State v. Grate
| Decision Date | 30 October 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. 970083-CA,970083-CA |
| Citation | 947 P.2d 1161 |
| Parties | 329 Utah Adv. Rep. 12 STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Scott L. GRATE, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | Utah Court of Appeals |
Margaret P. Lindsay, Provo, for Defendant and Appellant.
Jan Graham and James H. Beadles, Salt Lake City, for Plaintiff and Appellee.
Before DAVIS, P.J., and BILLINGS and GREENWOOD, JJ.
Appellant, Scott L. Grate (Grate), appeals the denial of his 1996 Motion to Correct an Illegal Sentence, claiming that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to revoke his probation under Utah Code Ann. § 77-18-1(8)(a) (Supp.1988). We reverse.
The pertinent facts in this case are undisputed. On December 19, 1986, Grate pleaded guilty to one charge of theft, a second degree felony. On January 16, 1987, Grate received a suspended sentence of one to fifteen years and was placed on eighteen months probation.
On June 12, 1987, Adult Probation & Parole (AP & P) filed an Incident Report with the trial court, alleging Grate had violated his probation by being arrested for auto burglary, by failing to report for the month of June 1987, and by moving/changing addresses without notifying AP & P. Based largely on the Report, the court issued a bench warrant for Grate on July 2, 1987.
Grate was arrested pursuant to the warrant on July 8, 1987, when he voluntarily appeared at the AP & P office. After a hearing on the warrant held July 10, 1987, Grate was released on his own recognizance. The trial court then granted AP & P a continuance to prepare an affidavit in support of an order to show cause (OSC) why Grate's probation should not be revoked.
Grate's eighteen-month probation period was due to terminate on July 15, 1988. However, AP & P did not file its affidavit in support of an OSC until July 21, 1988, and Grate was not served with the OSC until August 9, 1988. At the probation revocation hearing that followed on August 12, 1988, Grate admitted commission of the auto burglary as well as two new probation violations. The court revoked Grate's probation and sentenced him to a term of one to fifteen years.
In December 1995, Grate filed a Motion to Correct an Illegal Sentence, claiming the trial court had lacked jurisdiction to revoke his probation after July 15, 1988. The trial court denied Grate's motion, holding that under Utah Code Ann. § 77-18-1(11)(b) (1996) (as amended in 1989), the filing of the Incident Report on June 12, 1987, had tolled the running of Grate's probation until the OSC was signed on July 19, 1988. The court rejected Grate's claim that the tolling of the probation period without notice to him had violated his due process rights.
In November 1996, Grate filed a second Motion to Correct an Illegal Sentence, asking the court to review its jurisdiction under the statutory provisions applicable in 1988 rather than those applicable in 1996. The trial court again denied Grate's motion, holding that the filing of the Incident Report while Grate was still on probation constituted the "charge" necessary to toll probation under the 1988 statute, Utah Code Ann. § 77-18-1(8)(a) (Supp.1988). 1 This appeal followed.
On appeal, Grate argues that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to revoke his probation on August 12, 1988, because his probation period had expired as a matter of law on July 15, 1988. Grate argues that neither the filing of an incident report with the trial court on June 12, 1987, nor Grate's arrest pursuant to the bench warrant issued on July 2, 1987, constituted a "charge" under Utah Code Ann. § 77-18-1(8)(a) sufficient to toll the expiration of his probation term.
Grate argues that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to revoke his probation after July 15, 1988, because AP & P failed to charge him with a probation violation within his original probation term, as required under Utah Code Ann. § 77-18-1(8)(a) (Supp.1988). Section 77-18-1(8)(a) provides:
All time served without violation while on probation applies to service of the total term of probation but does not eliminate the requirement of serving 18 consecutive months without violation in felony or class A misdemeanor cases, or six consecutive months without violation in class B misdemeanor cases. Any time served by a probationer outside of confinement after having been charged with a probation violation and prior to a hearing to revoke probation does not constitute service of time toward the total probation term unless the probationer is exonerated at a hearing to revoke the probation.
Utah Code Ann. § 77-18-1(8)(a) (Supp.1988) (emphasis added). 2
State v. Rawlings, 893 P.2d 1063, 1066-67 (Utah.Ct.App.1995) (quoting State v. Wilcox, 808 P.2d 1028, 1031 (Utah 1991)). Also, "[b]ecause the interpretation of a statute presents a question of law, we review for correctness." State v. Amador, 804 P.2d 1233, 1234 (Utah.Ct.App.1990) (citation omitted).
Meaning of "charged" in Section 77-18-1(8)(a)
In order to determine whether the trial court had jurisdiction to revoke Grate's probation, this court must determine the meaning of "charged" within section 77-18-1(8)(a). Specifically, this court must determine whether that term is sufficiently broad to include either the filing of an incident report with the trial court or the issuance of an arrest warrant pursuant to that report, as the State contends, or whether the term is limited in scope to require formal service upon a probationer of notice of an alleged violation and the need to prepare a defense, as urged by appellant. In determining the meaning of "charged," we employ primarily the traditional rules of statutory construction, drawing on relevant case law from this and other jurisdictions to assist us, as needed, in our analysis.
Under traditional rules of statutory construction, " 'a statutory term should be interpreted and applied according to its usually accepted meaning, where the ordinary meaning of the term results in an application that is neither unreasonably confused, inoperable, nor in blatant contradiction of the express purpose of the statute.' " Bonneville Int'l Corp. v. State Tax Comm'n, 858 P.2d 1045, 1048 (Utah.Ct.App.1993) (internal brackets omitted) (quoting Morton Int'l, Inc. v. State Tax Comm'n, 814 P.2d 581, 590 (Utah 1991)). Furthermore, "[u]nambiguous language in [a] statute may not be interpreted to contradict its plain meaning." Id. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
Black's Law Dictionary defines "charged" to include an "[a]ccusation of crime by complaint, indictment, or information." Black's Law Dictionary 233 (6th ed.1990). It defines the verb, "charge," to include "to accuse," and, within the context of criminal law, to mean "to indict or formally accuse." Id. at 232. Finally, it defines "accuse" as "[t]o bring a formal charge against a person, to the effect that he is guilty of a crime or punishable offense, before a court or magistrate having jurisdiction to inquire into the alleged crime." Id. at 22-23.
Although Utah courts have not yet defined the term "charged," cases from other jurisdictions support the commonsense conclusion that being "charged" means being served notice of both the alleged offense and the necessity to appear before a tribunal to defend oneself. See Ahmaogak v. State, 595 P.2d 985, 988-89 (Alaska 1979) ; Clark v. State, 579 So.2d 109, 110-11 (Fla.1991) ().
In Bermen v. State, 798 S.W.2d 8, 9 (Tex.Ct.App.1990), the court discussed the definition of "charged with" within the context of a statute criminalizing escape from custody when a person is "under arrest for, charged with, or convicted of an offense." In that case, the defendant had been arrested but no formal complaint had yet been filed against him when he escaped. The court noted that the term "charged" "is frequently used in a limited sense, as referring to a formal complaint, information, or indictment ... and in common parlance it signifies the formal commencement Under Utah law, it is the notice to a person of the commencement of a judicial enforcement action that distinguishes the filing of an information in a criminal proceeding or the issuance of an OSC in a probation setting, from the filing of an incident report. In each of the former instances, there is no ambiguity as to the State's intention to enforce its rights within a judicial proceeding or the defendant's need to prepare a defense. Furthermore, all the procedural strictures which attach to a court proceeding are activated.
of a criminal proceeding by the filing or returning of the accusatory paper in the regular course of judicial proceedings." Id. at 10 (citation omitted). The court then examined other provisions of the state's code of criminal procedure, noting that "complaint," "indictment," and "information" all require charging a defendant with a particular offense; an arrest, by contrast, signifies only that defendant has been "placed under restraint or taken into custody." Id. The court concluded that "a person is not charged with an offense until the filing of a complaint or the return of an indictment by a grand...
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