Court Opinion

ID: 9853039
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:41:33.732062+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:40.189271
License: Public Domain

CALLISTER, Justice:'
(dissenting).
The defendants rely heavily upon this court’s decision in State v. Musser 1 wherein it was held that the portion of 76-12-1 (5) relating to acts injurious “to public morals” was unconstitutional because it was vague and uncertain. In that case, the defendants had been convicted under the statute for teaching and advocating the; practice of polygamy. This court affirmed,, the conviction2 and an appeal was taken to the United States Supreme Court. Up *72to this point, the issue as to the vagueness and uncertainty of the statute had not been raised, although the defendants had claimed that they had been denied due process under the 14th Amendment. The issue was first raised during the oral arguments before that Court and was prompted by questions from the bench. The Supreme Court set aside the convictions and remanded the case to this court for consideration of the question.3
Mr Justice Jackson, speaking for the majority of the Court, stated:
It is obvious that this is no narrowly drawn statute. We do not presume to give an interpretation as to what it may include. Standing by itself, it would seem to be warrant for conviction for agreement to do almost any act which a judge and jury might find at the moment contrary to his or its notions of what was good for health, morals, trade, commerce, justice or order. * * * This led to an inquiry as to whether the statute attempts to cover so much that it effectively covers nothing. Statutes defining crimes may fail of their purpose if they do not provide some reasonable standards of guilt. (Citation omitted.) Legislation may run afoul of the Due Process Clause because it fails to give adequate guidance to those who would be law-abiding, to advise defendants of the nature of the offense with which they are charged, or to guide courts in trying those who are accused.
(Emphasis added.)
The State contends that the phrase “perversion or obstruction of justice or the due administration of the laws” is more definitive than “injurious to public morals.” It points out that the former phrase had a well-defined and accepted meaning at common law, citing numerous authorities in support thereof.4
Utah has no crimes or offenses except those that are created by statute or ordinance.5 Under subsection (1) of 76-12-1, our general conspiracy statute, persons may be charged with conspiring to commit a crime.6 Therefore, subsection (S) must refer to acts not specifically “spelled out” in our criminal statutes. Mr. Justice Lati-mer, in his concurring opinion in the second decision of the Musser case,7 recognized this and stated: •
*73* * * It has been suggested that the phrase can be interpreted so as to indicate a legislative intent to limit its effect to those acts which are specified by the legislature in other sections of the statutes as being injurious to public morals. This argument overlooks the fact that if the acts were denounced by the legislature they would constitute a crime, and that subsection (1) covers those instances where parties conspire to commit a crime. * * * The legislature must have contemplated some acts additional to those defined as crimes when it selected the wording it used. The acts encompassed by the phraseology of subsection (5) appear to be those over and above the ones mentioned in subsection (1). Otherwise, the legislature enacted a useless provision.
In interpreting a statute, the legislature will be presumed to have inserted every part for a purpose and to have intended that every part be given effect. Significance and meaning should, if possible, be accorded every phrase, and a construction is favored which will render every word operative rather than one which makes some phrases or subsections nugatory. If we adopt the foregoing rule of construction we must hold that subsection (5) is a catch-all provision without guides, standards or limits.
The State and the majority opinion place great reliance upon certain decisions of the courts of California8 upholding the constitutionality of a California conspiracy statute9 which is almost identical with 76-12-1(5), U.C.A. 1953. The Lorenson case appears to be the leading case in this respect. In that case, a police captain and others were indicted for conspiracy to commit robbery, to commit assault with a deadly weapon and to “pervert or obstruct justice or the due administration of the laws.” The court held that, “In California, the statutes relating to ‘Crimes Against ’Public Justice’ are found in Part I, Title VII, of the Penal Code.” 10 Hence, “(t)he meaning of the words ‘to pervert or obstruct justice, or the due administration of the laws’ is easily ascertained by reference either to the common law or to the more specific crimes enumerated in Part I, Title VII. A conspiracy with or among public officials not to perform their official duty to enforce criminal laws is an obstruction of justice and an indictable offense at common law.”
No mention was made of Musser v. State 11 in the Lorenson case, although the. *74decision of the United States Supreme Court had been published about two years prior thereto.
The subsequent California cases of Sullivan and Calhoun (note 8, supra) followed Lorenson. However, in a still later .case,12 the decisions of the three foregoing cases were analyzed and the rule of Mus-ser v. State was recognized. In this latter case, the defendant was charged with a conspiracy to pervert and obstruct justice and the due administration of the law and to cheat and defraud the State of California of property by means of violation of section 4570 13 of the Penal Code in taking a manuscript out of San Quentin without permission of the warden and by means of such acts to sell and distribute the book.
The. court’ held that “[t]he charge of conspiracy to obstruct justice and to cheat and defraud the state cannot be applied in .its full sweep under Penal Code, Section .182,. svtbd. 5. If we narrow down the indictment to a conspiracy under subdivision 1 or 5 of that section to violate section 4570 of the Penal Code, it will stand.”
. Mr. Justice Tobriner,14 speaking for the District Court of Appeals, made the following observations:
' The constitutionality of the California ■ statute," however rests upon the fact that 'three cases have chartered boundaries, to its otherwise limitless sea of criminality.
******
Hence, as interpreted by the California cases, section 182, subd. 5 is not limitless but contracted * * *.
While only the term “public morals” was precisely involved in Musser v. State, nevertheless the language of the opinion (previously quoted) indicates that the United States Supreme Court was aware of the other provisions of subsection (5) of our statute and considered them subject to the same frailties.
Again, while this court’s decision in the second case of State v. Mussqr was confined to the term “public morals,” the language contained in the main opinion has application to the phrase “for the perversion or obstruction of justice or the due administration of laws.” Mr. Justice Wade, author of that opinion, stated:
* * * The argument before this court has developed no reason why we should believe that the legislature intended, in using this language, that it should be limited to a meaning less broad than the words therein used would indicate in their ordinary sense. No language in this or in any other statute of *75this state or other law thereof or any historical fact or surrounding circumstance connected with the enactment of this statute has been pointed to as indicating that the legislature intended any limitation thereon other than that expressed on the face of the words used. We are therefore unable to place a construction on these words which limits their meaning upon their general meaning. * * * This part of the statute is therefore void for vagueness and uncertainty under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. (Emphasis added.)
The court in the foregoing case did not. see fit to limit or define “public morals” by reference either to the common lazo or specific crimes enumerated in our Penal Code. Acts against or injurious to public morals and decency were common law crimes as were acts perverting or obstructing justice or the due administering of the laws.15
In view of the foregoing, I am constrained to dissent and to hold that 76-12-1(5), making it a crime to conspire to commit any act “for the perversion or obstruction of justice or the due administration of the laws,” like “any act injurious to public morals,” is void for vagueness and uncertainty under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.
HENRIOD, J., concurs in the dissentr ing opinion of CALLIS'FER, J. .

. 118 Utah 537, 223 P.2d 193 (1950).

. State v. Musser, 110 Utah 534, 175 P.2d 724 (1946).

. Musser v. State of Utah, 333 U.S. 95, 68 S.Ct. 397, 92 L.Ed. 562 (1948).

. E. g., Commonwealth v. Mochan, 177 Pa. Super. 454, 110 A.2d 788 (1955); Sykes v. Director of Public Prosecutions (1962) A.C. 528; Roberts Case, 3 Cokes Institutes 139 (1569); Regina v. Bailey (1956), N.I. 15; Perkins, Criminal Law, p. 422 (1958); Clark and Marshall, Crimes, 6th Ed. § 1401 (1946); Vol. 1, p. 382, et seq. These authorities do not deal directly with the constitutional problem herein involved.

. Moorehouse v. Hammond, 60 Utah 593, 209 P. 883 (1922).

. This undoubtedly refers to a statutory crime.

. Note 1, supra.

. Lorenson v. Superior Court, 35 Cal.2d 49, 216 P.2d 859 (1950); People v. Sullivan, 113 Cal.App.2d 510, 248 P.2d 520 (1952); Calhoun v. Superior Court, 46 Cal.2d 18, 291 P.2d 474 (1955).

. Calif.Penal Code, Sec. 182, subd. 5.

. Utah’s counterpart is found in Chapter 28 of our Penal Code (76-28-1 et seq.), U.C.A.1953.

. Note 3, supra.

. Davis v. Superior Court, 175 Cal.App. 2d 8, 345 P.2d 513 (1959).

. Which makes il á misdemeanor for any person, without the permission of the warden, to communicate’ with ány' prisoner or take from the prison any letter, writing, etc., from (any person confined therein. ' '

: Presently an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of California.

. 1 Burdick, Law of Crimes, § 89.