People v. Kratz

• Decision Date: 03 April 1925
• Docket Number: No. 123.,123.
• Citation: 230 Mich. 334,203 N.W. 114
• Parties: PEOPLE v. KRATZ.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

230 Mich. 334

203 N.W. 114

PEOPLE

v.KRATZ.

No. 123.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

April 3, 1925.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Muskegon County; John Vanderwerp, Judge.

Mortimer Kratz was convicted of indecent exposure of his person, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Argued before McDONALD, C. J., and CLARK, BIRD, SHARPE, MOORE, STEERE, FELLOWS, and WIEST, JJ. Willard J. Turner, of Muskegon (John G. Turner, of Muskegon, of counsel), for appellant.

A. B. Dougherty, Atty. Gen., and G. Glen Dunn, Pros. Atty., and Robert H. Dunn, Asst. Pros. Atty., both of Muskegon (Harry W. Jackson, of Muskegon, of counsel), for the People.

STEERE, J.

Defendant was convicted in the circuit court of Muskegon county on September 17, 1923, of violating the provisions of section 15467, Comp. Laws 1915, in the particular that he did (as charged in the information), ‘then and there designedly make an open, indecent, and obscene exposure of his person in the presence of Margaret Leversay, Lucille Leversay, and Alice Jones, contrary to the form of the statute in such cases made and provided,’ etc. The material provision of the section under which defendant was prosecuted is as follows:

‘If any man or woman, married or unmarried, * * * shall designedly make any open and indecent or obscene exposure of his or her person, * * * every such person shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail,’ etc.

When arraigned defendant stood mute, waiving nothing, and when the case was brought to trial his counsel interposed an objection to any testimony on the ground that the information under which defendant was arraigned did not set out any offense known to the law of this state. The court held the information sufficient in that it followed the language of the statute.

As a general rule, it is held sufficient to charge the offense in the language of the statute, although in a certain class of cases it has been held not sufficient. This belongs to that class of cases of which it was said in State v. Millard, 18 Vt. 577, 46 Am. Dec. 170 (a prosecution involving indecent exposure of the person):

‘No particular definition is given, by the statute, of what constitutes this crime. The indelicacy of the subject forbids it, and does not require of the court to state what particular conduct will constitute the offense. The common sense of the community, as well as the sense of decency, propriety and morality, which most people entertain, is sufficient to apply the statute to each particular case, and point out what particular conduct is rendered criminal by it.’

See, also, People v. Girardin, 1 Mich. 90;People v. Carey, 217 Mich. 601, 187 N. W. 261;State v. Bauguess, 106 Iowa, 107, 76 N. W. 508.

In the latter case the wording of the statute in stating the offense is ‘any open and indecent exposure of his or her person,’ as in the instant case. The statutory description of the offense, which the information follows, contains no words of obscure or technical meaning. The well-settled and generally known significance of the phrase ‘indecent and obscene exposure of the person’ is the exhibition of those private parts of the person which instinctive modesty, human decency or natural self-respect requires shall be customarily kept covered in the presence of others.

Kratz was an elderly man, who, though married, at the time of the alleged offense apparently lived alone on Howden street, in Muskegon Heights, not far from railroad tracks and a gas plant across the tracks on the same side of the street, with a vacant lot between, grown over with small trees and bushes, which was called by witnesses ‘the woods.’

Margaret and Lucille Leversay and Alice Jones were school girls respectively 12, 10, and 9 years old, who passed Kratz' place as they went to and from school. He had talked with them as they went by, gave or offered them money at times, and a street acquaintance existed between them. Briefly stated, the story of defendant's misconduct on September 17, 1923, is that when the two Leversay girls passed Kratz' place at about 1 o'clock on their way to the afternoon session of school, he went out to the sidewalk, and, dropping a dime on it, told Margaret to pick it up, which she did not do, but the girls then crossed over the street and went on. Kratz picked up the dime and walked up the street past them and into the edge of the woods appearing to the children as they came by and motioning them towards him and made, as they told it, an indecent and obscene exposure of his person to them. When they went home that evening after school he came out of his place and walked by them saying something as he passed, and going into the woods he circled around to the front of them. He then asked Margaret if he did not give her a quarter the other day to go to a show, which she admitted, and he then said...