State v. Murray
| Decision Date | 08 December 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 7320,7320 |
| Citation | 63 Haw. 12,621 P.2d 334 |
| Parties | STATE of Hawaii, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph A. K. MURRAY, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Hawaii Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
1. While established rules of construction may be of aid in ascertaining and implementing the intent of the legislature, they may not be used to deflect legislative purpose and design.
2. Even the rule that penal statutes are to be strictly construed does not permit a court to ignore legislative intent, nor does it require a rerjection of that sense of the words used which best harmonizes with the design of the statute or the end in view.
3. HRS sec. 706-605(1)(e), which permits criminal restitution as a sentencing alternative, has a purpose and design that encompasses both the punishment and the rehabilitation of the offender.
4. A sentencing court's discretion, pursuant to HRS sec. 706-605(1)(e), is broad enough to encompass a reparative order in favor of the State where the State is for all practical purposes a victim of the crime, it is obligated to assume the financial burden of defendant's misdeed, and the order is just, feasible, and consistent with the design and intent of the statute.
5. The phrase "like process of attachment," as used in HRS sec. 353-30, is a reference to the various creditor remedies and processes available in the enforcement of civil judgments and orders.
6. Provisions of HRS Chapter 353 evince a definite legislative policy to preclude dispossession of "moneys earned" from correctional labor, even to the extent of precluding a divestment order imposed as a penal sanction.
7. A significant policy decision that the "rehabilitation process will be best served if prisoners are allowed a vested right" to sums earned from correctional labor was made in 1970, and both creditors and prison authorities have since been powerless to assert claims against such sums.
8. Laws in pari materia, or upon the same subject, must be construed with reference to each other.
9. A statute must be construed as part of and in harmony with the law of which it forms a part.
10. A sentencing court is afforded wide latitude in the selection of penalties from those prescribed and in the determination of their severity. This authority is normally undisturbed on review in the absence of an apparent abuse of discretion or unless applicable statutory and constitutional commands have not been observed.
11. Some degree of specificity is an essential element of a sentence and the requisite specificity should be provided by the sentencing court and ought not be left to subsequent administrative determination.
John L. Olson, Captain Cook, for defendant-appellant.
Eileen T. Tredway, Deputy Pros. Atty., County of Hawaii, Hilo, for plaintiff-appellee.
Before RICHARDSON, C. J., and OGATA, MENOR, LUM and NAKAMURA, JJ.
Defendant-Appellant Joseph A. K. Murray appeals from a sentence and an order denying a motion to correct the sentence entered by the Circuit Court of the Third Circuit. Novel questions related to the status and function of "restitution" within our system of criminal justice are posed for decision. They are: (1) whether a sentencing court may compel a defendant to repay medical expenses incurred by the State of Hawaii on behalf of a direct victim of a crime; (2) whether a restitution or reparation order exacting satisfaction of the obligation from wages for work performed in a correctional program is void; and (3) whether the order is also void because it imposes a burden beyond defendant's means and ability to comply. Inasmuch as defendant is a long-term prisoner bereft of means and his only possible source of income would be wages from correctional labor, we conclude the portion of the sentence exacting repayment is void because it contravenes legislative policy.
Pursuant to a nolo contendere plea, following "plea bargaining" between the prosecutor and defense counsel, defendant was adjudged guilty of assault in the first degree for shooting a fellow inmate of Kulani Honor Camp on the island of Hawaii. Counsel then sought clemency in the sentence by requesting that defendant be allowed to serve a mandatory ten-year term of imprisonment 1 concurrently with the sixty-year term he was already serving. A concurrent sentence was imposed, but the circuit court also directed that:
(D)efendant shall make restitution to the State of Hawaii, and any amounts of money that he has now saved shall be immediately paid to the State of Hawaii. Any money that he may earn while in prison shall also be turned over to the State of Hawaii to repay the State for medical expenses paid for the victim by the State of Hawaii.
Defendant thereupon moved to delete the portion of the sentence requiring him "to make restitution to the State of Hawaii," contending it was improper because it compelled the payment of a sum beyond his means and ability. The motion was denied and the court reiterated the order in favor of the State in a sum of $36,000, but with a modification providing:
(a) That the order of restitution is subject to the Defendant's ability to repay the amount;
(b) That the order of restitution is also subject to the provision that Defendant JOSEPH A. K. MURRAY is first entitled to the standard amount specified by the rules of the institution in which he is incarcerated for inmates' necessities and personal needs so as to not imperil the safety of Defendant JOSEPH A. K. MURRAY and so as to allow Defendant JOSEPH A. K. MURRAY to survive in such institution.
Defendant's appeal to this court followed.
The dispositional alternatives available to a sentencing court include probation, fine, imprisonment, restitution or reparation, several combinations of the foregoing, and community service. 2 Restitution or reparation payments to a victim of an offense as a condition of probation have been authorized since 1931. 3 Restitution or reparation in addition to imprisonment or fine as an optional penal sanction is a recent development in our correctional process, having been approved in 1975. 4 However, the concept of an offender making restitution to his victim is ancient; its origins are traceable to primitive societies and to early codes which prescribed compensation for the victim, as well as punishment of the offender.
In the most primitive of cultures, a victim personally "punished" the offender by physical retaliation. Whatever compensation the victim obtained for an injury was aggressively acquired from the offender. When groups became established the function of retaliating against offenders devolved to clans or tribes. Individuals no longer retaliated against individuals; families took revenge on families. But subsequent societal growth spelled the end of this mode of retribution. Unregulated revenge with its socially disintegrating consequences was displaced by early forms of composition. When higher levels of economic development were attained, threats to material wealth were equated with injury. And systems of retribution and reparation premised on negotiation and the indemnification of victims through the payment of money or goods evolved. 5
The emergence of centralized authority brought codes of justice with provisions for the restitution of victims by offenders. 6 In England, an offender was compelled to pay "bot" to his victim; later, he also paid "wite" to the King. Eventually, the entire retributive payment or fine went to the ruler and the punishment of offenses that threatened the social fabric became the exclusive province of the state. Criminal law and its administration were divorced from civil law, and the restitution or reparation of victims of crimes, as well as the redress of essentially private wrongs, became the function of tort law. 7
Thus, the concept of victim restitution was not an integral component of American criminal justice. However, we have witnessed a recent resurgence of interest in the plight of victims that has engendered proposals for an integration of the concept into the criminal process. The inefficacy of common law remedies in compelling the repair by offenders of the consequences of their anti-social behavior has induced legislative attempts to alleviate the problem through other means. Statutes calling for "compensation" from public sources for victims of violent crime have been enacted in several jurisdictions. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Law (HRS Chapter 351), passed in 1967, was among the early efforts to provide alternative relief. 8 More recently, proposals to integrate restitution with penology to the extent of exacting restitution from incarcerated offenders have gained limited acceptance. We earlier noted the provision at issue that authorizes a sentencing court to compel incarcerated offenders to make restitution or reparation to their victims within the criminal process was approved in 1975.
The language of the provision and its application have not been tested in this court. Several factors, including the seeming contradiction between the imprisonment of an offender and the simultaneous exaction of money from him, the traditional separation of criminal and civil processes, and the novelty of the concept of restitution in modern criminal justice impel our careful examination of the provision. Moreover, its application must be reconciled with other penological provisions and with the several acknowledged objectives of the criminal process, which are the rehabilitation of the offender, the protection of society through a neutralization or removal from the community of the dangerous offender, and the deterrence of further breaches of law, as well as retribution. 9
In defendant's view, the circuit court's authority under HRS § 706-605 does not include an order to repay the State of Hawaii, for it was not, he claims, a victim of his crime. But we are convinced a sentencing court's discretion thereunder is broad enough to...
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