State v. Morey

• Decision Date: 26 March 1981
• Citation: 427 A.2d 479
• Parties: STATE of Maine v. Dana MOREY.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 479

427 A.2d 479

STATE of Maine v. Dana MOREY.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued Nov. 13, 1980.

Decided March 26, 1981.

Janet Mills, Dist. Atty., John C. Sheldon, Asst. Dist. Atty., Fred Fenton (orally), Legal Intern, Farmington, for plaintiff.

Gauvreau & Thibeault, Paul G. Thibeault (orally), Lewiston, for defendant.

Before McKUSICK, C.J., and WERNICK, GODFREY, GLASSMAN, ROBERTS and CARTER, JJ.

CARTER, Justice.

Dana Morey was convicted following a jury trial in Superior Court, Franklin County, of disorderly conduct and assault on a police officer. On appeal, Morey contends that the trial court erred in refusing to grant his motions for acquittal and that it improperly instructed the jury on both counts. We affirm the conviction for disorderly conduct and reverse the conviction for assault on a police officer.

The charges against Morey resulted from a fight in Stratton and his later assault on a deputy sheriff in the Franklin County Jail. Although the testimony at trial respecting these events varied, the jury was entitled to find the following facts.

On July 10, 1979, an off-duty police officer passing through Stratton noticed Morey and another man, Michael O'Neal, fighting in the parking lot of Roger's Motel. In order to stop the fight, the officer stepped between the combatants, told Morey to leave and headed him up the street. He then turned to deal with O'Neal. When O'Neal's yells alerted him to look back, he saw that Morey had returned and "had just taken a swing." To prevent the fight from resuming, the officer then arrested Morey, and had him brought to the county jail.

While Morey was booked at the jail, he acted unruly and appeared to the booking officer, Deputy Cayton, to be drunk. As Cayton ushered Morey into a jail cell, Morey turned on the deputy, put him into a headlock, and, after the two fell, stuck his fingers into the deputy's eyes. With the help of two other officers, Deputy Cayton eventually subdued Morey.

Morey raises several issues concerning both convictions. His first two points address his conviction for assault on an officer, in violation of 17-A M.R.S.A. § 752-A(1)(B), ¹ and rest on his conclusion that, under this statute, the state must prove that the defendant knew that the person assaulted was a prison official. Morey founds this conclusion on his interpretation of the policy behind section 752-A and the interaction of that section with other statutes. From that basis, he challenges the court's denial of his motion to acquit on the assault charge and the jury instructions on the elements of the offense.

In support of his motion to acquit, the defendant argued at trial that the record contained no evidence that Morey knew at the time of his assault that Deputy Cayton was a prison official. On appeal, he contends that, because that element of the offense was not proven, we must reverse his conviction. We are not persuaded. Even if his statutory analysis is correct, the defendant sees the evidence selectively. Morey did testify that he was unaware of Cayton's identity because the deputy was not wearing a uniform and instead was dressed "like inmates." Yet he also testified that Cayton and another man, also a deputy not in uniform, questioned and searched him when he first arrived at the jail. In addition, Cayton testified that Morey addressed him as "Officer" during this booking procedure. The assault occurred only after Cayton unlocked the cellblock door to allow Morey to enter.

The trial court properly denied the motion to acquit if "there was credible evidence from which the jury would be justified in believing beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty as charged." State v. Doughty, Me., 399 A.2d 1319, 1326 (1979). The jury could find from this evidence that Morey had deduced Cayton's identity. Therefore, even though Morey testified that he did not know of Cayton's official status, we find no error in the court's denial of the motion to acquit.

We must reach a different conclusion, however, on the defendant's challenge to the jury instructions on the elements the state must prove for the offense of assault on an officer. Here, the defendant squarely presents the question, which we do not have to decide on his challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, of whether Morey must have known that his victim was a prison official. Before reaching the merits of that issue, though, we must first determine whether the defendant properly preserved the question in the trial below.

At the close of the state's evidence, the defendant requested an instruction that simple assault under 17-A M.R.S.A. § 207 would be a lesser included offense if the jury found that Morey did not know that Cayton was a police officer. The court responded that it would instruct on the lesser included offense but not on knowledge of the victim's status. The defendant did not formally object to the court's denial of his requested instructions, nor did he renew the request at the close of trial. He did, though, later object to the state's request for a further instruction that it would specifically not have to prove knowledge that the person assaulted was an officer. Because the defendant had already requested the contrary instruction, and a renewal of that request appeared futile, that objection sufficiently preserved the issue for appeal. See State v. Rice, Me., 379 A.2d 140, 144 (1977). ²

We begin our analysis of the merits of Morey's proposed jury instruction by examining the language of three sections of Title 17-A: sections 752-A(1)(B), 207, and 11. Section 752-A(1)(B) does not specifically require knowledge or any other culpable mental state. It does, though, incorporate the definition of assault in section 207, which specifies a culpable mental state:

1. A person is guilty of assault if he intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causes bodily injury or offensive physical contact to another.

Although the expressly required mental state applies only to the assault element of section 752-A(1)(B), section 11 requires a similar mental state for the other elements of the offense by stating as a general rule: "A person is not guilty of a crime unless he acted intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently, as the law defining the crime specifies, with respect to each element of the crime ...." Section 11 provides for exceptions to this rule in subsections 4 and 5.

The state directs our attention to the exception contained in subsection 4(A). This provision states:

"Unless otherwise expressly provided, a culpable mental state need not be proved with respect to ... (a)ny fact which is solely a basis for sentencing classification ...."

The State compares the offense of assault on a prison official, a Class C crime, with simple assault, a Class D crime, and reasons that the element of the prison official in section 752-A is only relevant for sentencing classification. Therefore, it concludes, no culpable mental state applies to that element.

We must reject this reasoning for several reasons. First, the location of the two sections, 207 and 752-A, within Title 17-A suggests that the legislature intended a distinction between the two sections beyond differences in sentencing classification. Section 207 appears in Chapter 9, Offenses Against the Person. Rather than falling into the same chapter, which would be its logical location if only distinguished by severity of punishment, section 752-A appears in Chapter 31, Offenses Against Public Administration. In contrast to this separation, the offenses and different sentencing classifications to which section 11(4)(A) clearly applies appear either juxtaposed, e. g., 17-A M.R.S.A. §§ 207 (assault) and 208 (aggravated assault) or within the same section, e. g., § 362 (classification of theft offenses); § 402 (criminal trespass). Especially where the legislature did prescribe several assault offenses within Chapter 9, we must ascribe some significance to the legislative placement of § 752-A in Chapter 31.

Additionally, the comments under sections 207 and 752-A show that the legislature intended these sections to serve different purposes. The comment to section 207 discusses the traditional division of assault into simple assault, now represented by section 207, and aggravated assault, section 208. It concludes: "The two assault sections are distinguishable on the basis of the seriousness of the harm caused or the risks to life that are posed by the defendant's conduct." The comment does not mention section 752-A. The comment to section 752-A states in part: "The policy here is to discourage people in custody from a violent response to what they see as an illegal arrest." We must conclude from this statement that, although the underlying action may be the same in both sections 207 and 752-A, the drafters intended offenses defined in the latter section to be treated separately from the other assault offenses.

Furthermore, the comment's statement of the policy behind section 752-A suggests why the exceptions in 17-A M.R.S.A. § 11(5) are inapplicable. Section 11(5) states:

If a statute defining a crime in this code does not expressly prescribe a culpable mental state with respect to some or all of the elements of the crime, a culpable mental state is nevertheless required, pursuant to subsections 1, 2 and 3, unless:

A. The statute expressly provides that a person may be guilty of a crime without culpability as to those elements; or

B. A legislative intent to impose liability without culpability as to those elements otherwise appears.

Section 752-A does not expressly provide for liability without culpability for the element of the prison official. We therefore focus on whether the legislature otherwise indicated its intent to cause that result.

In the past, we have found the requisite legislative intent not to require culpability expressed in the language of the statute and in the overall statutory context, e. g., State...