Snowden v. State

• Decision Date: 09 May 1996
• Docket Number: 1995,No. 398,398
• Citation: 677 A.2d 33
• Parties: Jerome SNOWDEN, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee. . Submitted:
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Delaware

Page 33

677 A.2d 33

Jerome SNOWDEN, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.

No. 398, 1995.

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Submitted: May 9, 1996.

Decided: June 7, 1996.

Appeal from Superior Court. Affirmed.

Court Below: Superior Court of the State of Delaware in and for Sussex County, Cr.A. No. S95-05-0122.

Edward C. Gill, Georgetown, for Appellant.

John Williams, Deputy Attorney General, Department of Justice, Dover, for Appellee.

Before WALSH, HARTNETT, and BERGER, JJ.

WALSH, Justice:

The defendant below, Jerome Snowden ("Snowden"), appeals his conviction of stalking on the basis of alleged constitutional infirmities in the statute, 11 Del.C. § 1312A, and the erroneous admission of evidence against him. Snowden also argues that he cannot be convicted since his behavior consisted of the mere exercise of a constitutionally protected right to travel. Even if such activity is punishable, the State did not introduce sufficient evidence to convict, according to Snowden.

Our reading of the stalking statute finds that it is neither vague nor defines the offense in such a manner as to restrict a protected constitutional right. We conclude that the record in this case supports a jury finding that the elements of the offense had been established beyond a reasonable doubt. The judgment of the Superior Court is therefore affirmed.

I.

The State presented evidence at Snowden's trial which depicted the following events. Snowden worked with the stalking victim, Josephine Teagle ("Teagle"), at the same company in Milford, Delaware for approximately ten years. Snowden had expressed a romantic interest in Teagle, but she had refused his advances. Snowden was arrested for stalking Teagle in 1993 after repeatedly following her and calling her at home. He pled guilty to that charge, was sentenced to two years probation and ordered to have no contact with Teagle for two years. Teagle began a new job two years prior to the stalking incidents which form the basis for the present convictions.

On April 21, 1995, after the expiration of the no contact order, Snowden followed Teagle home from her new work location. After she noticed Snowden following her, Teagle went into a store for a few minutes before driving back onto Route 36. While again traveling on Route 36, she noticed Snowden standing by his truck at a store. As Teagle drove by, Snowden jumped in and followed her "very close" to Bridgeville. Since a train was approaching, Teagle turned into a private driveway on Forest Green Road in order to avoid stopping with Snowden behind her. When Teagle pulled into the driveway, Snowden pulled his pickup truck directly behind her. Teagle rolled down her window and told Snowden to leave her alone.

According to Teagle, Snowden also followed her on April 24 and 26, as well as on May 1, 2, and 3. Teagle recalled seeing Snowden pass her traveling in the opposite direction one day during this time period, and Snowden turned around and began following her. Teagle testified that his following her "got on her nerves," and she did not know what to do other than contact the police. Teagle changed her travel route and avoided making shopping stops because Snowden would follow her from store to store and wait in the parking lot.

On May 5, 1995, Teagle went to the Greenwood Bank where she again noticed Snowden following her. On this occasion, she contacted the Greenwood Police Department, and an officer met Teagle at the bank. The officer described Teagle as "a little nervous ... talking quickly and [seeming] angry." Teagle gave the officer a description of the vehicle that was following her and as the two were standing in the bank parking lot, the officer saw a vehicle matching that description drive by.

The officer then took Teagle to Delaware State Police Troop 5 in Bridgeville. Teagle filed a complaint with another officer, who described Teagle as very nervous, angry and frustrated. Teagle told this officer that Snowden's behavior made her concerned for her safety.

At trial, Snowden claimed that the May 5 incident was coincidental and denied following Teagle on other occasions. Evidently giving little credibility to Snowden's testimony, the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and this appeal followed. Snowden advances three general arguments for reversal: the unconstitutional vagueness of the stalking statute; insufficiency of the evidence to prove harassment; and the erroneous admission of his prior stalking conviction.

II.

Snowden asserts that the Delaware stalking statute, 11 Del.C. § 1312A, is unconstitutionally vague. That statute punishes "[a]ny person who wilfully, maliciously and repeatedly follows or harasses another person...." 11 Del.C. § 1312A(a). ¹ "Harasses" is defined as "a knowing and wilful course of conduct directed at a specific person which seriously alarms, annoys or harasses the person, and which serves no legitimate purpose." 11 Del.C. § 1312A(b)(1). "Course of conduct" is then defined as "a pattern of conduct composed of a series of acts...." 11 Del.C. § 1312A(b)(2). Snowden argues that the language of the statute is unclear because it requires repeated harassment, and harassment is itself defined as a course of conduct requiring multiple acts.

The "void-for-vagueness doctrine requires that a penal statute define the criminal offense with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement." Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 357, 103 S.Ct. 1855, 1858, 75 L.Ed.2d 903 (1983). When a legislative enactment not affecting First Amendment rights is challenged as unconstitutionally vague, it must be reviewed as it applies to the particular conduct at issue. Wright v. State, Del.Supr., 405 A.2d 685, 687 (1979); State v. General Chem. Corp., Del.Supr., 559 A.2d 292, 294-95 (1988).

Snowden relies on Commonwealth v. Kwiatkowski, 418 Mass. 543, 637 N.E.2d 854 (1994), which reformed a similar Massachusetts stalking statute to cure vagueness. That court reasoned that:

the stalking law is faulty to the extent that its draftsmen failed to foreclose the argument that it applies where a stalker's alarming behavior forms multiple patterns of alarming behavior, yet not where his alarming behavior forms only one pattern....

A single pattern of conduct or a single series of acts, combined with the other elements of the crime, was presumably intended to constitute the crime. That is not, however, stated in [the statute] with sufficient clarity to avoid the force of the defendant's claim of unconstitutional vagueness....

Moreover, the uncertain meaning of repeated patterns of conduct or repeated series of acts presents its own unconstitutional vagueness. The result is that the portion of the stalking statute concerning harassing conduct lacks any reasonably discernable unambiguous application....

637 N.E.2d at 857 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Other courts have declined to follow the reasoning set forth in Kwiatkowski when examining statutes similar to Delaware's stalking statute. See People v. Heilman, 25 Cal.App.4th 391, 30 Cal.Rptr.2d, 422, 426-27 (1994). The Supreme Court of Rhode Island, upholding a similar stalking statute against a vagueness challenge, applied the test of whether an individual of ordinary intelligence would be reasonably warned that his conduct is criminal. State v. Fonseca, R.I.Supr., 670 A.2d 1237, 1239 (1996). That court concluded:

We are satisfied that the ... statute, as drafted, did give adequate warning to potential offenders of the conduct that was prohibited. It indeed defies logic to conclude that a defendant would have to commit more than one series of harassing acts in order to be found guilty of stalking.

Id. at 1240.

We agree that it would be illogical to read the statute to require repeated harassing when harassing itself is defined as consisting of repetitive acts. See State v. Cooper, Del.Supr., 575 A.2d 1074, 1076 (1990) ("Perceived interpretations which yield illogical ... results should be avoided."). Consequently, we hold that the language of the statute has only one logical reading, namely that "repeatedly" modifies "follows" and not "harasses." Repeated following is an element of stalking, and harassing is an alternative element. Because only one logical reading is possible, the statute is not ambiguous on its face. Coastal Barge Corp. v. Coastal Zone Indus. Control Bd., Del.Supr., 492 A.2d 1242, 1246 (1985); 2A Norman J. Singer, Sutherland Statutory Construction § 45.02 (1994); cf. State v. General Chem. Corp., 559 A.2d at 295 ("This Court has an obligation in a case where a statute is being challenged for vagueness to construe the statute in such a manner as to avoid the infirmity.").

The constitutional test, however, is whether Snowden was fairly informed by the language of the statute that his acts were criminal. Wright, 405 A.2d at 687. Even assuming arguendo that the proximity of "repeatedly" to "harasses" in the statute would cause some confusion to a person of ordinary intelligence, Snowden could not have believed his conduct was legal. A person of ordinary intelligence would understand that following a person on several different days would constitute harassment under the statute, especially with knowledge that the victim has found this behavior distressing in the past. After his first conviction, Snowden undoubtedly must have known that his actions were alarming, annoying or harassing to Teagle, who had initiated the previous complaint against him. See 11 Del.C. § 1312A(b)(1). We therefore reject Snowden's claim that the statute is unconstitutionally vague, generally, or as applied to him.

III.

Snowden advances another argument with constitutional underpinning to invalidate his conviction. He contends that his actions in following Teagle on the public roads of this State are constitutionally protected and...