Court Opinion

ID: 9787516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:18:29.740286+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:56.863170
License: Public Domain

BENCH, Judge
(concurring in the result):
¶ 24 I do not necessarily disagree with the main opinion’s analysis of the constitutionality of the communications fraud statute. See Utah Code Ann. § 76-10-1801 (2003). But, because of the procedural posture of this case, I would rule that we cannot reach the issue under controlling Utah law.1
¶25 As recognized by the main opinion, Defendant entered an unconditional guilty plea to three counts of communications fraud. Cf. State v. Sery, 758 P.2d 935, 939 (Utah Ct.App.1988) (allowing defendants to enter conditional pleas preserving the right to appeal any specified pretrial ruling). In the district court, Defendant never challenged the constitutionality of the statute. Nor did he enter a conditional plea to preserve his right to appeal the constitutionality of the communications fraud statute. See id. Furthermore, Defendant never filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea. See State v. Reyes, 2002 UT 13,¶ 3, 40 P.3d 630 (requiring defendant to file a motion to withdraw a guilty plea within thirty days after the entry of the plea before defendant can challenge the validity of the guilty plea on appeal). Instead, Defendant filed a notice of appeal directly from his sentence. Now, for the first time, Defendant attempts to raise the issues of *743overbreadth and vagueness as constitutional challenges to the communications fraud statute. He claims he can do so because subject matter jurisdiction cannot be waived and that the district court lacked jurisdiction to convict him of violating an unconstitutional statute.
¶ 26 This approach reflects a basic misunderstanding of jurisdiction. The Utah Supreme Court recently explained subject matter jurisdiction very succinctly as follows: “A court has subject matter jurisdiction if the case is one of the type of cases the court has been empowered to entertain by the constitution or statute from which the court derives its authority.” Myers v. State, 2004 UT 31,- ¶ 16, 94 P.3d 211 (other quotations and citation omitted); see also Salt Lake City v. Ohms, 881 P.2d 844, 852 (Utah 1994) (“Subject matter jurisdiction is ‘the authority and competency of the court to decide the case.’ ” (citations omitted)).
¶ 27 The main opinion contends that a facial challenge to the constitutionality of a statute is necessarily a jurisdictional matter because the inherent constitutionality of a statute affects whether a court has the power and authority to decide the issue. However, without a proper, challenge, courts must presume the constitutionality of a statute.
Statutes are presumed to be constitutional until the contrary is clearly shown. It is only when statutes manifestly infringe upon some constitutional provision that they can be declared void. Every reasonable presumption must be indulged in and every reasonable doubt resolved in favor of constitutionality.
Jones v. Board of Pardons & Parole, 2004 UT 53,¶ 10, 94 P.3d 283 (quotations and citations omitted). Thus, because the communications fraud statute was not challenged below, it is presumed to be constitutional, and the district court had jurisdiction.
¶28 In footnote two of the main opinion, my colleagues attempt to find support for their extraordinary decision by pointing to the distinction between general jurisdiction and subject matter jurisdiction. As noted by the main opinion, we do not focus “on whether subject matter jurisdiction exists in [this] particular context” because, unlike claims made against governmental entities — which require compliance with the Immunity Act— the communications fraud statute at issue here requires that nothing be done, by either party, before criminal defendants can be prosecuted and courts can exercise subject matter jurisdiction. With claims against a governmental entity, “the legislature has explicitly declared how, what, when, and to whom a party must direct and deliver a Notice in order to preserve his or her right to maintain an action against a governmental entity.” Greene v. Utah Transit Auth., 2001 UT 109,¶ 15, 37 P.3d 1156. Thus, “[c]ompliance with the Immunity Act is necessary to confer subject matter jurisdiction upon a trial court to hear claims against governmental entities.” Id. at ¶ 16. In the instant case, as with presumably every other criminal prosecution, the charging statute does not explicitly declare what must be done before subject matter jurisdiction is conferred. Thus, the district court had general jurisdiction as well as subject matter jurisdiction due to an absence of legislative requirements or limitations.2
*744¶29 Therefore, if Defendant wanted to challenge the constitutionality of the communications fraud statute, he had to do so first in the district court. See, e.g., State v. Pugmire, 898 P.2d 271, 272 (Utah Ct.App.1995) (“Although [defendant] raises the issue on appeal, he did not challenge the constitutionality of this statutory scheme before the trial court. As a general rule, we will not consider issues — including constitutional issues— initially raised on appeal.”); State v. Webb, 790 P.2d 65, 77 (Utah Ct.App.1990) (“As the Utah appellate courts have reiterated many times, we generally will not consider an issue, even a constitutional one, which the appellant raises on appeal for the first time.”).
¶ 30 This rule applies with equal force to facial challenges to a statute made for the first time on appeal. In State v. Archambeau, 820 P.2d 920 (Utah Ct.App.1991), when a facial challenge to a criminal statute was raised for the first time on appeal, this court addressed Archambeau’s challenge only for the “plain error” and “exceptional circumstances” arguments he made. See Archambeau, 820 P.2d at 922, 926. Defendant, in the instant appeal, asserts no claim of plain error or exceptional circumstances.
¶ 31 Allowing defendants to raise constitutional challenges for the first time on appeal will logically necessitate overruling a large body of jurisdictional jurisprudence involving Utah’s justice courts. See, e.g., City of Monticello v. Christensen, 788 P.2d 513, 517 (Utah 1990) (“[T]his Court [has] repeatedly held that a person dissatisfied with a justice court decision could appeal that decision to a district court and that the district court decision was final unless the validity or constitutionality of a statute was at issue, not on appeal, but in the lower court.”); Draper City v. Roper, 2003 UT App 312,¶ 2, 78 P.3d 631 (per curiam) (“ ‘The decision of the district court [from a hearing de novo following a justice court’s ruling] is final and may not be appealed unless the district court rules on the constitutionality of a statute or ordinance.’” (quoting Utah Code Ann. § 78-5-120(7))); South Salt Lake City v. Terkelson, 2002 UT App 405,¶ 6, 61 P.3d 282 (“Utah case law clearly provides that neither this court nor the Utah Supreme Court has jurisdiction to hear an appeal from proceedings in the district court held pursuant to an appeal from the justice court unless the issues raised in the justice court involve[ ] the validity or constitutionality of an ordinance or statute.” (quotations and citations omitted)); City of Kanab v. Guskey, 965 P.2d 1065, 1068 (Utah Ct.App.1998) (“[Historically, Utah appellate courts have never had jurisdiction to hear appeals of district court decisions after a de novo trial on appeal from an unfavorable justice court judgment, absent the raising of a constitutional challenge in the justice court.”). The practical consequence of the main opinion is that defendants will now be allowed to challenge the constitutionality of a statute in this court, for the first time, without ever having bothered to raise the issue in either justice or district court.
¶ 32 Having failed below to challenge the statute on grounds of overbreadth and vagueness, and having failed on appeal to argue either plain error or exceptional circumstances, Defendant is now precluded from challenging the constitutionality of the communications fraud statute. I would therefore affirm based on Defendant’s failure to preserve his constitutional challenge.

. Given the clarity of the Utah law, decisions from the federal courts are not helpful. Nor are the federal cases even consistent with each other. See, e.g., United States v. Montilla, 870 F.2d 549, 552 (9th Cir.1989) amended by 907 F.2d 115 (9th Cir.1990) ("The dividing line between the majority of constitutional claims waived by a voluntary plea of guilty, and those that challenge the right of the state to hale the defendant into court, and thus survive the plea ..., has not been crystal-clear.").

. In an attempt to bolster the main opinion's reasoning, the concurring opinion discusses some rather bizarre hypotheticals. First, the thirty-two-year-old defendant charged with murder in juvenile court. Thankfully, this potential calamity has already been resolved by our legislature. See Utah Code Ann. §§ 78-3a-104, - 105(l)(a) (2002) (detailing jurisdiction of juvenile courts). By contrast, our legislature has not limited the jurisdiction of district courts in a similar manner. See Utah Code Ann. § 78-3-4(1) (2002) ("The district court has original jurisdiction in all matters civil and criminal, not excepted in the Utah Constitution and not prohibited by law.”). Second, the criminal defendant who pleads guilty to the nonexistent crime of blasphemy. If no such crime of blasphemy existed, then we would not indulge in the presumption that a nonexistent, unwritten statute was constitutional. Here, however, a statute does exist, and, until challenged, we must presume it to be constitutional. Third, if a defendant pleaded guilty to the theoretical crime of blasphemy, and did not preserve his constitutional challenge, then he could raise the challenge for the first time on appeal by arguing plain error. A plain error challenge could easily be made without making the facial constitutionality of a statute a prerequisite to subject matter jurisdiction.
As for the concurring opinion’s statement that "[n]o Utah appellate court has squarely an*744swered the question of whether a challenge based on facial unconstitutionality goes to subject matter jurisdiction,” our supreme court has squarely addressed the question. In Myers v. State, 2004 UT 31, 94 P.3d 211, the Utah Supreme Court explained that even when Myers argued, for the first time on appeal, that the wholly and facially unconstitutional aggravated murder statute divested the trial court of jurisdiction, he had "failed to state any legitimate jurisdictional defect” because "[t]he Utah Code provides that 'the district court has original jurisdiction in all matters civil and criminal, not excepted in the Utah Constitution and not prohibited by law.’ ” Id. at ¶ 16 (quoting Utah Code Ann. § 78-3-4(1)). The instant case is no different. Thus, even when Norris argues, for the first time on appeal, that the communications fraud statute is facially unconstitutional, and that such unconstitutionality goes to the subject matter jurisdiction of the district court, he fails "to state any legitimate jurisdictional defect.” Myers, 2004 UT 31 at ¶ 16, 94P.3d211.