Commonwealth v. H.D.

• Decision Date: 25 March 2021
• Docket Number: No. 33 MAP 2020,33 MAP 2020
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant v. H.D., Appellee
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

247 A.3d 1062

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant

v.H.D., Appellee

No. 33 MAP 2020

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued: December 2, 2020

Decided: March 25, 2021

Jill Marie Graziano, Esq., Stephen B. Harris, Esq., Warrington, Matthew D. Weintraub, Esq., Bucks County District Attorney's Office, for Appellant.

Patrick J. McMenamin Jr., Esq., McMenamin & Margiotti, LLC, Lansdale, for Appellee.

SAYLOR, C.J., BAER, TODD, DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, JJ.

OPINION

CHIEF JUSTICE SAYLOR

The Legislature has prescribed that a defendant is innocent of the crime of "interference with custody of children" when he or she believed that intrusive actions were necessary to spare the subject child from danger. In this appeal, the Commonwealth contends that the belief element of this offense should be construed to encompass only beliefs that are held reasonably.

Appellee and her husband separated in June 2015, divorce proceedings were initiated, and an agreement governing the shared custody of their five-year-old child was consummated. Appellee, however, repeatedly and intentionally violated this custody agreement. In June 2016, she absconded with the child ultimately to Florida, where the child remained for the balance of the forty-seven days during which she remained separated from her father. Appellee claimed that the father was abusive, her attempts to secure assistance from the local children and youth agency had been rebuffed, and she had no option but to remove the child from the father's care.

Appellee was apprehended and charged with the offense of interference with custody of children under Section 2904 of the Crimes Code, which generally pertains if an individual "knowingly or recklessly takes or entices any child under the age of 18 years from the custody of its parent, guardian or other lawful custodian, when he [or she] has no privilege to do so." 18 Pa.C.S. § 2904(a). Among several defenses internal to this statute, the General Assembly provided -- in Section 2904(b)(1) -- that criminal liability does not attach where "the actor believed that his action was necessary to preserve the child from danger to its welfare[.]" Id. § 2904(b)(1).

At trial, the Commonwealth presented testimony from the father, a social worker, and a detective to the effect that Appellee's allegations of child abuse were false and/or unfounded. A clinical psychologist also attested that the child made no disclosures of any abuse across several counseling sessions. In the defense case, Appellee said that she had been advised by a nanny that the child had disclosed an incident of offensive touching by the father, and that subsequently the child repeatedly made statements to Appellee personally which were indicative of abuse. Appellee sought assistance from various governmental agencies to no avail, she maintained, leading to her ultimate decision to defy the custody agreement to protect her child. Appellee also presented the nanny's corroborative testimony, and her cousin attested that the child had apprised her of inappropriate touching as well.

The suggested jury charge for interference with custody of children under Section 2904, prepared by the Criminal Jury Instructions Subcommittee of the Committee on Proposed Standard Jury Instructions, indicates that a defendant is not guilty of interference with the custody of a child where "the defendant believed that [his] [her] action was necessary to preserve the child from danger to [his] [her] welfare[.]" PA. STANDARD SUGGESTED JURY INSTRUCTIONS (CRIM.) § 15.2904 (Pa. Bar Inst. 2016) (emphasis added; interlineations in original). The Subcommittee recognized that "there is a debate about whether the defendant's belief that that his or her actions were necessary to preserve the welfare of the child must be reasonable." Id. , Subcommittee Note. Further, the Subcommittee explained that drafters of Section 212.4 of the Model Penal Code -- after which Pennsylvania's interference with custody of a child statute was fashioned -- had explicitly rejected a reasonableness standard, "as it may implicate a parent who honestly thought he or she was protecting his or her child from danger, even if the belief may have been objectively unreasonable." Id. (citing MODEL PENAL CODE & COMMENTARIES , pt. II, § 212.4, cmt. 3, at 259 (Am. Law Inst. 1980) [hereinafter "MPC & COMMENTARIES"]). Ultimately, the Committee omitted the reasonableness criterion from the suggested instruction, since there is no mention of it in Section 2904(b)(1). See id.

Courts generally are not wed, however, to the suggested instructions. See Commonwealth v. Eichinger , 631 Pa. 138, 178, 108 A.3d 821, 845 (2014) ("The Suggested Standard Jury Instructions themselves are not binding and do not alter the discretion afforded trial courts in crafting jury instructions; rather, as their title suggests, the instructions are guides only.").¹ Accordingly, the Commonwealth filed a contested pretrial motion seeking an instruction that the relevant defense to interference with the custody of a child should turn on whether the defendant had a reasonable belief, a position that had been adopted in a published decision by a county court. See Commonwealth v. Chubb , 3 Pa. D.&C. 3d 676, 680 (C.P. Cumberland 1977).

The trial court granted the Commonwealth's motion and, at trial, the court instructed the jury that "[if] you find the defendant reasonably believed that [the child's] welfare was in imminent danger, you must find the defendant not guilty." N.T., March 20, 2017, at 104 (emphasis added). During deliberations, the jurors asked the following questions:

[W]hat does the actual statute say in terms of the defense clause and how should we interpret the statute with respect to the judge's instruction[?]

Second, what constitutes reasonable belief of the defendant to justify the defendant's withholding of the custody of the minor[?]

Id. at 112. The trial court responded by reiterating the charge as previously rendered. See id. at 114-117.

Appellee was convicted and sentenced and, although she did not initially pursue a direct appeal, her direct-appeal rights were reinstated in a post-conviction proceeding. In the ensuing appeal proceedings, the Superior Court reversed the judgment of sentence and remanded for a new trial. See Commonwealth v. H.D. , 217 A.3d 880 (Pa. Super. 2019).

The intermediate court's core reasoning was as follows:

The language of Section 2904(b)(1) is straightforward. There is no mention of a reasonable person standard. ...

* * *

The defense provided in Section 2904(b)(1) is a purely subjective test: whether the defendant "believed that his action was necessary to preserve the child from danger to its welfare." This is strictly a credibility decision to be made by the jury as to the belief of the defendant. This statute does not provide an opportunity for a jury to compare the actions of the defendant with a "reasonable person" under similar circumstances. If the Legislature intended to provide otherwise, it is within the discretion of the Legislature to amend the statute.

Id. at 886-87. The court also highlighted the consistency of its ruling with the suggested jury instructions and the Model Penal Code. See id. at 887.

In the present discretionary appeal proceedings, the Commonwealth argues that the Superior Court's interpretation of Section 2904(b)(1) heralds "absurd and unreasonable results and undermines the very purpose of this criminal statute." Brief for Appellant at 16. In this regard, the Commonwealth finds it perverse that defendants may avoid criminal responsibility "merely by asserting their belief, true or not, that the child was in danger." Id.

It is the Commonwealth's position that the Legislature intended to criminalize precisely the type of parental kidnapping that occurred in this case. Along these lines, the Commonwealth complains:

Under the Superior Court's interpretation, Appellee here -- who absconded with her five-year old daughter, moved her to another state to live with virtual strangers, thereby depriving the child's father of his court-ordered custody for a period of 47 days, and refused to reveal his daughter's location even after arrest -- would suffer no criminal consequence because she subjectively, but unreasonably, believed her daughter was in danger of abuse. In other words, Appellee would be permitted to avail herself of a complete defense to her crime despite the fact that her justification -- an alleged danger to her daughter's welfare -- and the many accusations she made against the child's father, were all deemed unfounded.

Id. at 18.

The Commonwealth acknowledges its awareness that that a statute's plain language is generally the best indicator of legislative intent. See id. at 18 (citing, inter alia , 1 Pa.C.S. § 1921(b) ("When the words of a statute are clear and free from all ambiguity, the letter of it is not to be disregarded under the pretext of pursing its spirit.")). But, citing Chubb , it argues that Section 2904(b)(1) is susceptible to different interpretations. Moreover, the Commonwealth reiterates that the Legislature has also instructed courts to presume that it doesn't intend results that are "absurd, impossible of execution or unreasonable." 1 Pa.C.S. § 1922(1). Particularly because the Commonwealth believes that the Superior Court's interpretation conflicts with the asserted legislative objective to "criminalize parental kidnapping," it asks us to turn to principles of statutory interpretation pertaining in the face of ambiguity or non-explicitness, including consideration of the occasion and necessity for a statute, the mischief to be remedied, and the consequences of a particular interpretation. Brief for Appellant at 19-20.

Throughout its brief, the Commonwealth stresses that the Section 2904(a) offense was designed to protect the custodial rights of a parent against unlawful and unjustified interference by another person, including another parent. See id. at 29. The Commonwealth...