State v. Rodrigues

• Decision Date: 23 August 1985
• Docket Number: No. 9604,9604
• Citation: 68 Haw. 124,706 P.2d 1293
• Parties: STATE of Hawaii, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Wade Timothy RODRIGUES, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Hawaii Supreme Court

Page 1293

706 P.2d 1293

68 Haw. 124

STATE of Hawaii, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Wade Timothy RODRIGUES, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 9604.

Supreme Court of Hawai'i.

Aug. 23, 1985.

Syllabus by the Court

1. This court's duty in statutory interpretation is to give effect to the law according to its plain and obvious meaning.

2. In its common and popular sense, a conviction refers to the finding of the jury or the court that the defendant is guilty. In a more technical sense, however, it means a final judgment entered on such a determination.

3. The word "adjudication" in its strict judicial sense is generally held to imply a final judgment of the court. But "adjudication of guilt" may also designate that stage in a criminal prosecution when the defendant's guilt is established rather than when the sentence or final judgment is entered.

4. When there is doubleness of meaning or uncertainty relating to an expression used in a statute an ambiguity undoubtedly exists.

5. When ambiguity exists, this court has no recourse but to look to sources other than the language of the statute itself for aid in construing the language consistently with its purpose.

6. A mere finding of guilt by a jury or a court does not constitute a "conviction" within the meaning of HRS § 706-606.5; a judgment entered upon the finding does. There is support for this conclusion in the general rule that where disabilities, disqualifications, and forfeitures are to follow upon a conviction, in the eye of the law a person is not deemed to have been convicted unless it is shown that a judgment has been pronounced upon the verdict.

7. Where a conviction serves as grounds for an automatic mandatory sentence without possibility of parole, there is good reason to deem a person convicted only upon the pronouncement of judgment.

8. Where the defendant is sentenced on the same day for two offenses that were committed a month apart, were charged in two indictments, and for which findings of guilt were entered in separate proceedings, he was convicted twice, not once, for purposes of sentence enhancement under the repeat offender statute.

9. For purposes of HRS § 706-606.5, periods between sentences are measured from the time of sentencing. Where the defendant was previously convicted on November 2, 1978 for theft in the first degree, an offense for which a maximum term of five years is imposable, and was being sentenced as a repeat offender on November 11, 1978 for burglary in the first degree, the initial felony should not have been taken into account in enhancing the sentence.

10. That the circuit court mistakenly concluded the defendant had been convicted on three rather than two prior occasions is of no consequence; he was still subject to being sentenced to the same term of imprisonment. Where the decision below is correct it must be affirmed though the lower court gave the wrong reason for its action.

Richard W. Pollack, Honolulu (Alvin T. Sasaki and David J. Park, Honolulu, on the brief), Deputy Public Defenders, for defendant-appellant.

Willard Peterson, Honolulu (Arthur E. Ross, Honolulu, on the brief), Deputy Pros. Attys., for plaintiff-appellee.

Before LUM, C.J., and NAKAMURA, PADGETT, HAYASHI and WAKATSUKI, JJ.

NAKAMURA, Justice.

Wade Timothy Rodrigues was adjudged guilty of Burglary in the First Degree and sentenced to a mandatory minimum period of imprisonment of ten years as a repeat offender within the purview of Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) § 706-606.5 (Supp.1984). ¹ Relying in part on State v. Tavares, 63 Haw. 509, 630 P.2d 633 (1981), he asserts the trial judge should have imposed a mandatory minimum term of five rather than ten years. We conclude Tavares is not controlling in the situation before us and the imposition of a mandatory minimum term of ten years was not error. ²

I.

On October 4, 1983, the jury in the case of State of Hawaii vs. Wade Timothy Rodrigues, Criminal No. 57960, Circuit Court of the First Circuit, returned a verdict of guilty. Immediately thereafter, the trial judge "adjudge[d] the Defendant guilty as charged of the offense of burglary in the first degree" and scheduled sentencing for November 10, 1983. Inasmuch as the defendant had been convicted of felonies on three prior occasions and was a probationer, the State moved for the revocation of probation as well as for the imposition of a ten-year mandatory minimum term of imprisonment pursuant to HRS § 706-606.5.

The motions were heard on November 10, 1983, at which time the State adduced proof of the previous convictions and dispositions, to wit: (1) theft in the first degree for which the defendant had been placed on probation for five years on November 2, 1978, (2) theft in the first degree for which he had been placed on probation again on December 10, 1979, and (3) burglary in the first degree for which he had also been placed on probation on December 10, 1979. ³ Defense counsel did not question the accuracy of the evidence presented by the State. But he argued the imposition of a mandatory term of ten years would be a misapplication of the repeat offender law. By his reckoning, the criminal history in question yielded only a single prior conviction that could be taken into account in applying HRS § 706-606.5.

Equating "conviction" with the entry of judgment or the sentence, he asserted the earliest conviction was not one upon which the State could rely in seeking enhancement of the sentence about to be imposed. Since a "prior conviction" upon which enhancement may be predicated is one occurring within a given time of the principal offense, a period measurable by the maximum sentence imposable for the previous offense, and Rodrigues was being sentenced more than five years after he was convicted of the first offense, counsel maintained it could not possibly be the basis for imposing a mandatory minimum sentence. The second and third convictions, he argued further, could only be considered a single conviction under the pertinent statutory provision as construed in State v. Tavares, supra. Tavares in his view stood for the proposition that when a defendant "is sentenced [for two or more offenses] on the same day[,] for purposes of the [repeat offender law they] can only be counted as one conviction."

The trial judge was not impressed by this reasoning. Our ruling in Tavares, he said, was only that "prior convictions must have occurred before the offense for which the defendant is ... being sentenced [as a repeat offender]." By his reckoning Rodrigues had three prior convictions, and he felt a minimum period of imprisonment of ten years was mandated. He "reluctantly ... grant[ed] the motion to have the defendant sentenced as a repeat offender with three prior offenses" and imposed a sentence that included a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of ten years. The defendant appeals.

II.

"Appellant asserts as error the trial court's finding that he possessed three prior convictions, rather than only one, and that he was therefore subject to a ten year minimum term of imprisonment pursuant to HRS § 706-606.5(1)(b)." Whether the trial court erred or not thus turns on the meaning of the crucial term, "conviction."

A.

Our quest for meaning begins as it must with the statutory provision in question, which in pertinent part provides that:

any person convicted [of an offense enumerated in HRS § 706-606.5(1) ], who has a prior conviction for any of the ... enumerated offenses or of any one of those enumerated in [HRS § 706-606.5(2) ], within the time of the maximum sentence of the prior conviction, shall be sentenced for each conviction after the first conviction to a mandatory minimum period of imprisonment without possibility of parole during such period as follows:

(a) Second conviction--5 years;

(b) Third conviction--10 years.

HRS § 706-606.5(1) (Supp.1984); see supra note 1 for full text.

"Conviction" is employed without express definition therein. It is ostensibly defined for present purposes by HRS § 706-666(1) (Supp.1984), which reads:

An adjudication by a court of competent jurisdiction that the defendant committed a crime constitutes a conviction for purposes of sections 706-606.5, 706-662, and 706-665, although sentence or the execution thereof was suspended, provided that the defendant was not pardoned on the ground of innocence.

We are thus told an adjudication of guilt constitutes a conviction for purposes of the repeat offender law despite a suspension of the sentence or its execution.

Our duty in statutory interpretation is "to give effect to the law according to its plain and obvious meaning. See, e.g., In re Estate of Spencer, 60 Haw. 497, 499, 591 P.2d 611, 613 (1979); In re Palk, 56 Haw. 492, 497, 542 P.2d 361, 364 (1975)." In re Hawaiian Telephone Co., 61 Haw. 572, 577-78, 608 P.2d 383, 387 (1980). But in this instance the task entails some difficulty; for "conviction" obviously has more than one meaning, and so does "adjudication of guilt."

"In its common and popular sense, [a 'conviction' refers to] the finding of the jury [or the court] that the defendant is guilty." State v. Heald, 382 A.2d 290, 295 (Me.1978). In a more technical sense, however, it means "a final judgment entered on such a determination." People ex rel. Grogan v. Lisinski, 113 Ill.App.3d 276, 279, 68 Ill.Dec. 854, 856, 446 N.E.2d 1251, 1253 (1983). "The word 'adjudication' in its strict judicial sense [likewise] is generally held to imply a final judgment of the court...." State v. Hoffman, 236 Or. 98, 103, 385 P.2d 741, 743 (1963) (citation omitted). Yet "adjudication of guilt" may also designate that stage in a criminal prosecution when the defendant's guilt is established rather than when the sentence or final judgment is entered. See, e.g., Hawaii Rules of Penal Procedure (HRPP) Rule 32(a); ⁴ Wilson v. Goodwyn, 522 F.Supp. 1214, 1216 (E.D.N.C.1981) ("A person is 'adjudged guilty' when his guilt has been determined by a jury, or a judge with...