Court Opinion

ID: 9763608
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:50:37.543862+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:46.660394
License: Public Domain

BARDGETT, Judge,
concurring in part.
I concur in the result reached and in the principal opinion except for that portion upholding the constitutionality. of § 455.-085.3 which makes the violation of an order of protection a crime — a class C misdemeanor.
This is not a criminal case and the question whether the misdemeanor conviction of one for violation of a protective order could be constitutionally upheld ought, in my opinion, await that kind of case. My reser*237vations about this matter flow from the fact that the conduct of a spouse does not become a crime unless and until the judge so declares and then only with respect to that one person. This law does not prohibit certain conduct as criminal generally but rather leaves it to a judge to decide whether certain conduct, if engaged in in the future, will be criminal only as to a particular person. Certain acts of an abusive type are criminal by general law — assault and battery — and are a crime regardless of who commits them, but that is not the case under § 455.085.3. I have no particular difficulty with contempt proceedings which may involve incarceration for the violation of an injunctive order — an order of protection — but that is not a crime.
The statute does not make the act of entering one’s home a crime. The only time that act becomes a criminal act is when, and if, a judge declares it to be criminal by prohibiting it in a protective order with respect to a particular person. Thus, § 455.085.3 delegates to a judge the power to say what conduct constitutes a crime and whether or not certain conduct, if engaged in by a particular person, will be a crime. The drug cases are not analogous. In those cases the administrative agency identified the drug which produced the statutorily proscribed effects and the possession of that drug was then prohibited generally as to all people. Neither the agency nor a judge decided that possession of the drug by a particular person would be a crime, but that possession of the drug by others would not be a crime.
I believe it highly questionable whether a crime can, under our Constitution, be so personalized; nevertheless, the issue of the constitutionality of § 455.085.3 is unnecessary to the adjudication of this case. I therefore reserve judgment on that matter until the case occurs in which that issue is decisive. I concur in all other aspects of the principal opinion.