Knutson v. Brewer, 79-1861

• Decision Date: 17 April 1980
• Docket Number: No. 79-1861,79-1861
• Parties: Wayne Glenn KNUTSON, Appellant, v. Lou V. BREWER, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 747

619 F.2d 747

Wayne Glenn KNUTSON, Appellant, v. Lou V. BREWER, Appellee.

No. 79-1861.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted March 14, 1980.

Decided April 17, 1980.

Jerald W. Kinnamon, Kinnamon, Kinnamon, Russo & Meyer, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (argued), and Jon M. Kinnamon, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on brief, for appellant.

Thomas D. McGrane, Asst. Atty. Gen., Des Moines, Iowa (argued), and Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen., Des Moines, Iowa, on brief, for appellee.

Before BRIGHT, ROSS and ARNOLD, Circuit Judges.

ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

This is a petition for habeas corpus brought by a state prisoner, Wayne Glenn Knutson. The District Court (the Hon. W. C. Stuart, Chief Judge) dismissed the petition on its merits. We affirm.

Knutson is serving a life sentence for the crime of kidnapping for ransom. ¹ He claims he is unconstitutionally in custody for two reasons: (1) The Iowa kidnapping-for-ransom statute, § 706.3, Code of Iowa (1971), is invalid as applied to his conduct in this case; and (2) even if the statute is valid, a rational jury could not have found beyond a reasonable doubt all the elements of the crime of which Knutson was convicted.

A brief statement of the facts and of the course of proceedings in the State courts is necessary to place these issues in context. On the night of February 27, 1972, Knutson forced his way into a car driven by Vicki Lynn Sullivan. He drove to a secluded spot some distance away, all the while holding Miss Sullivan by the neck. When he stopped the car, he made advances, which were repelled. He then demanded that the victim have sexual intercourse or oral copulation with him, or she would be harmed. Miss Sullivan continued to resist, and Knutson repeatedly told her that she would be all right if she did what he wanted. Finally Knutson forced her to commit sodomy. She tried to run away but was recaptured. After holding the victim a while longer, Knutson drove back to his own car and left her. The whole episode took about an hour.

Knutson was charged with assault with intent to commit a felony, sodomy, and kidnapping for ransom. The jury convicted him of all three offenses. The trial court sentenced Knutson to five years for assault with intent to commit a felony and to ten years for sodomy. With regard to the third offense the trial court expressed some hesitation. The statute defining the crime of kidnapping by ransom, § 706.3, Code of Iowa (1971), then read ² as follows:

706.3 Kidnapping for ransom. Whoever kidnaps, takes, or carries away any person, or decoys or entices such person away from any place in this state for the purpose of or with the intention of receiving or securing from anyone any money, property, or thing of value as a ransom reward, or price for the return of the person so kidnapped, taken, carried, decoyed, or enticed away, as aforesaid, or whoever shall imprison, detain, or hold any person at any place in this state for the purpose or with the intent of receiving or securing from anyone money, property, or thing of value as a ransom, reward, or price for the return, liberation, or surrender of the person so imprisoned, detained, or held, shall be deemed to be guilty of the crime of kidnapping for the purpose of ransom, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by imprisonment for life at hard labor in the penitentiary and the court shall enter judgment and pass sentence accordingly.

The trial court observed that the Supreme Court of Iowa had never expressly held that the performance of an illegal act, as opposed to the payment of money, could be an element of the crime of kidnapping for ransom. The court was of the opinion that the Supreme Court of Iowa, if faced with the question, would uphold the application of the statute. Nevertheless, the trial judge, feeling no doubt that criminal statutes should be strictly construed, sentenced Knutson only for the lesser included offense of kidnapping, instead of the offense of kidnapping for ransom, which was, of course, the charge on which Knutson had been tried and convicted. A term of five years was imposed on the kidnapping charge, to run consecutively to the five years for assault with intent to commit a felony and the ten years for sodomy. Thus, the result of the initial sentencing was a total term of imprisonment of 20 years.

The State of Iowa then brought certiorari in the Supreme Court of Iowa, as permitted by state law, to review the legality of the sentence thus imposed upon Knutson. In State v. Sullivan, 215 N.W.2d 491 (Iowa 1974), the Supreme Court of Iowa held that Knutson should have been sentenced for kidnapping for ransom. The sentence imposed by the trial court was vacated, and the case was remanded for resentencing. On remand, a life sentence was imposed in accordance with the Supreme Court's holding. Life in prison was the mandatory sentence under Iowa law for kidnapping for ransom. On direct appeal, Knutson's conviction was affirmed. State v. Knutson, 220 N.W.2d 575 (Iowa 1974).

This case thus turns on the distinction, under Iowa law, between kidnapping for ransom and simple kidnapping. Simple kidnapping is a mere abduction. Kidnapping for ransom requires both an abduction and the demand of money or other "thing of value" as a "ransom, reward, or price for the return, liberation, or surrender of the person" abducted. Up until the time of Knutson's conviction, the Supreme Court of Iowa had not expressly held whether the obtaining of sexual gratification was a "thing of value" under its statute. Knutson argues that the current construction of the Iowa statute is so unexpected as to amount to the imposition of punishment without prior fair notice.

It is clear, of course, that an individual may not be punished for crime if, under the words of the statute, he had no reasonable expectation that his conduct would be unlawful. The Fourteenth Amendment requires a certain degree of clarity, particularly in criminal enactments. This doctrine, often expressed by the phrase "void for vagueness," is quite simple. People should not be branded as criminals or condemned to suffer grievous loss without fair notice that the legislature has in fact forbidden the conduct for which they are being punished. Knutson points out that the phrase "thing of value" had always before, in Iowa, been applied to the demand for something whose worth could be expressed in money. How could he have known, he argues, that sodomy would be held to be a "thing of value"? Counsel cite, in addition, a number of cases and statutes from other jurisdictions in an attempt to show that the Iowa interpretation of "thing of value" was unexpected.

We find little appeal in this line of argument. The statute had included the term "thing of value" in addition to the words "money" and "property" since its enactment in 1902. The inclusion of the additional phrase "thing of value" was clear notice that a non-monetary demand might come within the definition of the crime denounced. If the Supreme Court of Iowa had earlier construed the statute to include only money demands, and had then overruled its earlier cases in Knutson's case, appellant might have a point. That did not happen here. The Supreme Court simply held that sodomy is a "thing of value." There is nothing intrinsically startling or outlandish about such a reading. The words of the statute, simply as a matter of English, easily bear this meaning. The Supreme Court of Iowa, as a matter of State law, might have interpreted its statute narrowly, applying the rule of ejusdem generis to limit the term "thing of value" to something of monetary or pecuniary value. But the Fourteenth Amendment does not require the states to use any particular canon of construction in construing their own criminal laws. Obviously the act of sodomy was, as a matter of fact, a "thing of value" to Knutson, else he would not have demanded it. In addition, we think it significant that the issue of construction involved here is not the drawing of a line between legal conduct and illegal conduct. What Knutson did was unlawful under any interpretation of Iowa law, and he makes no contention to the contrary. His position, reduced to its simplest terms, is that he had a right to expect that he would be convicted for kidnapping only, rather than for kidnapping for ransom. This kind of reliance interest is not, in our view, entitled to a great deal of weight. ³ When a person does an act that he well knows to be a violation of some law, and when a statute is later interpreted to cover his conduct in a way that does not do violence to the ordinary understanding of the English language, the Fourteenth Amendment is not offended.

Rose v. Locke, 423 U.S. 48, 96 S.Ct. 243, 46 L.Ed.2d 185 (1975) (per curiam), provides important guidance. There a Tennessee statute proscribing the "crime against nature" was held not to be fatally vague. The Court said:

It is settled that the fair-warning requirement embodied in the Due Process Clause prohibits the States from holding an individual "criminally responsible for conduct which he could not reasonably understand to be proscribed." United States v. Harriss, 347 U.S. 612, 617, (74 S.Ct. 808, 812, 98 L.Ed. 989) (1954); see Wainwright v. Stone, 414 U.S. 21, 22, (94 S.Ct. 190, (192), 38 L.Ed.2d 179) (1973). But this prohibition against excessive vagueness does not invalidate every statute which a reviewing court believes could have been drafted with greater precision. Many statutes will have some inherent vagueness, for "(i)n most English words and phrases there lurk uncertainties," Robinson v. United States, 324 U.S. 282, 286, (65 S.Ct. 666, 668, 89 L.Ed. 944) (1945). Even trained lawyers may find it necessary to consult legal dictionaries, treatises, and judicial opinions before they may say with any certainty what some statutes may compel or forbid. Cf. Nash v. United States, 229 U.S. 373, (33 S.Ct. 780, 57 L.Ed. 1232) (1913); United States v....