Court Opinion

ID: 9663645
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:46:15.766619+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:07.758188
License: Public Domain

Currie, C. J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent and would affirm on the ground that the circuit court rightly determined that the offenses with which relator Gaynon was charged, viz., filing false and fraudulent income-tax returns, constituted felonies.
Determination of the issue of whether these offenses constitute felonies or misdemeanors is dependent upon construction of these three statutes:
Sec. 71.11 (42). “Any person, other than a corporation, who . . . shall render a false or fraudulent return shall upon conviction be fined not to exceed $500, or be imprisoned not to exceed one year, or both, at the discretion of the court, together with the cost of prosecution.”
Sec. 959.044. “When a statute authorizes imprisonment for its violation but does not prescribe the place of imprisonment, (a) a sentence of less than one year shall be to the county jail, (b) a sentence of more than one year shall be to the state prison and the minimum under the indeterminate sentence law shall be one year, and (c) a sentence of one year may be to either the state prison or the county jail. . . .”
Sec. 939.60. “A crime punishable by imprisonment in the state prison is a felony. Every other crime is a misdemeanor,”
A plain reading of these three statutes requires that the offense of filing a false or fraudulent income-tax return be classified as a felony since the sentence for its violation may be a year in state prison. There is no *625ambiguity present which will permit any other interpretation.
It is a cardinal canon of statutory construction that where there is no ambiguity in statutory language a court is not to resort to outside aids in interpreting the statute.1 Particularly pertinent to the instant problem of construction is this statement made by Mr. Justice (later Chief Justice) Brown in State ex rel. Badtke v. School Board: 2
“Appellants have a good deal to say about the intention of the legislature. The statute is plain and unambiguous. Therefore, ‘. . . interpretation is unnecessary, and intentions cannot be imputed to the legislature except those to be gathered from the terms of the law.’ Estate of Ries (1951), 259 Wis. 453, 459, 49 N. W. (2d) 483, 50 N. W. (2d) 397.”
Also to the point is this extract from Town of Madison v. City of Madison: 3
“The language of the statute is plain and unambiguous. The cardinal principle of statutory construction is to save and not to destroy. As said in 82 C. J. S., Statutes, p. 794, sec. 362, ‘All statutes are presumed to be enacted by the legislature with full knowledge of the existing condition of the law and with reference to it; . . . they are therefore to be construed in connection with and in harmony with the existing law, and as part of a general and uniform system of jurisprudence, that is, they are to be construed with reference to the whole system of law of which they form a part. So the meaning and effect of statutes are to be determined in connection, not only with the common law, . . . and the constitution, but also with reference to other statutes, . . .’ ”
*626The majority opinion by seeking to find some legislative intent apart from the plain wording of these three statutes has repudiated these prior holdings of our court. The result is a construction which not only denies to statutory language its plain meaning but abrogates it.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Fairchild and Mr. Justice Wilkie join in this dissenting opinion.

 Alexander v. Farmers Mut. Automobile Ins. Co. (1964), 25 Wis. (2d) 623, 626, 131 N. W. (2d) 373; State ex rel. Badtke v. School Board (1957), 1 Wis. (2d) 208, 213, 83 N. W. (2d) 724; Estate of Ries (1951), 259 Wis. 453, 49 N. W. (2d) 483, 50 N. W. (2d) 397; State ex rel. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Smith (1924), 184 Wis. 309, 316, 199 N. W. 954.

 Supra, footnote 1, at page 213.

 (1955), 269 Wis. 609, 614, 70 N. W. (2d) 249.