Court Opinion

ID: 9594854
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:33:28.110034+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:40:59.560468
License: Public Domain

Utter, J.
(concurring) — I agree with the majority's holding to affirm the conviction. However, I reject the majority's reasoning, which would allow defendants to stand convicted where the jury is not instructed on technical definitions of crucial terms.
The majority holds that it is constitutional error to fail to instruct the jury on elements of a crime but it is not constitutional error to fail to define a technical term essential to one of those elements. This distinction makes no sense. The reason for the rule that juries must be instructed on the elements is identical to the technical term rule: juries *693must be informed what the applicable law is before they can make a meaningful decision as to guilt or innocence. We cannot presume that jurors already know and understand the law; therefore courts carefully instruct jurors on the law, and presume they then understand and follow those instructions. E.g., Bordynoski v. Bergner, 97 Wn.2d 335, 342, 644 P.2d 1173 (1982). No possible purpose is served by allowing juries to deliberate in ignorance of the law.
The majority's holding could create absurd and intolerable results: when, as is too often the case, the "legalese" term in a statute differs significantly from the common definition of a term, there would be no constitutional error in failing to inform the jury what it means. In Washington's criminal code some terms that have meanings different from their common usage are defined in separate sections of the code. Besides the levels of culpability in RCW 9A.08.010, terms such as the following are separately defined: "building" (defined to include fenced areas, vehicles, or railway cars in RCW 9A.04.110(5)); "person" (defined to include corporations in 9A.04.110(17)). Only attorneys and judges can be expected to be familiar with these unnatural definitions.
In other sections of the criminal code, special terms are defined in the context of listing elements of a crime. Lay people, and many lawyers, would be unfamiliar with the definitions of crimes such as the following, were the terms not defined by listing the elements: "compounding" (RCW 9A.76.100); "barratry" (RCW 9.12.010). Under the majority's holding, a defendant is constitutionally entitled to instruction on technical definitions if they are within the listed elements of a crime, but not if they are elsewhere in the criminal code. Thus, a defendant could be convicted of "maintaining a bucket shop" (RCW 9.47.090) without the jury being informed what a bucket shop is (RCW 9.47.080). However, a defendant could not be convicted of "bunco steering" (RCW 9.47.120) without the jury knowing what that term means, as the elements listed define the crime.
*694Obviously, a defendant is not constitutionally entitled to an instruction defining every term mentioned in the elements of a crime. A definitional instruction is constitutionally required only where the statutory definition is "technical", i.e., has a meaning that differs from the common usage of the term. The only appropriate focus in this case is whether the term "knowledge," as defined in RCW 9A.08.010(1), is technical. This issue was resolved in State v. Allen, 101 Wn.2d 355, 678 P.2d 798 (1984), in which this court squarely stated:
In defining the hierarchy of four levels of culpability, it is apparent that the Legislature gave these culpable mental states technical meanings as opposed to their commonly understood meanings.
Allen, at 360.
The majority would overrule this analysis in Allen, and hold that the definition of "knowledge" in RCW 9A.08-.010(1) is actually the same as the word's plain meaning. The majority's error lies in the fact that the statutory definition informs jurors what the defendant must have knowledge about; this information is not provided by the common dictionary definition of "knowledge." In the instant case, it was not crucial to give the jury the statutory definition of "knowledge", because the jury was otherwise correctly informed what the subject of the knowledge must be. The court instructed the jury the defendant must have "knowledge that [his actions] will promote or facilitate the commission of the crime." Instruction 7. Thus, the jury instructions, read as a whole, accurately stated the law. See State v. Thompson, 88 Wn.2d 518, 564 P.2d 315 (1977).
In other contexts, crimes with a mens rea of "knowledge" do not include in their elements information as to what type of knowledge the defendant must have. In such cases the jury must be given an instruction based on RCW 9A.08.010(l)(b)(i): "A person knows or acts knowingly or with knowledge when ... he is aware of a fact, facts, or circumstances or result described by a statute defining an offense". For example, the criminal trespass statute defines *695the crime as follows: "A person is guilty of criminal trespass in the first degree if he knowingly enters or remains unlawfully in a building." RCW 9A.52.070(1). In this case, the jury must be instructed on the definition of "knowingly" in RCW 9A.08.010(l)(b). Otherwise, applying the common definition of "knowingly," it may convict on a mere finding the defendant knows he is entering a building (such as a railway car).
I would hold that a defendant is constitutionally entitled to jury instructions on technical statutory definitions of terms that are used in listing elements of a crime. Here, because "knowledge" has a technical statutory definition, it would have been constitutional error to fail to give that definition to the jury, were it not for the fact that the instruction otherwise properly defined this term in the context of the crime. I therefore find no constitutional error under the narrow facts of this case, and would affirm.
Pearson, C.J., and Brachtenbach, J., concur with Utter, J.