Court Opinion

ID: 9670396
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:19:52.071828+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:04.259293
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice,
concurring in result.
I concur in the result. I write separately for the purpose of emphasizing a problem that resulted from the adoption in Section 12.1-23-05, N.D.C.C., of a provision of the proposed Federal Criminal Code with changes in some of the subsections thereof which appear to me to put them “out of sync.” As the majority opinion notes, *636when North Dakota enacted this provision it reduced the threshold of a Class B felony for theft of property from $100,000 to $10,-000. Statutes using dollars as a measure of value for grading offenses should be scrutinized periodically to determine if they reflect the original philosophy in light of the current value of the dollar. The portion of North Dakota’s statute, Section 12.-1-23-05, with which we are concerned has not been amended since its enactment in 1973, although the value of the dollar has decreased significantly since that time as a result of inflation. We are thus confronted by a fact situation, i.e., theft of an automobile, the value of which exceeds $10,000, which would otherwise qualify the theft as a Class B felony were it not for the provision making theft of an automobile a Class C felony. That fact situation would have been improbable at best were the limits for a Class B felony $100,000 as contemplated in the Federal Criminal Code and perhaps unlikely, even with the much lower limit of $10,000, in 1973 when the statute was enacted.
This change in the statute and the change in the value of the dollar has distorted the scheme of the Federal Criminal Code, which apparently influenced North Dakota when the statute was enacted in 1973. As an example, the comments from the Working Papers of the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws cited in the majority opinion indicate that in the theft of a car the value is “essentially irrelevant.” Nevertheless, the majority opinion also observes that the Federal Criminal Code and our statute treat theft and theft accompanied with a threat of serious bodily injury differently and that the construction espoused therein “preserves a difference in punishment between simple theft of an automobile, regardless of its value, as a class C felony, and theft of an automobile with a threat to inflict serious bodily injury as a class B felony.” I am unconvinced by that logic, for it must necessarily rely upon subsection 1 of Section 12.1-23-05 which defines theft as a Class B felony “if the property or services stolen exceed ten thousand dollars in value or are acquired or retained by a threat to commit a class A or class B felony or to inflict serious bodily injury ...” [Emphasis mine.] It seems to me that if that portion of the statute which refers to threat to inflict serious bodily injury can turn the theft of an automobile from what would otherwise be a Class C felony into a Class B felony, so grammatically (and perhaps logically) should the theft of an automobile which is over $10,000 in value. We can thus conclude one of several things: i.e., (1) when our Legislature adopted the provision from the proposed Federal Criminal Code but substituted $10,000 as the threshold for the Class B felony rather than the $100,000 proposed in the Federal Criminal Code it changed the relationship and the balance of the various provisions of the grading statute either intentionally or unintentionally or (2) the rationale did not change and that if any of the conditions of Section 12.1-23-05(1) are met the theft is a Class B felony regardless of what it is that was stolen.
Although I prefer the result, reflected in the dicta in the majority opinion, that theft of an automobile accomplished with threat to inflict serious bodily injury would be a Class B felony, the arrangement and relationship of the various parts of the statute convinces me that the theft of an automobile with a value of more than $10,000 or the theft of an automobile with a threat to inflict serious bodily injury are both Class B felonies or neither is a Class B felony. Because, as noted in the majority opinion, we strictly construe penal statutes in favor of the persons on whom they are sought to be imposed, I concede we should construe the statute as grading the theft of an automobile exclusively as a Class C felony.1 *637However, that same rationale appears to me to apply to the situation in which the theft of that automobile is accomplished with a threat to inflict serious bodily injury-
There may well be sound reasons to suggest that a crime, such as theft, committed with a threat to inflict serious bodily injury should be graded as a more serious offense than the theft of property, even that of a high dollar value, accomplished without such a threat. But I am not convinced our statute accomplishes that end or that we can so construe the statute except by arbitrary judicial fiat. If that end is desirable policy the Legislature should amend the statute accordingly.

. I cannot help but observe that it seems probable the comments from the Working Papers quoted in the majority opinion relative to the Dyer Act and the irrelevancy of valuation in the case of theft of a car indicate only an intent to make the theft of an automobile a felony because "there is a substantial invasion of the ownership rights of the victim that is felt to justify the existing Federal law making such acts felonious." [Emphasis supplied.] Because at the time the working papers were written, and even today, an automobile with a value in ex*637cess of $100,000 would be extraordinary, the comments seem to reflect merely a justification for making the theft of an automobile a felony, regardless of its lesser value, not an intent to limit the theft of an automobile to a Class C felony if its value exceeded $100,000; therefore, theft of any property worth more than $100,000, including an automobile, was to be a Class B felony. If our Legislature adopted the same rationale although lowering the threshold for a Class B felony from $100,000 to $10,000, the theft in this instance would be a Class B felony.