State v. Bonfanti, 49892
| Decision Date | 10 November 1969 |
| Docket Number | No. 49892,49892 |
| Citation | 254 La. 877,227 So.2d 916 |
| Parties | STATE of Louisiana v. Steve BONFANTI, Jr. |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
Jack P. F. Gremillion, Atty. Gen., William P. Schuler, Asst. Atty. Gen., Sargeant Pitcher, Jr., Dist. Atty., Ralph L. Roy, Asst. Dist. Atty., for appellant.
Sam J. D'Amico, Davis A. Gueymard, David W. Robinson, Baton Rouge, for appellee.
The defendant, Steve Bonfanti, Jr., was charged in an indictment (in the short form prescribed by Article 465 of the Code of Criminal Procedure) with the crime of aggravated arson, in violation of LRS 14:51, relative to a structure located at 2302 Highland Road in Baton Rouge.
Following the state's response to a motion for a bill of particulars the accused moved to quash the indictment. The motion was sustained and the prosecution dismissed. The state is appealing from the judgment.
LRS 14:51, as amended, pertinently provides: 'Aggravated arson is the intentional damaging by any explosive substance or the setting fire to any structure, watercraft, or movable, wherein it is foreseeable that human life might be endangered.
'Whoever commits the crime of aggravated arson shall be imprisoned at hard labor for not less than two nor more than twenty years. * * *'
In its answer to the motion for a bill of particulars the state said that the structure at 2302 Highland Road was an unoccupied building; that no other buildings were endangered by the defendant's act; and that the persons whose lives might have been imperiled as the result of the alleged arson were those of the firemen of the Baton Rouge Fire Department.
It is the position of the state herein that 'a human being of average reasonable intelligence and perception who sets a fire to a structure in a city such as Baton Rouge and a parish such as East Baton Rouge, would ordinarily anticipate the calling of the fire department to combat the fire and that such a task certainly might endanger human life of the combating firemen.'
The defendant, on the other hand, argues that the legislative history of the aggravated arson statute suggests that it is designed to cover acts of setting fire to a building or moveable (whether owned by the actor or not) which is either occupied or so located that persons might be physically present in or near it when the fire commences and their lives endangered; and that it was not the intention of the legislature by the most recent enactments to enlarge coverage to those who might voluntarily come to the scene of the fire after it has been started.
We have concluded that the defendant's view of the statute is correct. Initially, the common law crime of arson was restricted to the burning of dwelling houses. Moreover, our early laws denounced the burning of public and private buildings, etc., and certain moveables, as well as those structures in which some human beings usually stayed, lodged or resided; and they provided generally for lesser sentences for the former. Also, a distinction was made between arson in the daytime and that in the nighttime. See the Revised Statutes of 1870, Sections 841--848. However, by Act 263 of 1908 the distinction between daytime and nighttime arson was abandoned; all types of structures were included; and the requirement that humans stay, lodge or reside therein was changed so that the prohibition was against burning buildings, ships, etc., 'in or on which human beings are customarily to be found.'
Act 211 of 1928 denounced the burning of dwellings, etc., adjoining structures, and the setting fire to certain specific personal property. Meanwhile, special statutes and amendments to preexisting le...
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