Petition of Crepeau-Cross

• Decision Date: 17 April 1978
• Docket Number: CREPEAU-CROSS,No. 76-419-M,76-419-M
• Citation: 385 A.2d 658,120 R.I. 67
• Parties: Petition of Ronald F.P.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 658

385 A.2d 658

120 R.I. 67

Petition of Ronald F. CREPEAU-CROSS.

No. 76-419-M.P.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

April 17, 1978.

[120 R.I. 77] Alfred A. Veltri, Johnston, for petitioner.

Julius C. Michaelson, Atty. Gen., Alfred French Goldstein, Special Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.

OPINION

DORIS, Justice.

On March 9, 1962, the petitioner, Ronald F. Crepeau-Cross, pleaded nolo contendere to a complaint charging him with three counts of "lewd, wanton and lascivious" conduct in violation of G.L.1956, § 11-45-1. On April 13, 1962, the petitioner received a three-year sentence which was suspended on condition of medical treatment and three years' probation.

In June of 1976, petitioner began procedures seeking to expunge all criminal records maintained by the Seventh Division District Court and several law enforcement agencies in connection with his 1962 conviction. After a series of letters failed to result in the expunction of all petitioner's criminal records, he filed a petition in the Seventh Division District Court seeking a judicial order for expunction. His petition asked the court to direct the clerk of the Seventh Division District Court, the Woonsocket Police Department and the Department of the Attorney General to destroy all records in their possession relating to the 1962 conviction. A hearing was held on the petition on August 17, 1976.

After the hearing, the District Court judge denied the petition for expunction on two alternative grounds. First, the judge found that more than one year had elapsed since the completion of the three-year probationary period imposed upon petitioner for the 1962 conviction and, therefore, the District Court lacked jurisdiction to grant the petition. Second, he found that a complaint and summons were not within the purview of the expunction statute and, therefore, he could not order their destruction.

Crepeau-Cross then filed a petition for certiorari with this court. We granted the petition and issued the writ on December 31, 1976. In re Crepeau-Cross, R.I., 368 A.2d 577 (1976).

The sole issue before us is the correctness of the decision of the District Court judge in denying the petition to expunge.

The expunction of criminal records relating to a conviction is controlled by G.L.1956 (1969 Reenactment) § 12-1-13. ¹ A petitioner having been convicted of a misdemeanor, may seek to have "(a)ny fingerprint, photograph, physical measurements or other record of identification" maintained in connection with his misdemeanor arrest and conviction expunged only when he has successfully completed the sentence or probationary period imposed upon him for committing the misdemeanor and can demonstrate that he has not been charged with any other crime for a period of five years following the completion of the sentence or probationary period. The statute does not permit the expunction of identification records in cases where the petitioner was convicted of a felony or was initially charged with a felony but had that charge against him reduced to a misdemeanor prior to conviction.

Procedurally, § 12-1-13 permits a District Court judge, upon petition and hearing, to order all identification records expunged whenever a petitioner is entitled to such expunction but the law enforcement agencies in possession of such records refuse to do so.

The initial reason advanced by the District Court judge for his denial of the petition was that one year had elapsed since the completion of petitioner's probationary period, and therefore, the court had no jurisdiction to hear the petition. Presumably, this ruling was based on § 9-21-2, which permits a court to relieve a party from "a final judgment, order, decree, or proceeding entered therein" for any of several stated reasons. Any motion for such relief must be made within one year following such judgment, order, decree or proceeding.

It is our opinion that § 9-21-2, which relates exclusively to civil judgments and orders, does not apply to proceedings brought pursuant to § 12-1-13. Those petitioners seeking the expunction of criminal records must first serve their sentence or term of probation. Thereafter, they must demonstrate that they have not been charged or convicted of any other offense for a period of five years from the date of the completion of their sentence or probation.

To hold that § 12-1-13 is governed by the one-year limitation of § 9-21-2 would be to nullify the judicial enforcement provisions of § 12-1-13. Because the one-year limitation on jurisdiction under § 9-21-2 would have long since expired in every case, the District Court would never have jurisdiction to grant a petition to expunge. We will not construe statutes so as to achieve meaningless or absurd results. State v. Sprague, 113 R.I. 351, 322 A.2d 36 (1974); Berberian v. Berberian, 109 R.I. 273, 284 A.2d 72 (1971); Town of Scituate v. O'Rourke, 103 R.I. 499, 239 A.2d 176 (1968).

The District Court judge further ruled that § 12-1-13 does not permit the expunction of either a criminal complaint or a summons. This ruling alone, however, is not sufficient to allow us to uphold his denial of the petition to expunge. Assuming arguendo that the ruling is a correct interpretation of § 12-1-13, it has no bearing on the expunction of petitioner's other identification records on file with the Woonsocket Police Department or the Department of the Attorney General.

The state, however, advances the proposition that we may uphold the ruling of the District Court judge because the result he reached was correct, albeit for the wrong reasons. The argument presented by the state is that petitioner was convicted of a felony in 1962, and under § 12-1-13, felony conviction records may not be expunged.

It is well settled that we will accept a lower court decision which is correct even though we do not accept the reasoning upon which it rests. DiRaimo v. DiRaimo, 117 R.I. 703, 708, 370 A.2d 1284, 1287 (1977); State v. Carillo, 113 R.I. 32, 36, 317 A.2d 449, 452 (1974); State v. Carsetti,111 R.I. 642, 648, 306 A.2d 166, 169 (1973); Bric's Market, Inc. v. State,105 R.I. 572, 577, 253 A.2d 590, 592 (1969).

The petitioner was convicted of being a "lewd, wanton and lascivious" person in violation of § 11-45-1. At the time of petitioner's conviction, and until its repeal by P.L.1977, ch. 98, that statute imposed a sentence in the Adult Correctional Institutions on any person convicted of committing any one of a multitude of evils, including "lewd, wanton or lascivious" conduct. In 1962, when petitioner was convicted of violating the statute, the penalty provided for was not more than three years in the Adult Correctional Institutions; that penalty was reduced to one year by P.L.1969, ch. 192, § 1.

The state argues that, pursuant to § 11-1-2, any offense punishable by more than one year imprisonment is a felony. This was also the law in 1962. Based upon this statute, the state asserts that we must uphold the decision of the District Court judge because a violation of § 11-45-1 in 1962 clearly came within the statutory definition of a felony.

The petitioner, however, argues that our decision in State v. Bussay, 38 R.I. 454, 96 A. 337 (1916), settled the issue before us by holding that "lewd, wanton and lascivious" conduct was not an infamous offense requiring an indictment by a grand jury under Article I, § 7 of the Constitution of the State of Rhode Island. The petitioner apparently contends that the terms "felony" and "infamous crime" are synonymous; since § 11-45-1 was not an infamous crime in 1962, it was therefore not a felony. He freely admits that our decision in State v. Rezendes, 105 R.I. 483, 253 A.2d 233 (1969), held that § 11-45-1 was in fact an infamous crime, but he argues that we may not apply the Rezendes decision retroactively to his detriment.

An infamous crime at common law was any offense which affected a defendant's civil or political rights or the public administration of justice. Originally, the nature of the offense determined its infamy. See State v. Rezendes, supra at 486, 253 A.2d at 234; State v. Bussay, supra, 38 R.I. at 461-62, 96 A. at 339.

We abandoned that standard in State v. Nolan, 15 R.I. 529, 10 A. 481 (1887), and held that the penalty, not the nature of the offense, defined an infamous crime. In State v. Nichols, 27 R.I. 69, 60 A. 763 (1905), we held that infamous crimes were offenses

"which at any given time may be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for a term of one year or more, and * * * crimes or offences punishable otherwise, as by fine only or by confinement elsewhere or for a shorter term than one year, are not 'infamous crimes,' within the purview of this section of the constitution." Id. at 83, 60 A. at 768.

We applied the Nichols decision in State v. Bussay, supra, where we held that in the predecessor statute to § 11-45-1 the offense of being a "lewd, wanton or lascivious person in speech or behavior" did not constitute an infamous crime. In Bussay, we interpreted G.L.1909, ch. 347, § 25, which prohibited "lewd, wanton or lascivious" conduct, as requiring punishment to be served in the state workhouse and house of correction. Despite the fact that the term of imprisonment was six months to three years under the statute, no infamous offense was committed because the sentence was not to be served in the state prison. We therefore held in Bussay that the defendant was not entitled to be indicted by a grand jury as required for infamous crimes by Article I, § 7 of the Constitution of the State of Rhode Island. ²

In State v. Rezendes, 105 R.I. 483, 253 A.2d 233 (1969), we reexamined the definition of "infamous crime" and announced that "(w)e no longer feel that the locus of a prisoner's detention has any bearing upon his entitlement to an indictment * * * . We hold that any crime punishable by more than a year's imprisonment is an infamous crime requiring an indictment." State v. Rezendes, supra at...