Court Opinion

ID: 9768603
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 06:10:03.268962+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:42.289058
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge
(concurring).
As the majority opinion states, in prior car tampering cases the precise question whether criminal intent is required has not been before the Court. The statute provides, “No person shall drive, operate, use or tamper with a motor vehicle or trailer without the permission of the owner thereof.” It is thus made wrong by legislation to do so. It does not seem to me there is any requirement the acts prohibited must be done with specific criminal intent, or that the defendant know he does not have the owner’s permission, State v. Edmonson (Mo.Sup.) 371 S.W.2d 273, 275; Eiswirth Const. & Equipment Co. v. Glenn Falls Ins. Co„ 241 Mo.App. 713, 240 S.W.2d 973, 979; State v. Edmonson (Mo.Sup.) 309 S.W.2d 616, 618; Zuber v. Clarkson Construction Co. (Mo.Sup.) 315 S.W.2d 727; State v. Ryan (Mo.App.) 289 S.W. 13 (in the last cited case all the state showed was that the policeman apprehended defendant in the act of getting out of the prosecuting witness' automobile). It seems to me the statute is a valid exercise of the police power in the regulation of motor vehicles, of the type not depending on any guilty or criminal intent, but consisting only of the intentional as opposed to the involuntary or accidental doing of the forbidden acts, 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law § 30, p. 105; 21 Am.Jur.2d Criminal Law, Sec. 89, p. 169, and Sec. 90, p. 170; Haggerty v. St. Louis Ice Mfg. & Storage Co., 143 Mo. 238, 44 S.W. 1114, 40 L.R.A. 151; State v. Ridinger, 364 Mo. 684, 266 S.W.2d 626, 630; Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288; 11 A.L.R. 1434.
As I believe was conceded by the state in oral argument, it is doubtful that the state proved criminal intent here. However, since I do not believe it was necessary to prove criminal intent and since the evidence shows defendant was participating in tampering with the vehicle without the permission of the owner, it appears to me he is guilty of violation of the statute, and I therefore concur in the result reached in the majority opinion.