Court Opinion

ID: 9591414
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:04:14.189535+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:12:54.245992
License: Public Domain

RUSSELL, J.,
dissenting.
The statute under consideration penalizes as capital murder the killing of “a person during the commission of, or subsequent to, rape.” Code § 18.2-31(e) (emphasis added). In this case, the murderer killed the rape victim’s husband. The only definition of “person” applicable to a victim of a homicide is “an individual human being.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1686 (3d ed. 1976).
Although contrary views are sometimes expressed, it remains my impression that husbands, as a class, retain their membership in the human race. If that proposition remains true, the victim of the murder in this case was “a person.” If he was, the statute clearly includes this homicide. We refused the defendant’s appeal as to all other assignments of error.
*368Yet, the majority has concluded that for the purposes of this statute the homicide victim was not “a person.” This was accomplished by recourse to rules of statutory construction, in which the legislative intent was divined by contrasting the various parts of the statute in an effort to determine what the General Assembly had in mind. The fact that the legislature used “any person” in other sections is employed as a rationale for holding the phrase “a person” to be ambiguous.
The fault in that analysis is that unless the words to be interpreted are in themselves ambiguous, there is no reason for statutory construction at all. Brown, et al. v. Lukhard, etc., et al., 229 Va. 316, 330 S.E.2d 84 (this day decided); School Board v. State Board, et al., 219 Va. 244, 250, 247 S.E.2d 380, 384 (1978). We are not free to go outside a specific, unambiguous clause and search through the act at large for provisions which might tend to render ambiguous the plain terms of the clause under consideration. Lane v. Board of Trustees of Employees R. & B. Fund, 139 W. Va. 878, 82 S.E.2d 179 (1954).
We follow the “plain meaning” rule in Virginia. Berry v. Klinger, 225 Va. 201, 208, 300 S.E.2d 792, 796 (1983). Where the language of a statute is clear and unambiguous, rules of statutory construction are not required. Ambrogi v. Koontz, 224 Va. 381, 386, 297 S.E.2d 660, 662 (1982). The language “killing of a person” is plain, clear, intelligible, and meaningful. Whether such language is wise or necessary is a question for the legislature, not for the courts. Carter, Adm’r, v. Nelms, 204 Va. 338, 346, 131 S.E.2d 401, 406 (1963).
We have many times said that where the language of a statute is free from ambiguity, its plain meaning is to be accepted without resort to the rules of interpretation. In that situation, we take the words as written and a resort to the extrinsic facts to determine their meaning is not permitted.
Portsmouth v. Chesapeake, 205 Va. 259, 269, 136 S.E.2d 817, 825 (1964) (emphasis added). This principle is a valuable guard against unwarranted judicial activism. It is by no means new and is deeply embedded in our jurisprudence. See, e.g., United States v. Fisher, 6 U.S. (2 Cranch) 358 (1804); Carter v. Tyler, 5 Va. (1 Call) 165, 184 (1797).
*369If the General Assembly intended to restrict the operation of the capital murder statute to the killing of a rape victim, as the majority holds, it knew how to say so. Instead, it chose to penalize the “killing of a person,” perhaps as clear an example of plain, unambiguous language as there is to be found in the Code. I would apply this language as written, and affirm the conviction.
CARRICO, C.J., and COCHRAN, J., join in dissent.