Court Opinion

ID: 9785182
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 21:07:03.87183+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:08.444010
License: Public Domain

Skoglund, J.,
¶ 35. concurring. I concur with the majority’s constitutional analysis and its mandate, but I would avoid the constitutional question and hold that the Legislature, in enacting the aggravated murder statute, impliedly repealed that part of the felony murder statute related to sexual assault. See, e.g., State v. Bauder, 2007 VT 16, ¶27, 181 Vt. 392, 924 A.2d 38 (“It is, of course, a fundamental tenet of judicial restraint that courts will not address constitutional claims . . . when adequate lesser grounds are available.”); see also 4 W. LaFave, et al., Criminal Procedure § 13.7(a), at 259 (3d ed. 2007) (concluding that courts may avoid constitutional issue addressed in Batchelder “by utilizing canons of statutory construction, such as that a later statute should prevail over an earlier one with which it would otherwise overlap, or that the more specific statute should prevail over the more general one with which it would otherwise overlap”).
¶ 36. The felony murder statute has been on the books since 1869 and has remained the same since at least 1947, except for a 1983 amendment that substituted the words “sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault” for the word “rape.” 1983, No. 28, § 1. In 1987, the Legislature passed the aggravated murder statute listing eight circumstances that give rise to aggravated murder, including murder “committed in perpetrating or attempting to perpetrate sexual assault or aggravated sexual, assault,” 13 V.S.A. § 2311(a)(8) — which is also one of the circumstances for felony murder under the older statute. I agree with the trial court that the Legislature was plainly aware of the felony murder statute and yet chose in 1987 to redefine murders committed while perpetrating sexual assault as aggravated murders. Such a conclusion best implements the legislative intent, given the nature and timing of the statutes in question. Accordingly, I would hold that the Legislature in 1987, with its enactment of the aggravated murder statute, impliedly repealed the sexual assault component of the felony murder statute.
*327¶ 37. While we may not presume repeal by implication, we “will” conclude that a statute has been impliedly repealed by another act if “(a) the acts are so far repugnant that they cannot stand together, or (b) are not so repugnant, but the later act covers the whole subject of the former and plainly shows it was intended as a substitute therefore.” State v. Baron, 2004 VT 20, ¶ 10, 176 Vt. 314, 848 A.2d 275 (quotation omitted). I agree with the Batchelder Court that two statutes are not mutually repugnant merely because they produce differing results when applied to the same factual situation, 442 U.S. 114, 122 (1979), but I would conclude in this case that even though the statutes are not so far repugnant, the later aggravated murder statute covers the whole subject of the relevant part of the felony murder statute — murder perpetrated during a sexual assault or aggravated sexual assault — and the timing and specificity of the later statute makes the legislative intent manifest. See, e.g., State v. Chavez, 419 P.2d 456, 457-58 (N.M. 1966) (stating that it was “obvious” when legislature amended narcotic drug law to include marijuana that it did so with apparent intent to make it controlling over marijuana law providing for lesser penalty); see also Cent. Vt. Hosp., Inc. v. Town of Berlin, 164 Vt. 456, 459, 672 A.2d 474, 476 (1995) (stating that when two statutes deal with same subject matter, generally more specific and more recent provision prevails).
¶ 38. The aggravated murder statute lists all circumstances under which first or second degree murder will be considered aggravated, including during the perpetration of a sexual assault or aggravated sexual assault. Accordingly, it supplants that circumstance — but only that circumstance — with respect to the felony murder statute. I realize that various persons connected to the enactment of the aggravated murder statute in 1987 — including committee witnesses and at least one committee member — provided their particular take on the implications of having the same elements in both statutes. But, as the majority and the dissent indicate, none of this legislative history is definitive, and it certainly does not undermine the notion that the Legislature, as a body, intended to impliedly repeal the overlapping part of the felony murder statute.
¶ 39. For good reason, courts are generally “hesitant to resort to . . . statements [of the purpose or nature of the proposed law] made by committee members or other persons at the committee’s hearings.” 2A N. Singer & J. Singer, Sutherland Statutory Con*328struction § 48:10, at 583 (7th ed. 2007). Doing so would require one to consider what impact such statements may have made on the majority of legislators, which could be considered indulging in judicial legislation. Id. § 48:2, at 548 (noting Justice Robert Jackson’s stated preference for making decisions by statutory analysis rather than “psychoanalysis of Congress” (quotation omitted)). Under these circumstances, the most reasonable and 'accurate course of action is to presume implied repeal of the overlapping part of the two statutes.