State v. Haynes
| Decision Date | 04 December 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. ED 106007,ED 106007 |
| Citation | 564 S.W.3d 780 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Timothy HAYNES, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Kim C. Freter, 225 S. Meramec, Ste. 1100, Clayton, MO 63105, for appellant.
Joshua D. Hawley, Atty. Gen., Garrick Aplin, Asst. Atty. Gen., P.O. Box 899, Jefferson City, MO 65102, for respondent.
The defendant, Timothy Haynes, appeals the judgment entered by the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis following his conviction by a jury of unlawful use of a weapon, shooting at a motor vehicle, in violation of section 571.030.1(9) RSMo. (Supp. 2014).1 ,2 The trial court sentenced the defendant as a persistent offender to 15 years of imprisonment without parole.
We hold that section 571.030.1(9) is neither ambiguous, nor is it void for vagueness. Furthermore, we cannot read qualifying or restricting language into a statute that is unambiguous. We affirm the trial court’s judgment.
Late in the evening on January 26, 2015, a repossession agent and a tow-track driver were in the process of repossessing the defendant’s car, a 2008 Buick Lucerne. The repossession agent had located the car in the parking lot of a motel on North Broadway in the City of St. Louis. The tow-truck driver, who was seated in his truck, had connected the Buick to the truck for towing off the parking lot when the defendant exited the motel. The repossession agent was seated in her vehicle, immediately behind the Buick and the tow truck, waiting for the tow truck to pull into the street. The defendant approached the Buick, located between the tow truck and the repossession agent’s vehicle, and began shooting. The tow-truck driver and the repossession agent fled the parking lot in their separate vehicles, and contacted police.
Police found five bullet holes in the Buick, three in the front passenger door, one in the rear passenger door, and one in the bumper. No person was injured, and police found no bullet holes in the tow truck. The repossession agent testified that her car was not struck by the gunfire. The State charged the defendant with one count of first-degree assault for shooting at the tow truck-driver, one count of unlawful use of a weapon for shooting at the Buick, one count of armed criminal action for using a deadly weapon in connection with the charged assault, and one count of unlawful possession of a firearm.
The defendant testified at trial. He stated that he believed it was unreasonable for his car to be repossessed, and admitted that he intentionally shot the car in order to damage it. The jury convicted the defendant of unlawful use of a weapon and unlawful possession of a firearm. The jury acquitted the defendant of first-degree assault and the related armed criminal action. The trial court sentenced the defendant to a total of 15 years in prison without parole as a persistent offender as required by section 571.030.9. The defendant appeals.
The defendant challenges the denial of his motion to dismiss and his motions for judgment of acquittal on the charge of unlawful use of a weapon. He asserts that section 571.030.1(9) should not be interpreted to apply to his conduct of shooting into an unoccupied car because such an interpretation violates his right of due process.
The State charged that "the defendant, knowingly shot a firearm at a motor vehicle, a 2008 Buick Lucerne" in violation of section 571.030. Under subdivision (3) of section 571.030.1, a person commits the crime of unlawful use of weapons if he knowingly "[d]ischarges or shoots a firearm into a ... motor vehicle." (Emphasis added). Under subdivision (9) of section 571.030.1, a person commits the crime of unlawful use of weapons if he knowingly "[d]ischarges or shoots a firearm at or from a motor vehicle." (Emphasis added).3 The defendant does not dispute that he discharged a firearm multiple times, striking a motor vehicle. Indeed, the defendant testified that he did so intentionally in order to damage the vehicle and thus compel the lienholder to incur repair costs.
The defendant first argues that "[t]here is no appreciable difference between shooting ‘at’ a motor vehicle under [section] 571.030.1(9) or ‘into’ a motor vehicle under [section] 571.030.1(3) if there is no live person in proximity to the car." We initially observe that in this case, two live people were, in fact, in proximity to the car at which the defendant shot. The tow-truck driver was seated in the truck to which the defendant’s car was connected, and the repossession agent was seated in her own vehicle immediately behind the defendant’s car.
Statutory interpretation is a question of law that we review de novo. State v. Key, 437 S.W.3d 264, 268 (Mo. App. W.D. 2014). When interpreting a statute, we must ascertain the intent of the legislature from the language used, and if possible, give effect to that intent. Id. We give the language used in the statute its plain and ordinary meaning. Id. We resort to statutory construction only when statutory language is ambiguous; otherwise, we must give effect to the statute as written. Id. A statute is considered ambiguous only when we cannot ascertain the legislative intent from the language of the statute by giving the language its plain and ordinary meaning. Id.
Pursuant to section 571.030.1(9), a person commits the offense of unlawful use of weapons if he or she knowingly "[d]ischarges or shoots a firearm at or from a motor vehicle." Giving the language in subdivision (9) its plain and ordinary meaning, we find that the legislature intended to prohibit shooting at a motor vehicle, whether that vehicle is occupied or unoccupied. Indeed, Missouri courts have previously interpreted section 571.030.1(9) to criminalize the specific act of shooting a firearm at a motor vehicle. Id. at 269 ; State v. Barraza , 238 S.W.3d 187, 192 (Mo. App. W.D. 2007). See also, State v. Alexander, 505 S.W.3d 384, 399 (Mo. App. E.D. 2016) (). Because no ambiguity exists in section 571.030.1(9), we need not resort to statutory construction. And because subdivision (9) does not expressly require that the motor, vehicle be occupied at the time of the shooting, we must give effect to the statute as written, without reading additional requirements into it. In short, we will not add words to a plainly-worded statute to alter its meaning.
The defendant next points to what he characterizes as a gross disparity between the punishments for the two offenses enumerated in subdivision (3) and subdivision (9). The defendant is correct that the respective penalties are far different for violation of subdivision (3)—shooting into a motor vehicle—versus violation of subdivision (9)—shooting at a motor vehicle. Section 571.030.8 sets forth the classifications for the offenses enumerated in subsection 1. At the time of the incident here, section 571.030.8 provided that:
Unlawful use of weapons is a class D felony unless committed pursuant to ... subdivision (9) of subsection 1 of this section, in which case it is a class B felony, except that if the violation of subdivision (9) of subsection 1 of this section results in injury or death to another person, it is a class A felony.
Section 571.030.8 did not specifically identify the classification for violation of subdivision (3); therefore, such a violation was punishable as a class D felony at the time of this incident. A class D felony then carried a penalty of up to four years of imprisonment. Section 558.011.1(4).
As expressly set forth above, a violation of section 571.030.1(9) constituted a class B felony. Specifically, violation of subsection 1, subdivision (9) where no injury or death occurred carried penalties ranging from "the maximum authorized term of imprisonment for a class B felony" for a first-time offender to "the maximum authorized term of imprisonment for a class B felony without the possibility of parole, probation, or conditional release" for a defendant found pursuant to section 558.016 to be a persistent offender.4 Section 571.030.9. Here, the trial court sentenced the defendant to 15 years of imprisonment without parole as a persistent offender in accord with section 571.030.9.
Thus, the defendant contends, section 571.030 is unconstitutionally vague because it encourages arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. He argues that section 571.030 allows the State to seek 15 years of imprisonment without probation or parole against one defendant for violation of subdivision (9) where no person is injured—as in his case—while seeking only four years or less of imprisonment against another defendant who commits the same conduct but is charged under subdivision (3).
The void-for-vagueness doctrine ensures that laws give fair and adequate notice of prohibited conduct. Feldhaus v. State, 311 S.W.3d 802, 806 (Mo. banc 2010). The doctrine also protects against arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. Id. When enforcing the doctrine, the test is whether the statute’s language conveys to a person of ordinary intelligence a warning regarding the prohibited conduct that is sufficiently definite when measured by common understanding and practices. Id.
We agree that the respective penalties of subdivisions (3) and (9) of section 571.030.1 make little sense when compared to one another. The legislature added subdivision (9) to section 571.030.1 in 1995 along with the greater penalties set forth for its violation in what is now section 571.030.9. H.B. 160, 88th Gen. Assem. 1st Reg. Sess. (Mo. 1995). Our research has revealed only two published opinions involving the violation of subdivision (3) by shooting into a motor vehicle committed after enactment of subdivision (9).5 Both of those cases involved a single shot fired into the passenger compartment of a motor vehicle. However, differing penalties between...
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