Court Opinion

ID: 9849416
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:39:55.224127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:23.566532
License: Public Domain

COMPTON, J.,
dissenting.
Upon the threshold, it should be stated that I fully share the majority’s policy concerns about the danger created by the unlawful use of handguns in today’s society. Nevertheless, I disagree with the majority’s decision in this case for two reasons.
First, I feel bound to apply the ancient maxim that a penal statute must be construed strictly against the State and favorably to the citizen. Speaking of that settled rule, this court said in Sutherland v. Commonwealth, 109 Va. 834, 835, 65 S.E. 15, 15 (1909):
The maxim is founded on the tenderness of the law for the rights of individuals, and on the plain principle that the power of punishment is vested in the legislature and not in the judicial department. No man incurs a penalty unless the act which subjects him to it is clearly within the spirit and letter of the statute which imposes such penalty. There can be no constructive offenses, and before a man can be punished his case must be plainly and unmistakably within the statute. If these principles are violated, the fate of the accused is determined by the arbitrary discretion of the judges and not by the express authority of the law.
Applying this principle to the facts of this case, I am of opinion that the act of which the defendant stands convicted did not come within the spirit or the letter of the statute in question.
*433Insofar as pertinent here, Code § 18.2-308 provides as follows:
If any person carry about his person, hid from common observation, any pistol, ... he shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor, ...
The proscription of the statute is not directed to the mere act of carrying a pistol, or similar weapon listed therein (e.g., dirk, bowie knife, switchblade knife, razor, metal knucks); the simple act of bearing openly such a weapon is not made unlawful. Rather, the punishment for the crime is aimed at preventing a person from acquiring by concealment the ability and power to do a wrongful act. In other words, this enactment seeks to prevent a person from carrying a deadly weapon of the type enumerated in such a manner and in such a way as to enable that person to surprise another by his latent ability to cause death or bodily harm. That this is true is implicit from the statute, which focuses upon the practice of concealing a deadly weapon about the person.
Significant is the fact that in the first clause the word “person” is used twice: “If any person carry about his person, . . .” The first use of the word is in a generic sense, meaning “an individual human being . . . (any person present).” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1686 (1971). The second use of the term is in a more limited and restricted sense; it refers to the physical “body of a human being as presented to public view usually with its appropriate coverings and clothing (an unlawful search of the person).” Id. Thus for the weapon to be concealed “about [the] person” within the meaning of the statute, it must be in touch with a member of the body or in touch with clothing, coverings, or other items worn about the body. It must be so connected with the body as to be ready and handy whenever the possessor desires to use it. If the weapon is located where the possessor is likely to lose control or ready access to it by inadvertence or accident, it is not “about his person.” The weapon must be carried as arms and not as a commodity.
If the legislative intent had been otherwise and the General Assembly meant to prohibit carrying a weapon concealed, for example, in a handbag or in a basket or in a saddlebag, then the second reference to “person” would have been omitted as being unnecessary. The statute would have then read: “If any person carry, hid from common observation, any pistol. . . .” Under such a provision, the statute would have been violated whether or not the gun was connected with the person as long as it was carried and hidden from common observation.
*434Consequently, under a strict construction of § 18.2-308, I would hold that the conduct here of carrying a handbag in which was concealed a pistol did not amount to carrying such weapon “about [her] person,” within the meaning of the statute.
There is a second, equally important reason why I am unable to join my brethren in this case. As I construe the majority opinion, the interpretation of the statute articulated in Sutherland is frontally rejected and, to that extent, the case is summarily overruled. In my view, this amounts to judicial legislation, an exercise in which I am unwilling to engage.
Preliminarily, I do not believe the facts of Sutherland can be distinguished from the facts of this case, although the majority takes a different view without telling us in explicit terms how the cases can be differentiated. In Sutherland, the court said: “The question presented is whether or not it is a violation of the statute against carrying concealed weapons for a man to carry in his hand a pair of saddlebags containing a pistol, which is hidden from common observation.” 109 Va. at 835, 65 S.E. at 15. By merely substituting “a handbag” for “a pair of saddle-bags,” and by referring to a female instead of a male, the issue in this case is precisely stated and is the same as in Sutherland.
The statutory provisions with which we are concerned here have remained unchanged during the 70-year period since Sutherland was decided in 1909. Manifestly, then, over the ensuing years the General Assembly has tacitly approved the Sutherland construction of the statute. In addition, it is significant that within the last five years the General Assembly has changed on three occasions other provisions of the very same statute without any alteration of the substantive provisions with which we today deal, and reenacted the statute each time. See Acts 1979, ch. 642; Acts 1978, ch. 715; Acts 1976, ch. 302. That circumstance, I submit, buttresses the view that the General Assembly has implicitly endorsed the Sutherland interpretation of the statute. Consequently, the abrupt change announced today in the law of concealed weapons should come, in my view, as the result of legislative enactment and not by judicial decision.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.
CARRICO, J., joins in the second part of this dissenting opinion.