State v. Rushton
| Decision Date | 07 April 2017 |
| Docket Number | No. 20150737,20150737 |
| Citation | 395 P.3d 92 |
| Parties | STATE of Utah, Respondent, v. David M. RUSHTON, Petitioner. |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
Sean D. Reyes, Att'y Gen., Marian Decker, Asst. Att'y Gen., Salt Lake City, for respondent.
Joanna E. Landau, Salt Lake City, for petitioner.
INTRODUCTION
¶ 1 This case clarifies the interpretation of the phrase "single criminal objective" in the context of the mandatory joinder statute, UTAH CODE § 76-1-401, which prohibits the State from prosecuting a defendant in separate actions for "conduct [that] may establish separate offenses under a single criminal episode," id. § 76-1-402(2). A "single criminal episode" is defined as "all conduct which is closely related in time and is incident to an attempt or an accomplishment of a single criminal objective ." Id. § 76-1-401 (emphasis added).
¶ 2 The Petitioner, David Rushton, argues that the State violated the mandatory joinder statute by prosecuting him from 2011 to 2012 for wage crimes after having prosecuted and convicted him in 2009 and 2010 for tax crimes. Interpreting the phrase "single criminal objective" broadly, Mr. Rushton asserts that the conduct underlying both prosecutions was part of a single criminal episode because it was "closely related in time and ... incident to an attempt or an accomplishment of [the] single criminal objective" of misappropriation of money in his business setting. Id. Therefore, Mr. Rushton argues, the court of appeals erred when it affirmed the district court's denial of his motion to dismiss the wage crimes prosecution as barred by the mandatory joinder statute. He appealed that denial, and we granted certiorari to consider the merits of his position.
¶ 3 We affirm the decision of the court of appeals, albeit along a somewhat different line of reasoning. If we were to read the phrase "single criminal objective" as broadly as Mr. Rushton urges us to, the permissive joinder statute, Utah Code section 77-8a-1, would be rendered inoperative. Instead, we consider the totality of the circumstances that bear on whether conduct aims at a single criminal objective, focusing in particular on the location where the crimes were committed, the nature of the offenses (both the similarity in conduct and, as suggested by the concurrence, the extent to which one offense advances the accomplishment of another), whether the crimes involved different victims, and whether the defendant had the opportunity to deliberately engage in the next-in-time offense. We determine that Mr. Rushton's conduct did not have a single criminal objective and thus did not constitute a single criminal episode.1 Therefore, the mandatory joinder statute did not require the State to charge the tax crimes and wage crimes in a single prosecution, and the court of appeals correctly concluded that dismissal of the wage case based on the mandatory joinder statute was not warranted.
¶ 4 Mr. Rushton started Fooptube LLC, a computer programming and design company in 2005. A few years later, the Utah State Tax Commission began investigating him due to allegations that he had withheld personal and corporate taxes while serving as an owner and officer of Fooptube. On April 14, 2009, the State charged Mr. Rushton with six tax crimes committed between 2005 and 2008.2 Mr. Rushton was arraigned for the tax crimes on December 14, 2009. In June 2010, pursuant to a plea agreement, Mr. Rushton pleaded guilty to counts five and six, and the remaining counts were dismissed.
¶ 5 In May 2009, several former Fooptube employees approached the prosecutor and informed him of the wage claims they had against Mr. Rushton. The State then launched an investigation into these crimes. During that investigation, the investigator was contacted by the Utah Labor Commission, which informed him that Mr. Rushton had failed to pay wages to approximately eighty-four former Fooptube employees between October 2008 and October 2009. By 2011, ninety-five employees had reported unpaid wages for services provided to Fooptube. The claims for unpaid wages totaled $ 1,170,164.07. The investigator also learned that the United States Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration was investigating allegations that Mr. Rushton had failed to remit Fooptube employees' contributions to retirement funds in the amount of $ 107,000.00.
¶ 6 On April 20, 2011, the State filed the wage case against Mr. Rushton, charging him with seven second-degree felonies. The State amended its charges against Mr. Rushton on November 3, 2011, to include thirteen charges of class A misdemeanors as possible alternatives to two of the previously charged felonies.3 Mr. Rushton moved to dismiss the wage case, arguing that under the mandatory joinder statute, his wage crimes and tax crimes were part of a single criminal episode, and that because the tax case had already resulted in a conviction when he entered his guilty plea, he could not be prosecuted for the wage crimes.
¶ 7 The district court concluded that the conduct at issue in the tax case and in the wage case did not constitute a single criminal episode under the mandatory joinder statute. While the district court found that Mr. Rushton's conduct at issue in both cases was closely related in time, it concluded that the conduct at issue in the tax case was not committed in furtherance of the same criminal objective as the conduct at issue in the wage case. According to the district court, although the cases are factually similar, they involve different victims, issues, laws, and jury instructions. As a result, the district court held that the conduct did not constitute a single criminal episode.
¶ 8 After the court denied Mr. Rushton's motion to dismiss, Mr. Rushton entered a conditional guilty plea to count 3 (amended to a third-degree felony of attempted unlawful dealing with property), count 7, and count 20. Mr. Rushton then appealed the district court's decision, and the court of appeals affirmed the district court's ruling, holding that Mr. Rushton's tax crimes and his wage crimes did not constitute a single criminal episode under the mandatory joinder statute. State v. Rushton , 2015 UT App 170, ¶¶ 5–6, 354 P.3d 223. Mr. Rushton then petitioned for a writ of certiorari asking that we review the court of appeals' decision against him. We granted the writ and, therefore, exercise jurisdiction under Utah Code section 78A-3-102(3)(a).
¶ 9 "On certiorari, we review the court of appeals' decision for correctness, focusing on whether that court correctly reviewed the trial court's decision under the appropriate standard of review." Hansen v. Eyre, 2005 UT 29, ¶ 8, 116 P.3d 290 (internal quotation marks omitted). A trial court's denial of a motion to dismiss presents a question of law, which is also reviewed for correctness. See State v. Arave , 2011 UT 84, ¶ 25, 268 P.3d 163.
¶ 10 We affirm the court of appeals' denial of Mr. Rushton's motion to dismiss. In so doing, we clarify the interpretation of the phrase "single criminal objective" in the context of the mandatory joinder statute. Under the mandatory joinder statute, the State is prohibited from prosecuting a defendant in separate actions for conduct that "is closely related in time and is incident to an attempt or an accomplishment of a single criminal objective." UTAH CODE § 76-1-401, 402(2).4
Monarrez v. Utah Dep't of Transp. , 2016 UT 10, ¶ 11, 368 P.3d 846 (internal quotation marks omitted). Indeed, "it is a ‘fundamental principle of statutory construction (and, indeed, of language itself) that the meaning of a word cannot be determined in isolation, but must be drawn from the context in which it is used.’ " Reno v. Koray , 515 U.S. 50, 56, 115 S.Ct. 2021, 132 L.Ed.2d 46 (1995) (citation omitted). This is why we look to context when, as here, "both sides offer conceivable constructions of the language in question." Olsen v. Eagle Mountain City , 2011 UT 10, ¶ 9, 248 P.3d 465.
¶ 12 With this legal backdrop in mind, we turn first to Mr. Rushton's argument that the phrase "single criminal objective" is broad enough to encompass an objective as broad as misappropriation of any money he had power over through Fooptube. We conclude that such a broad interpretation of the phrase "single criminal objective" would render the permissive joinder statute inoperative, which would violate our principles of statutory interpretation. Rather, we...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Sosa-Hurtado
...are important, moreover, as applied to a legal question that does not lend itself easily to a single bright-line rule. See State v. Rushton , 2017 UT 21, ¶ 71, 395 P.3d 92 (Lee, A.C.J., concurring in the judgment) (noting that multifactor tests "may have a place in the law—in a field, for e......
-
Rutherford v. Talisker Canyons Fin., Co.
...CLOVER’S TEST CLARIFIED¶75 Our overarching goal when interpreting a statute is to "implement the intent of the legislature." State v. Rushton , 2017 UT 21, ¶ 11, 395 P.3d 92. In doing so, we turn first to the plain language of the statute itself. GeoMetWatch Corp. v. Utah State Research Fou......
-
Oliver v. Utah Labor Comm'n
..."limit" formulation. See supra ¶48. But that misses my point. My objection is not to subjective standards generally. See State v. Rushton , 2017 UT 21, ¶ 60 n.7, 395 P.3d 92 (Lee, A.C.J. concurring). It is to the introduction of fuzzy standards that bear no relation to the statutory text. I......
-
State v. Powell
...words, rather than setting out what lewdness is, the attempt clause is part of a larger description of what lewdness is not. See State v. Rushton , 2017 UT 21, ¶ 11, 395 P.3d 92 (stating that "we read the plain language of the statute as a whole," drawing meaning from the "context in which ......
-
BOSTOCK V. CLAYTON COUNTY AND THE FOLLY OF TEXTUALISM: A UTAH CASE STUDY.
...language of the statute.... [T]he majority is in no position to claim the high ground of 'plain meaning' textualism." State v. Rushton, 395 P.3d 92, 106 at n.1 (Utah 2017) (Lee, J., concurring). In another case, Associate Chief Justice Lee expounded at length on his understanding of textual......