Court Opinion

ID: 9655864
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:24:04.868486+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:22.726635
License: Public Domain

*485Hallows, J.
(dissenting). I must dissent from that part of the majority opinion stating it was error for the trial court to refuse to instruct the jury in some form to the effect a criminal or corrupt intent to commit the crime is an element of the offense defined in sec. 946.10 (2), Stats. The requested instructions contained the following language:
“Fifth that the defendant accepted the property pursuant to a corrupt understanding and with an intention on his part that he would do an act in violation of his lawful duty as an assemblyman.
“Before the Defendant may be found guilty of bribery, however, he must have intended that his official conduct be influenced or accepted property with the purpose and an intention on his part that his official conduct be influenced.”
The requested instruction also included, “The defendant must have accepted the property with a corrupt intent.”
I do not think it was error to refuse to give such an instruction and on a broader ground I do not believe sec. 946.10 (2), Stats., requires a criminal or corrupt intent.
All common-law crimes were abolished in Wisconsin. Sec. 939.10, Stats. The only crimes now existing are those defined by the legislature. Sec. 939.12. It is no “major upheaval” or “catalysmic alteration” to create a crime malum prohibitum. Whatever elements were necessary to constitute bribery at common law are of no importance in a statutory crime. Sec. 946.10, Stats., relating to bribery of public officials and employees, requires in sub. (1) on the part of the giver an “intent to influence the conduct of any public officer” to do or not to do an act in violation of his lawful duty. But in sub. (2) of sec. 946.10 there is no requirement of a corrupt or criminal intent in the acceptance of the “property or any personal advantage, which he is not authorized to re*486ceive,” but only that the acceptance be “pursuant to an understanding' . . . .”
Whenever the code intends a crime to include a specific criminal intent, it so provides or exact language is used which comes under sec. 939.23, Stats., which defines when intent is an element of a crime. For example, in sec. 946.12 relating to misconduct in office, we find the phrases, “intentionally fails,” “knows is in excess of his lawful authority,” “with intention to obtain a dishonest advantage for himself,” “intentionally falsifies” and “intentionally solicits or accepts.” In sec. 939.23, it is expressly provided that when a criminal intent is an element of crime, such intent is indicated by the term “intentionally,” “with intent to,” “with intent that,” or some form of the words “know” or “believe.” The phrase “pursuant to an understanding” is not to be equated with such criminal intent nor can it under any reasonable statutory construction be brought under this section.
As I understand State v. Croy (1966), 32 Wis. (2d) 118, 145 N. W. (2d) 118, this court did not hold sec. 943.21, Stats., there involved required “an intent to defraud” because the term was in the prior statute and omitted in the new section but found the requirement of such intent in the new language “intentionally absconds.” Additionally, this language was used in reference to the issue of whether one who departs from a hotel leaving his baggage could be said to intentionally abscond.
I think the majority confuses criminal intent with the general intent necessary to “an understanding that he will act in a certain manner in relation to any matter which by law is pending or might come before him in his capacity as such officer . . . .” An instruction was given on this type of general intent and I think the instruction was sufficient without characterizing the understanding as having attributes of corruptness or that the money had *487to be accepted with the intention on the actor’s part that he would do the act in violation of his lawful duty as an assemblyman as he understood that duty.
If this section is to provide guidelines for public officials and set a standard for conduct in public office above common suspicion, then accepting money, which the officer has no right to receive, upon an understanding that he will act in a certain way in relation to a matter pending before him in his official capacity, is a sufficient prohibition and it should not be necessary to also prove a subjective corrupt or a criminal intent. By such an act even without a corrupt intent, a legislator forecloses himself from considering or reconsidering the matter at the time it is legally before him in his capacity as a legislator and it is his duty to vote. This effect commanding the legislator’s vote is the gist of the crime. The majority opinion does not state what specific criminal intent the statute requires, only that the intent be criminal or corrupt. Such a requirement emasculates the crime of bribery as defined in sec. 946.10 (2), Stats., for public officers and employees and renders the section an entirely ineffectual piece of legislation.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Heffernan joins in this dissenting opinion.