Court Opinion

ID: 9740770
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:41:30.669421+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:20.191102
License: Public Domain

SNELL, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The majority quotes with approval our law that doubt in construing a penal statute is resolved in favor of the accused. State v. Burtlow, 299 N.W.2d 665, 669 (Iowa 1980); State v. *366Davis, 271 N.W.2d 693, 695 (Iowa 1978). But in applying the law it gainsays the guiding principle.
Doubt as to the meaning of this penal statute abounds. Section 719.4(4) makes it a criminal offense to avoid prosecution. Yet the meaning of prosecution is not defined. Respected commentators on criminal law disagree as to how and when the crime is committed under the statute. Compare Yeager and Carlson, 4 Iowa Practice: Criminal Law and Procedure, § 429 at 110 (1979) with Dunahoo, The New Iowa Criminal Code: Part II, 29 Drake L.Rev. 491, 610 (1979-80). How then may an ordinary citizen know what this law means?
The majority accepts defendant’s argument that since no definition of “prosecution” is supplied by section 719.4(4) we may learn its meaning from section 801.4(12). But analysis is then looped by the majority’s next step. It reasons that it matters not whether we apply the definition in section 801.4(12) as to what a prosecution is, since if a defendant is trying to avoid it, the crime is committed. Doubt compounded is reborn.
The majority’s interpretation blurs any meaningful distinction between the prose-cutorial and investigative functions of government. We have assiduously maintained this distinction in law. See Burr v. City of Cedar Rapids, 286 N.W.2d 393 (Iowa 1979) (regarding a prosecutor’s immunity from civil liability). With this interpretation of section 719.4(4) the crime may be committed without a prosecution ever having commenced. It is enough to establish the offense if an investigation is commenced combined with evidence that the defendant had knowledge of it and a possible prosecution.
The broad sweep of the majority’s decision is foretold by the district court’s amplification of the “prosecution” definition in section 801.4(12). The focus of the statute under the court’s instruction is on “targeting an individual by law enforcement authorities with the intent to file criminal charges.” This instruction thereby injects an element of subjective intent, undefined and without boundaries, initiated by investigative officers totally separate from any prosecutorial personnel. Thus, the statute’s parameters have been shifted from a prosecutorial setting to an earlier period of investigation. Instead of applying strict construction the majority has liberally interpreted the statute. An act penal in nature, generally one which imposes punishment for an offense committed against the state, is interpreted strictly. State ex rel. Turner v. Koscot Interplanetary, Inc., 191 N.W.2d 624, 629 (Iowa 1971).
The majority reads the statute that the crime is committed when a person flees to avoid the commencement of a criminal proceeding. I believe the crime is committed when a person flees to avoid a prosecution which comes into existence only after the commencement of a criminal proceeding.
In the case at bar, no criminal proceedings had been commenced against defendant when he left Iowa for Colorado. He could not therefore have violated the statute as a matter of law. Defendant’s motion to dismiss the charge should have been sustained. I would reverse.
NEUMAN and ANDREASEN, JJ„ join this dissent.