Court Opinion

ID: 9545424
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:12:14.20717+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:14:45.724481
License: Public Domain

Brachtenbach, C.J.
(dissenting) — I concur with the dissent of Justice Dolliver, but on a somewhat different analysis.
The issue is not as stated by the majority. This case does not involve an ordinary physical custody dispute between competing parents and the right of one legally unfettered parent to assume custody of his or her children.
Rather, broadly stated, the issue is whether the defendant took his children "without legal authority." If he did, his conviction must be upheld.
More narrowly and accurately, the sole issue is: Does a father who is a prison inmate but on furlough have legal authority to take his children from their mother's home under the following factual circumstances:
A. He is a convicted felon serving time in the penitentiary;
B. His furlough restricts his physical presence to a town approximately 150 miles from the location of his children;
C. He is prohibited from driving an automobile, which he does to take custody of his children;
D. Without permission, he enters the home where the children reside with their mother after ascertaining that their mother is not home;
E. He exhibits a forged document purporting to grant him parole from the Board of Prison Terms and Paroles and purportedly granting him specific permission to have *765his children live with him from November 8, 1978, to January 3, 1979, "and again on June 4th to August 15th, 1979 as per [his wife's] request and the order of the court" and further purportedly granting him the privilege to travel outside the state as he saw fit;
F. The oldest child believed he would force them to accompany him in any event.
As noted, our task is to determine whether defendant, under the above circumstances, acted without legal authority. The legislature did not define the term "without legal authority." Therefore it is our duty to determine legislative intent, i.e., did the legislature intend that a defendant so situated did have legal authority to take his children?
In addition to our own rules of statutory construction, we have a mandate, ignored by the majority, of the principles of construction in aid of the declared general purposes of the Washington Criminal Code. Relevant are these purposes: (1) to forbid and prevent conduct that inflicts or threatens substantial harm to individual or public interests and (2) to construe the provisions of the code according to the fair import of their terms, but when the language is susceptible of differing constructions to interpret them to further the general purpose stated above. RCW 9A.04-.020(l)(a) and (2).
Our rules of construction include the principle that statutes should not be construed to reach absurd results. Blondheim v. State, 84 Wn.2d 874, 879, 529 P.2d 1096 (1975).
What then was the legislative intent in attaching a criminal penalty to action taken without legal authority? In other words, what is the meaning of legal authority? We look to the ordinary meaning of the words. State v. Miss-mer, 72 Wn.2d 1022, 1026, 435 P.2d 638 (1967).
The appropriate dictionary definition is: "4: conforming to or permitted by law . . . conforming to the procedures and methods prescribed by law ..." Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1290 (1976).
*766The law definition of "legal" is comparable to its ordinary dictionary meaning. "1. Conforming to the law; according to law; required or permitted by law; not forbidden or discountenanced by law ..." (Citations omitted.) Black's Law Dictionary 1038 (4th ed. 1968). Accord, Freeman v. Fowler Packing Co., 135 Kan. 378, 380, 11 P.2d 276 (1932).
The only case located dealing specifically with the words "legal authority" within a kidnapping statute is State v. Epps, 36 Ore. App. 519, 522, 585 P.2d 425, 427 (1978) where the court stated: "Obviously, with 'legal authority' means authorized by law."
Was the defendant then conforming to the law, were his actions permitted by law, were they not forbidden by the law?
The defendant was not only acting without legal authority, he was in violation of the law specifically and forbidden to even be where he was when taking his children. RCW 72.66.026(1).
The legal restrictions upon defendant's rights are obvious. Even though on furlough he was in legal custody of the State as an incarcerated felon. " [T]he grant of a furlough is not intended to constitute a release from the custody of the Department, but merely extends the limits of custody according to its terms, be that custody characterized as actual or constructive." Smith v. State, 361 A.2d 237, 238 (Del. 1976).
Even though on furlough, defendant was considered to be confined in a detention facility, at least for certain purposes. RCW 9A.76.010(2)(e).
The defendant's acts do not gain legal authorization from the fact that if he were not a prison inmate he might have had the right to child custody. While in prison he had no such immediate right. Losing certain rights is a necessary incident of prison confinement. Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. 817, 822, 41 L. Ed. 2d 495, 94 S. Ct. 2800 (1974). Separation from one's family is a necessary deprivation which is constitutionally tolerated. Oxendine v. Williams, 509 F.2d 1405 *767(4th Cir. 1975); McCray v. Sullivan, 509 F.2d 1332 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 859, 46 L. Ed. 2d 86, 96 S. Ct. 114 (1975).
As noted by Justice Dolliver, the majority states some principles of law about custody which are accurate but totally irrelevant. This is not a custody issue between parents and it is not a question of permanent deprivation of parental rights. Rather it involves a very narrow question whether an incarcerated prisoner has legal authority to assume secret and fraudulent total physical custody of his children in violation of the terms of his furlough and therefore in violation of the law.
I suggest that the foregoing analysis heeds the legislative mandate and does construe the applicable statute according to the fair import of its terms. Further, it carries out the purposes of forbidding and preventing conduct that inflicts or threatens substantial harm to individual or public interests.
Even apart from the legislative mandate, we should heed the wisdom that:
Even the rule that penal statutes are to be strictly construed does not permit a court to ignore the legislative intent, nor does it require the rejection of that sense of the words used which best harmonizes with the design of the statute or the end in view.
State v. Prevo, 44 Hawaii 665, 669, 361 P.2d 1044 (1961). The defendant's conviction should be affirmed.
Stafford, J., concurs with Brachtenbach, C.J.