Court Opinion

ID: 9711329
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:29:28.748667+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:03.819139
License: Public Domain

DUGGAN, J.,
dissenting. I would hold that the statute is ambiguous, apply the rule of lenity, and vacate the defendant’s convictions. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
I
The Federal Double Jeopardy Clause “does not prohibit the imposition of all additional sanctions that could, in common parlance, be described as punishment.” Hudson v. United States, 522 U.S. 93, 98-99 (1997) (quotations omitted). Instead, it “protects only against the imposition of multiple criminal punishments for the same offense, and then only when such occurs in successive proceedings.” Id. at 99 (citations omitted). “The Clause ... does no more than prevent the sentencing court from prescribing greater punishment than the legislature intended.” United *285States v. Patel, 370 F.3d 108, 114 (1st Cir. 2004) (quotation omitted). “The limited effect of the Double Jeopardy Clause on multiple punishment claims derives from the principle that the power to define criminal offenses and prescribe punishments ... belongs solely to the legislature.” Id.
Where, as here, a defendant asserts a double jeopardy violation, arguing that he is being punished multiple times under the same statute for the same offense, courts must inquire what “unit of prosecution” was intended by the legislature as the punishable act. Sanabria v. United States, 437 U.S. 54, 69 (1978); State v. Stratton, 132 N.H. 451, 455 (1989). “[0]nce [the legislature] has defined a statutory offense by its prescription of the allowable unit of prosecution, that prescription determines the scope of protection afforded ....” Sanabria, 437 U.S. at 69-70 (quotations and citations omitted). Identifying the appropriate unit of prosecution is a matter of statutory interpretation. United States v. Verrecchia, 196 F.3d 294, 297-98 (1st Cir. 1999). WTere the statute is ambiguous or legislative intent is unclear, courts should apply the rule of lenity to resolve the ambiguity. Bell v. United States, 349 U.S. 81, 83 (1955); State v. Bailey, 127 N.H. 811, 814 (1986).
II
To be sure, the legislature could make the possession of each individual picture — whether an identical copy of another picture or not — a crime. The question presented by this appeal, however, is whether it did. Answering this question requires a determination as to whether the legislature intended the five images at issue to constitute different “units of prosecution” for which the defendant can be punished separately under the statute. In making this determination, we construe Criminal Code provisions according to the fair import of their terms and to promote justice. RSA 625:3 (1996); State v. Porelle, 149 N.H. 420, 424 (2003).
The plain language of the statute does not provide a clear answer. RSA 649-A:3, 1(e) (Supp. 2006) provides, “A person is guilty of a felony if such person: ... [k]nowingly buys, procures, possesses, or controls any visual representation of a child engaging in sexual activity.” Thus, pursuant to the statute, the “unit of prosecution” is any “visual representation.” A visual representation is defined as “any pose, play, dance or other performance, exhibited before an audience or reproduced in or designed to be reproduced in any book, magazine, pamphlet, motion picture film, photograph or picture.” RSA 649-A:2, IV (1996). The phrase “any pose, play, dance or other performance” is ambiguous. On one hand, it could mean, as the majority holds, each individual picture. It could, however, be read to mean that identical copies of pictures are not separate visual representations because each identical copy contains the same identical *286pose. Where the legislature wanted to penalize conduct involving copies of pornographic images, it was able to do so in clear and plain language. See RSA 649-B:3,1(b) (Supp. 2006). Here, it did not.
While the majority cites State v. Cobb, 143 N.H. 638, 647-48 (1999), as support for the position that “the legislature intended the unit of prosecution to be each separate visual representation or image,” Cobb is not controlling here because in that case, the court specifically noted that “[e]ach photograph is different.” Cobb, 143 N.H. at 647. Here, by contrast, each of the photographs at issue is identical to another for which the defendant already had been punished.
The majority also cites State v. Multaler, 643 N.W.2d 437 (Wis. 2002), as support for the position that a unit of prosecution is each separate image. However, it is not clear from the opinion in Multaler whether the defendant there was being punished, as in Cobb, for different photographs or, as here, for identical copies of the same photograph. Rather, in Multaler the defendant argued, in regard to his multiplicity claim, that the legislature intended the unit of prosecution to be one charge for each disk, not for each image on a disk. Id. at 448.
Furthermore, the majority’s interpretation of the word “any” is not a universally held position. For example, one court held:
If the word “a” is used, the courts have discerned a legislative intent that each item of contraband be the basis for a separate unit of prosecution; if the word “any” is used, the courts have discerned a legislative intent that all of the contraband be viewed in the episodic sense with only a single unit of prosecution intended.
State v. Farnham, 752 So. 2d 12, 14 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2000).
Nor does the statutory scheme, when viewed in its entirety, make clear what “unit of prosecution” the legislature intended to punish. RSA 649-A:l (1996) sets forth the legislature’s statement of its purposes in enacting the statute. It provides:
Declaration of Findings and Purposes.
I. The legislature finds that there has been a proliferation of ' exploitation of children through their use as subjects in sexual performances. The care of children is a sacred trust and should not be abused by those who seek to profit through a commercial network based upon the exploitation of children. The public policy of the state demands the protection of children from exploitation through sexual performances.
*287II. It is the purpose of this chapter to facilitate the prosecution of those who exploit children in the manner specified in paragraph I. In accordance with the United States Supreme Court’s decision in New York v. Ferber, this chapter makes the dissemination of visual representations of children under the age of 16 engaged in sexual activity illegal irrespective of whether the visual representations are legally obscene; and the legislature urges law enforcement officers to aggressively seek out and prosecute those who violate the provisions of this chapter.
Although both of these paragraphs emphasize the indisputably important interest in protecting children from exploitation, neither sheds any light upon whether the legislature viewed the possession of, for example, five identical copies of an image to be a more serious offense than the possession of, for example, four. Nor, upon review, does the legislative history shed any light on this issue. Thus, since the phrase “visual depiction” is ambiguous, we must turn to the rule of lenity.
Ill
“The rule of lenity is not to be applied lightly: it applies only if, after seizing everything from which aid can be derived, [the court] can make no more than a guess as to what [the legislature] intended.” United States v. Rolfsema, 468 F.3d 75, 80 (1st Cir. 2006) (quotation omitted).
Under the rule of lenity, grievous ambiguity in a penal statute is resolved in the defendant’s favor. The simple existence of some statutory ambiguity, however, is not sufficient to warrant application of that rule, for most statutes are ambiguous to some degree. Rather, the rule only applies if there is a grievous ambiguity or uncertainty in the statute.
United States v. Councilman, 418 F.3d 67, 83 (1st Cir. 2005) (quotations and citations omitted); see also State v. Parker, 155 N.H. 89, 92 (2007).
Here, the statute contains textual ambiguity and, for the reasons stated above, neither the plain language of the statute, nor its legislative history provides any clarity. See, e.g., Dixson v. United States, 465 U.S. 482, 491 (1984) (“If the legislative history fails to clarify the statutory language, our rule of lenity would compel us to construe the statute in favor of... [the] criminal defendant[] in th[is] case[].”). Furthermore, because this ambiguity can result in a defendant being subjected to significantly higher punishment depending upon how it is interpreted, the ambiguity is “grievous.” Therefore, the rule of lenity applies and we should resolve the statute in the defendant’s favor. Accordingly, lenity requires that a “unit of *288prosecution” does not include possession of identical copies of an image for which a defendant already has been punished.
IV
Using a possession offense to punish a defendant for possessing identical copies of an image does not appeal to a sense of fairness. It would make little sense for a defendant who possesses five identical copies of an image to be punished with five separate felony convictions, while another defendant who possesses three or four identical images receives only three or four such convictions. The legislature has created other means to punish this conduct.
For example, although it is a very real concern that a defendant who possesses multiple copies of an image will sell or distribute at least some of those copies to other individuals, our statute punishes sales and distribution separately from possession. Compare RSA 649-A:3, 1(a) with RSA 649-A:3,1(e). Since our legislature has created a separate mechanism to punish individuals who sell or distribute child pornography, it is through that mechanism that such conduct should be punished. Likewise, since our legislature has created a separate mechanism for punishing individuals who reproduce child pornography through computerized means, see RSA 649-B:3, 1(b), it is through that mechanism that such conduct could also potentially be punished. The conduct at issue here, while grave, seems to have been cabined into a crime where it simply does not fit.
To the extent a defendant has a large quantity of identical pornographic images, the quantity of images can be used as evidence in connection with, for example, a prosecution for selling or delivering pornography under RSA 649-A:3, 1(a) or for reproducing images contrary to RSA 649-B:3, 1(b). This approach is consistent with how courts have analyzed “unit of prosecution” and double jeopardy issues in drug cases prosecuted under statutes criminalizing possession of, possession with intent to distribute, and distribution of controlled substances. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Rabb, 725 N.E.2d 1036, 1041-43 (Mass. 2000) (involving charges for sale of and intent to sell controlled substances).
V
Finally, the majority’s holding is decided solely under the Federal Constitution. Nothing in today’s opinion prevents another defendant from bringing a state constitutional claim in a future case. See Stratton, 132 N.H. at 454 (upholding prosecution on six indictments for possession of six different firearms by a convicted felon because “proof of the elements of the crimes as charged [would] in actuality require a difference in *289evidence”); see also State v. Sanchez, 152 N.H. 625, 630 (2005). Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.
BRODERICK, C.J., joins in the dissent.