Court Opinion

ID: 9606128
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:47:21.044915+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:33.067791
License: Public Domain

BRETT, Judge,
concurs in part, and dissents in part.
I concur that the sentence in this conviction should be modified. However, I dissent to the treatment of this conviction as a felony for the reason I believe that it should have been prosecuted as a misdemeanor.
Notwithstanding what the United States Supreme Court held in United States v. Batchelder, supra, while interpreting the Federal statutes and procedure, I believe that the action of the Oklahoma legislature, in passing the misdemeanor statute 21 O.S. 1971, § 1040.8, which became effective March 27, 1979, repealed by implication the provisions of 21 O.S.1971, § 1040.51, the felony statute, which became effective April 29, 1978. Therefore, I believe the charge should have been lodged as a misdemeanor instead of a felony, and I believe this conviction should be for a misdemean- or.
The subsequent misdemeanor statute covers everything that the felony statute covered and even more. The felony statute provides in brief, that any person who knowingly buys, barters, traffics in, causes to be delivered or transported any picture; series of pictures, drawing, diagram or photograph; or any person or animal or caricature in any act or acts of sexual intercourse or unnatural copulation, shall be deemed guilty of a felony.
The subsequent misdemeanor statute provides, in brief, that any person who know-, ingly photographs, act in, pose for, print, sell, offer for sale, give away, exhibit, publish or offer to publish, otherwise distribute, make, display or exhibit any book, magazine, story or pamphlet, paper, writing, card, advertisement, circular, print, picture, photograph, motion picture, image, cast, slide, figure, instrument, statute, drawing, presentation or other article which is obscene, lascivious, lewd or unfit as defined in 21 O.S.Supp.1968, § 1040.12, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
Considering the two statutes, I believe it is improper to authorize the prosecutor to elect whether to charge a defendant with a felony or a misdemeanor for the same act committed under the same circumstances by persons in like situations.
With the exception of our holding in McCrary v. State, Okl.Cr., 507 P.2d 924 (1973), the generally held view is that giving the prosecution discretion to choose whether to charge a defendant with a felony or a misdemeanor for the same act committed under the same circumstances by persons in like situations, is violative of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. See, inter alia, People v. Calvaresi, 188 Colo. 277, 534 P.2d 316 (1975); State v. Blanchey, 75 Wash.2d 926, 454 P.2d 841 (1969), cert. denied 396 U.S. 1045, 90 S.Ct. 694, 24 L.Ed.2d 688 (1970); Olsen v. Delmore, 48 Wash.2d 545, 295 P.2d 324 (1956); State v. Pirkey, 203 Or. 697, 281 P.2d 698 (1955), in which it was stated at page 701, “The constitution does not require that a law shall affect all persons exactly alike, but there is a guarantee of like treatment to all persons similarly situated.” Clark v. State, 53 Ariz. 416, 89 P.2d 1077 (1939).
In this jurisdiction, prior to McCrary, 507 P.2d 924, supra, this Court held that where the terms of a later statute are repugnant to the terms of a prior statute, the later statute supercedes the earlier statute, and the earlier statute is deemed to be implicitly repealed by the enactment of the later statute. See, Atchley v. State, Okl.Cr., 473 P.2d 286 (1970), wherein this Court held that 47 O.S.1961, § 11-903, providing criminal sanctions for negligent homicide, superseded 21 O.S.1961, § 716, the manslaughter statute, as it pertained to death by criminal negligence of another by the driving of an automobile. Nor do I think it can be said that 21 O.S.1971, § 11, can or does authorize the legislature to pass statutes giving the prosecutor the option of choosing whether *472to file a misdemeanor or a felony charge against a person on the basis of prosecutorial whim. It is clear to me that the statement, “But an act or omission which is made punishable in different ways by different provisions of this code may be punished under either of such provisions,” refers to such situations as in Crutchfield v. State, Okl.Cr., 553 P.2d 504 (1976), where the State chose to charge the defendant with the crime of injury to public buildings rather than with the crime of injury to pipes and wires, where the defendant injured a public building by carrying out pipes and wires. As the last amendment to 21 O.S.1971, § 1040.8, occurred after the enactment of 21 O.S.1971, § 1040.51, and as the rulings of the Supreme Court of the United States pertaining to the interpretation of state statutes, and of this Court have determined that the two statutes proscribe exactly the same, therefore we should declare that 21 O.S.1971, § 1040.51, has been implicitly repealed by 21 O.S.1971, § 1040.8, to the extent that the two statutes prohibit the same activity.
Therefore I concur that the sentence herein should be modified, but I dissent to the treatment of this conviction as a felony conviction.