious and ordinary acceptation. The reason apparently given is that if we do not adopt that definition the defendant goes unpunished. The mere statement of such a reason shows its fallacy.
Actually the legislature has provided that cities and towns may punish persons engaged in riotous, noisy or disorderly conduct. See section 368.7, Code of Iowa, 1962. In section 728.1 it sought only to punish a person publicly using blasphemous or obscene language to the disturbance of the public peace and quiet. It is not only the public peace and quiet the legislature *1374was interested in but disturbance in a particular way, by blasphemous or obscene language.
If the defendant is to go unpunished it may be because he was charged with the wrong offense. We should not provide an offense and punishment. Marshall warned against this.
The defendant is entitled to have the benefit of the rule of construction of penal statutes long followed by us, that the legislature must inform the citizen with reasonable precision what acts it intends to prohibit, so that he may have a certain understandable rule of conduct and know what acts it is his duty to avoid. State v. Coppes, 247 Iowa 1057, 1061, 1062, 78 N.W.2d 10; State v. Garland, 250 Iowa 428, 432, 94 N.W.2d 122, 125; and authorities cited. In State v. Garland at page 432 of 250 Iowa, page 125 of 94 N.W.2d, we said: “It is well settled that penal statutes are strictly construed, and doubts, if any, resolved in favor of the individual.”
Where the definition of a word is open to more than one construction there is certainly doubt. If the legislature wished to include “s-o-b” and other similar abusive, insulting, disgusting and revolting terms, why did it not use those terms? That is just what the Texas legislature did. See Darnell v. State, 72 Tex. Cr. 271, 272, 161 S.W. 971. The statute there provided, “ ‘If any person shall use any vulgar, profane, obscene or indecent language over or through any telephone * * ”
The trouble here is not with the legislature but with interpretation of “obscene” in the majority opinion. If obscene may fairly mean both everything that is insulting as well as only those words that refer to sexual impurity or lewdness, defendant is entitled to the construction most favorable to him and a reversal. If its meaning is reference only to sexual impurity or lewdness, defendant is entitled to a reversal. Nothing is less likely to appeal to prurient interests than for one man to say to' another, “I’ll punch you in the nose, you son of a- bitch.” Vulgar certainly, fighting words yes (but hardly at the safe distance of a telephone).
A matter of extreme doubt is whether the words were publicly used to the disturbance of the public peace and quiet. The public in this instance was a rather small group of three.