Court Opinion

ID: 9767937
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:35:58.423497+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:34.059705
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge
(concurring in result).
I believe it is implicit in the Kansas City ordinance that the hindering, obstruction, etc. of the officer be done wilfully and knowingly. Thus there is no conflict between the statute and the ordinance. I do not believe that a person would be guilty of violating the Kansas City ordinance and subject to fine or imprisonment if the person were unwittingly or perhaps carelessly to hinder or obstruct an officer in the discharge of his official duty, by, for example, accidentally or negligently getting in his way. A person might be driving through an intersection on a green light and fail to yield the right of way to a police vehicle chasing a suspect, thereby resulting in a collision with the police vehicle and the escape of the suspect. I doubt if this would constitute a violation of the ordinance, although it would under its literal terms. The other statutes referred to in the majority opinion — Secs. 557.230-280 and Secs. 557.300-330, RSMo 1969 — dealing with rescuing or helping prisoners to escape, do not in terms require criminal intent, but I doubt if we would sustain convictions under them in the absence of criminal intent.
In State v. McLarty, 414 S.W.2d 315 (Mo.1967), we had for consideration the words of the statute against tampering with an automobile, Sec. 560.175(1), RSMo 1969, which provides: “No person shall drive, operate, use or tamper with a motor vehicle without the permission of the owner thereof.” The statute says nothing about criminal intent, knowledge, or wilfulness. Yet we held that criminal intent was an essential element of the offense proscribed, even though punishment therefor could be as little as a $1 fine or a day in jail. See also Davis v. State, 499 S.W.2d 445 (Mo.banc 1973) and State v. Tate, 436 S.W.2d 716 (Mo.1969). Similarly here I do not believe the Kansas City ordinance applies regardless of intent. Interfering with a police officer in the performance of his duty involves an aspect of moral turpitude or wrongdoing accompanied by guilty knowledge or intent. It is not the same as a parking or speed limit violation, where no criminal intent need be shown.
Under the evidence before us, there was evidence to support a finding of the required mental element and the trial court *122did not err in overruling the motion for judgment of acquittal. That is to say, there was evidence that defendant knew the officers were police officers and that she intentionally interfered with their activity. Thereafter, in instructing the jury, the court did so in the language of the ordinance, without any requirement that the jury find that the defendant acted wil-fully or intentionally. However, omitting the element of criminal intent in the main instruction in this misdemeanor case “was a matter of non-direction, and since the defendant failed to request an instruction on that subject the omission was not error.” State v. Burgess, 456 S.W.2d 641, 643 (Mo.App.1970); State v. Goodman, 490 S.W.2d 665 (Mo.App.1972); Rule 26.02(6). I therefore concur in the result reached in the principal opinion.