State v. Stewart
| Decision Date | 12 June 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 20160484,20160484 |
| Citation | 438 P.3d 515 |
| Parties | STATE of Utah, Appellant, v. Scott Richard STEWART, Appellee. |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
Sean D. Reyes, Att’y Gen., John J. Nielsen, Asst. Solic. Gen., Jacob S. Taylor, Asst. Att’y Gen., Salt Lake City, for appellant
J. Morgan Philpot, Alpine, for appellee
INTRODUCTION
¶ 1 The State charged Scott Richard Stewart with, among other crimes, one count of participating in a pattern of unlawful activity. The State also alleged that Stewart had committed securities fraud and that some of those crimes were part of his pattern of unlawful activity. Because the statute of limitations had run on a number of the alleged acts, Stewart moved to exclude them. Stewart argued that a pattern of unlawful activity cannot be based on crimes that the State could not separately charge because the statute of limitations had run. The district court agreed and granted Stewart’s motion. The State seeks interlocutory review of that decision. This requires us to interpret the Pattern of Unlawful Activity Act, Utah Code sections 76–10–1601 to 1609. We conclude that the statute does not prevent the State from using evidence of acts on which the statute of limitations has expired to prove a pattern of unlawful activity. We reverse the district court’s order and remand.
¶ 2 In 2013, the State charged Stewart with, among other things, thirteen counts of securities fraud or, in the alternative, thirteen counts of communications fraud.1 The State also charged Stewart with one count of a pattern of unlawful activity. After the court bound Stewart over for trial, we decided State v. Taylor , 2015 UT 42, 349 P.3d 696, and State v. Kay , 2015 UT 43, 349 P.3d 690. Those cases concluded that securities fraud and communications fraud are not continuing offenses.2 Taylor , 2015 UT 42, ¶ 24, 349 P.3d 696 ; Kay , 2015 UT 43, ¶ 23, 349 P.3d 690. These rulings undercut the State’s prosecution because the State relied on the theory that some of the counts of securities fraud and communications fraud were continuing offenses. In response, the State filed an amended information to exclude several of the charges on which the statute of limitations had expired. The amended information charged two counts of securities fraud, one count of sale of an unregistered security, one count of unlicensed investment advisor activity, and one count of a pattern of unlawful activity.
¶ 3 The State indicated that it planned to call twelve of Stewart’s investors to testify about the investments they made on Stewart’s advice—investments they claim Stewart had defrauded them into making. In other words, the State intended to call witnesses to testify concerning the untimely charges of securities fraud that the State had voluntarily dismissed in response to Kay and Taylor . The State represented that it planned to use the investor testimony to prove the pattern of unlawful activity charge. Stewart moved to exclude that testimony arguing that time-barred offenses cannot support a pattern of unlawful activity.
¶ 4 The district court excluded the evidence. The district court explained, " Kay clarifies that securities fraud is not a continuing offense, and a claim for pattern of unlawful activity must be predicated on acts that, themselves, would be chargeable."3 The district court quoted Kay ’s conclusion that "if the actual communication falls outside the statute of limitations, the State cannot rely on the presence of a predicate scheme to extend the limitations period." (Quoting Kay , 2015 UT 43, ¶ 18, 349 P.3d 690 ). The district court concluded that "[b]ecause the predicate acts relied on by the State regarding [the original victims] are outside the statute of limitations for a communications fraud claim, they may not be used to prove the pattern of unlawful activity charge." We granted the State’s petition for interlocutory appeal to review that conclusion.
¶ 5 The State contends that the trial court erred by excluding evidence of predicate acts that were part of the alleged pattern of unlawful activity. The State’s challenge requires us to interpret Utah’s Pattern of Unlawful Activity Act. Specifically, we must determine whether the prosecution may establish a pattern of unlawful activity using evidence of individual acts that are time barred under the relevant statute of limitations. See UTAH CODE § 76–10–1602(2). "We review questions of statutory interpretation for correctness, affording no deference to the district court’s legal conclusions." Marion Energy, Inc. v. KFJ Ranch P’ship , 2011 UT 50, ¶ 12, 267 P.3d 863 (citation omitted).
¶ 6 Utah’s Pattern of Unlawful Activity Act (Act) criminalizes certain acts involving a pattern of unlawful activity. The Act proscribes a principal of a pattern of unlawful activity from using or investing the income derived from the unlawful activities. UTAH CODE § 76–10–1603(1). It also penalizes the acquisition or maintenance of an interest in or control of any enterprise that undertakes a pattern of unlawful activity. Id. § 76–10–1603(2). Finally, the Act forbids a person from participating in, or conducting, the affairs of an enterprise engaged in a pattern of unlawful acts. Id. § 76–10–1603(3). To understand the Act and this dispute, it helps to first focus on the definitions of "unlawful activity" and "pattern of unlawful activity" as well as the Act’s five-year "lookback" period.
¶ 7 Unlawful activity means "to directly engage in conduct or to solicit, request, command, encourage, or intentionally aid another person to engage in conduct which would constitute any offense" listed in the statutory definition. Id. § 76–10–1602(4). Unlawful activity also means "to attempt or conspire to engage in an act which would constitute any of those offenses, regardless of whether the act is in fact charged or indicted by any authority or is classified as a misdemeanor or a felony." Id. The statute lists ninety crimes and categories of crimes that can constitute unlawful activity. Id.4
¶ 8 And a pattern of unlawful activity means:
engaging in conduct which constitutes the commission of at least three episodes of unlawful activity, which episodes are not isolated, but have the same or similar purposes, results, participants, victims, or methods of commission, or otherwise are interrelated by distinguishing characteristics. Taken together, the episodes shall demonstrate continuing unlawful conduct and be related either to each other or to the enterprise.
Id. § 76–10–1602(2).
¶ 9 The Act also contains a five-year lookback period. The statute requires that Id.
¶ 10 The district court concluded that to be considered part of the pattern, Stewart’s alleged fraud must have occurred within the statute of limitations for a fraud claim. In other words, under the district court’s interpretation, the State has to base the unlawful pattern upon crimes for which the statute of limitations has not run. Stewart urges us to accept this interpretation.
¶ 11 The State contends that the trial court misinterpreted the Act’s plain language. The State argues that a straightforward reading of the statute reveals that time-barred counts can be used to demonstrate a pattern of unlawful activity.
¶ 12 "It is well settled that when faced with a question of statutory interpretation, ‘our primary goal is to evince the true intent and purpose of the Legislature.’ " Marion Energy, Inc. v. KFJ Ranch P’ship , 2011 UT 50, ¶ 14, 267 P.3d 863 (citation omitted). "The best evidence of the legislature’s intent is ‘the plain language of the statute itself.’ " Id. (citation omitted). We "presume that the legislature used each word advisedly and read each term according to its ordinary and accepted meaning." Turner v. Staker & Parson Cos. , 2012 UT 30, ¶ 12, 284 P.3d 600 (citation omitted). "Wherever possible, we give effect to every word of a statute, avoiding ‘[a]ny interpretation which renders parts or words in a statute inoperative or superfluous.’ " Id. (alteration in original) (citation omitted).
¶ 13 Additionally, when interpreting statutes, "we ‘presume[ ] that the expression of one [term] should be interpreted as the exclusion of another,’ " and we "seek to give effect to omissions in statutory language by presuming all omissions to be purposeful." Marion Energy , 2011 UT 50, ¶ 14, 267 P.3d 863 (alterations in original) (citation omitted). However, "our plain language analysis is not so limited that we only inquire into the individual words and subsections in isolation; our interpretation of a statute requires that each part or section be ‘construed in connection with every other part or section so as to produce a harmonious whole.’ " Anderson v. Bell , 2010 UT 47, ¶ 9, 234 P.3d 1147 (emphasis omitted) (citation omitted).
¶ 14 As an initial matter, we note that the Legislature could have drafted the statute to expressly permit or reject the use of criminal acts that are outside the statute of limitations. It did not, and in the absence of an express statement, we are left to examine the statute for the best textual indications of what the Legislature intended. The State argues that the best interpretation of the statute is one that permits the pattern to include untimely criminal acts because the contrary interpretation—the one the district court...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Sosa-Hurtado
...course of conduct, or criminal episode" modifier. See id. § 76-5-202(1)(c). We presume this omission to be deliberate, see State v. Stewart , 2018 UT 24, ¶ 13, 438 P.3d 515, and it suggests that the temporal window between the aggravating circumstance and the criminal homicide is narrower f......
-
State v. Squires
...of a pattern of unlawful activity from using or investing the income derived from the unlawful activities" in an enterprise. State v. Stewart , 2018 UT 24, ¶ 6, 438 P.3d 515 (citing Utah Code section 76-10-1603(1) ). Second, it "penalizes the acquisition or maintenance of an interest in or ......
-
State v. Badikyan
...quotation marks omitted).40 Id. (first and second alterations in original) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).41 State v. Stewart , 2018 UT 24, ¶ 12, 438 P.3d 515 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).42 Graves v. North Eastern Servs., Inc., 2015 UT 28, ¶ 52, 345 P.3d......
-
State v. Medina
...undetermined. "On interlocutory review, we recount the facts as alleged and in a light most favorable to the ruling below." State v. Stewart , 2018 UT 24, ¶ 2 n.1, 438 P.3d 515 (cleaned up). A woman (Victim) was found fatally stabbed on the side of a road. The ensuing investigation led poli......