Court Opinion

ID: 9621636
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:02:22.555573+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:06.480890
License: Public Domain

Baker, J.
(dissenting) — I respectfully dissent. Because the statute defines criminal harassment in part as commission of an act intended to cause substantial harm to a person’s “mental health,” the statute is unconstitutionally vague on its face.
The majority correctly notes that a statute is facially void for vagueness if it fails to define a criminal offense with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited. The majority then concludes that the subject statute is not vague because “it contains specific conditions that collectively give the ordinary citizen adequate notice of what type of threats it prohibits.” But none of the four reasons cited by the majority in support of this conclusion address the fatal flaw with the statute, namely, the lack of definition concerning the term “mental health.”
The majority first states that the statute prohibits “only acts intended by the defendant to cause substantial harm to another’s mental health.” While that may be true, it begs the question concerning the lack of any definition of mental health. Nor is that definition provided by the majority’s second point, which notes that “the threat must be made knowingly and maliciously.” The same flaw exists regarding the majority’s third point, which notes that “the threat must be to do an act that is intended to cause substantial harm to another’s mental health.”
Finally, the majority notes that the victim must have a *780reasonable fear that the threat will be carried out. That is true, but this statutory requirement does not address in any way the meaning of mental health. It is a separate element that exists quite independently of the concept of mental health.
In short, none of the reasons set forth by the majority addresses, much less cures, the problem of the vagueness of the term “mental health.”
In its briefing and argument to this court, the State struggled to save the statute from unconstitutional vagueness by contending that the term “mental health” is readily understood by a person of ordinary intelligence. That it is not seems clear from the State’s utilization of a combination of dictionary definitions for the words “mental” and “health” to provide a strained definition of the term “mental health” as “a state whereby one’s mind is free from disease or defect and functions normally.” The Legislature did not explicitly set forth this strained definition, and to the majority’s credit, it did not accept the argument.
Given that the term “mental health” is neither statutorily defined nor sufficiently definite that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited, I would reverse. The lack of definition concerning the term “mental health” renders the statute facially void.
Review granted at 141 Wn.2d 1001 (2000).