Court Opinion

ID: 9692353
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:52:22.598724+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:34.201361
License: Public Domain

LAWRENCE E. MOONEY, Judge,
dissenting.
Never promise more than you can perform.
■ — Publilius Syrus, First century, B.C.
Defense counsel raises a difficult defense. She asserts, at least as to the second transaction, that the defendant was a thief rather than a drug dealer. Defense counsel challenges the state’s proof that the defendant had the ability to deliver the drugs he was selling. Assuming all facts and inferences favorable to the jury’s verdict, as we must, one might believe that the defendant did not lose his access to illegal drugs in the two hours that intervened between the two charged transactions. One might also suspect that a dealer that took money without access to his advertised wares would not be long for this world. But my dissent is not motivated by antipathy for the defendant; nor is it premised on a dispute as to the meaning of the record. I dissent because an “offer for sale,” as commonly understood, does not require proof of a defendant’s capacity to deliver the drugs.
It is indisputable that a sale of drugs includes an “offer for sale.” That is because our bible — the Missouri statutes— tells us so. According to sections 195.110 and 195.211, illegal delivery of a controlled substance includes a sale, and a sale in-*813eludes an “offer therefor.” Thus an “offer for sale” is a sale.
The more difficult question is whether an “offer for sale” requires proof of the defendant’s capacity to deliver. In State v. Tierney, the Western District stated that because of the broad inclusiveness of the statute’s definition of delivery, “sale shall be given an application unconfined by definitions of the civil practice on commerce and contracts.” 584 S.W.2d 618, 623 (Mo.App. W.D.1979). We have held that “[i]t is not necessary that the elements of a commercial sale, i.e., fixed price, delivery, and payment, be present in order to constitute a sale.” State v. Crumbaker, 753 S.W.2d 76, 78 (Mo.App. E.D.1988). (Emphasis added.) Of course, the rule of lenity requires that criminal statutes be construed more strictly against the State. State v. Withrow, 8 S.W.3d 75, 80 (Mo.1999), citing State v. White, 622 S.W.2d 939, 944 (Mo. banc 1981) and State v. Hobokin, 768 S.W.2d 76, 77 (Mo. banc 1989). However, in ascertaining the intent of the legislature, which is our polestar in interpreting statutes, we also should take the word or phrase in its plain, ordinary, and usual sense. Martinez v. State, 24 S.W.3d 10, 16 (Mo.App. E.D.2000). A street vendor might “offer for sale” apples available for immediate consumption. A fruit-of-the-month club might “offer for sale” apples it has no present capacity or intent to deliver; indeed, the apples may not even be yet in existence. Yet, in the plain, ordinary, and usual sense of the phrase, both of these are “offers for sale.” According to the Webster’s Dictionary, the term “offer” is defined “to present for acceptance or rejection ... to declare one’s readiness or willingness ... a presenting of something for acceptance ... an undertaking to do an act or give something on condition that the party to whom the proposal is made do some specified act or make a return promise.” MeRRIam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 806-807 (10th ed. 1994). Thus, an “offer for sale” involves the putting forth of a proposal for acceptance or rejection. Whether the “offer for sale” anticipates immediate or future delivery of the wares sold, and whether the wares are delivered or not, the “offer for sale” is complete when the sale is proposed. A drug dealer who defaults in his duty to deliver, whether such default is due to want of will or want of wares, has nonetheless made an “offer for sale.” The circumstance that he has failed to honor his offer should not free him from the reach of our criminal laws.
Defense counsel herself has made, to my mind, a perilous proposal by conditioning a defendant’s guilt on his access to drugs. First, in “offers for sale” that anticipate future delivery of drugs, defendants are free to negotiate such transactions as long as they have no current access to the drugs. Second, the parameters of “access to drugs” are unclear. Clearly, defense counsel does not find the defendant’s drug-dealing some two hours earlier sufficient evidence of his access to drugs. Whether a defendant has access to drugs in his girlfriend’s purse, his minor nephew’s lunchbox, or a friend’s bedroom are open questions. Finally, it may be difficult to prove access to drugs by drug dealers that use third parties — “mules” and “runners” — to deliver their illegal wares.
Our Supreme Court has yet to offer its definitive guidance. In State v. Hendricks, 944 S.W.2d 208 (Mo. banc 1997), Judge White, reviewing a claim that the majority found unpreserved, noted a distinction between an “offer for sale” and an “offer to sell,” a distinction I find difficult to define. In everyday commerce and in common parlance, “offers for sale” occur in catalogues and over the internet without proof of the capacity to effect delivery. Many state courts have found that a mere *814offer to transfer a controlled substance constitutes a sale under similar statutory language. State v. Strong, 178 Ariz. 507, 875 P.2d 166 (Ct.App.1993); People v. Brown, 116 Ill.App.2d 228, 253 N.E.2d 478 (1969); Hilyard v. State, 163 Ind.App. 406, 324 N.E.2d 516 (1975); State v. Allen, 292 A.2d 167 (Me.1972); People v. Harper, 39 Mich.App. 134, 197 N.W.2d 338 (1972); State v. Mosley, 55 Ohio App.2d 178, 380 N.E.2d 731 (1977); Jimenez v. State, 838 S.W.2d 661 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1992). Some courts, to the contrary, have found their statutes mandated a specific intent to seh that would require proof of the substance sold. See State v. Werner, 8 Kan.App.2d 364, 657 P.2d 1136 (1983); People v. Jackson, 59 Cal.2d 468, 30 Cal.Rptr. 329, 381 P.2d 1 (1963); Shanks v. Commonwealth, 463 S.W.2d 312 (Ky.1971); People v. Braithwaite, 162 Misc.2d 613, 617 N.Y.S.2d 284 (Sup.Ct.1994).
Under defense counsel’s proposal, a defaulting drug dealer may not be amenable to prosecution for either sale of drugs or theft. In a prosecution for theft by deceit, Missouri statutes do not sanction an inference of deceit, a requisite element, merely founded on the drug dealer’s failure to perform his promise to deliver drugs. Section 570.010(6). Thus a defendant’s prosecution for selling drugs may be met with the claim that he was stealing. And his prosecution for theft by deceit may be met with the assertion that he was, in fact, selling drugs. Thus each prosecution may be met with the claim that he was committing the other crime. Such cannot be the intended operation of our criminal laws.
I respectfully dissent.