State v. Sullivan, No. 63808
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Iowa |
| Writing for the Court | Considered by REYNOLDSON; REYNOLDSON |
| Citation | 298 N.W.2d 267 |
| Decision Date | 12 November 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 63808 |
| Parties | STATE of Iowa, Appellant, v. Timothy SULLIVAN, Appellee. |
Page 267
v.
Timothy SULLIVAN, Appellee.
Page 268
Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen., Douglas F. Staskal, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Allan L. Goode, Asst. Webster County Atty., for appellant.
C. Joseph Coleman of Mitchell, Coleman, Perkins & Enke, Fort Dodge, for appellee.
Considered by REYNOLDSON, C. J., and LeGRAND, McCORMICK, McGIVERIN, and SCHULTZ, JJ.
Page 269
REYNOLDSON, Chief Justice.
The State's appeal requires us to interpret and determine the constitutionality of subsection 709.4(2), The Code 1979. Trial court, sustaining defendant's motion to dismiss a third-degree sexual abuse charge grounded upon this statute, held it unconstitutionally vague. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand.
July 12, 1978, defendant was charged by trial information with sexual abuse in the third degree, a violation of section 709.4, Code Supp. 1977. Conforming to a court ruling, the State later filed a bill of particulars that alleged defendant violated subsection 709.4(2). 1
This appeal presents a facial constitutional attack on subsection 709.4(2), thus there are no controlling facts before us. We briefly refer to the alleged evidence the State was prepared to present, disclosed by papers filed here as part of the record, only to show the context in which the charge arose. The allegedly retarded 25-year-old victim was purported to have the mentality of an eight-to-ten-year-old person. She was described as knowing "that people get married and have babies, but ... doesn't know how they have babies." Defendant was alleged to have picked her up off the street in his truck, taken her to his mobile home where he had intercourse with her, and then dropped her back on the street, crying, with a vaginal laceration that required four sutures.
November 1, 1978, defendant moved to dismiss the charges against him, alleging subsection 709.4(2) was unconstitutional because it "is framed in terms which are impermissibly vague, in that its prohibitions are not clearly defined and causes persons of ordinary intelligence to guess at what is prohibited." By separate paragraph defendant specifically claimed the second portion of subsection 709.4(2), which prohibits a sex act with a person who "lacks the mental capacity to know the right and wrong of conduct in sexual matters," was "of such an intangible nature that it violates the due process clause of the Constitution of the United States."
June 27, 1979, trial court sustained the motion to dismiss, determining that, "Section 709.4(2) fails to pass constitutional muster and must fall as unconstitutionally vague." Trial court held there was no fixed answer to the "right and wrong" provision that would guide conduct in this area. More broadly, trial court found the statute had no "fixed standard which is clearly ascertainable," and that a standard which required a person "to search another's thought process to arrive at a conclusion which is subject to varied interpretation (could not) provide notice of the conduct prohibited."
The State's appeal brief asserted trial court erred in declaring subsection 709.4(2) unconstitutional in its entirety when only the second portion of the subsection was challenged. It pointed out the county attorney never so limited the prosecution, and that the bill of particulars specified defendant was charged with violating subsection 709.4(2), not merely the second clause in that subsection.
Page 270
Defendant filed an application for limited remand in which he alleged defendant was charged under the latter provision in subsection 709.4(2) and that this was the only provision trial court held unconstitutional. The State filed a "Partial Resistance" in which it agreed to the remand to trial court for the sole purpose of clarifying which portion of subsection 709.4(2) trial court intended to declare unconstitutional. The State challenged the various factual assertions and legal arguments contained in the application. Our order of remand was strictly limited:
It is hereby ordered that this case shall be remanded to the district court of Webster County for the following limited purpose: The district court shall promptly file a supplemental order stating whether its order of July 3, 1979, insofar as that order holds that section 709.4(2), The Code, is unconstitutionally vague, applies to the entirety of that statute or only to the final clause of the statute, to wit, that part of the statute making it unlawful to participate in a sex act with a person who "lacks the mental capacity to know the right and wrong of conduct in sexual matters."
Trial court's ruling following remand, filed April 3, 1980, stated that "(t) he ruling entered on July 3, 1979, although not specifically so limited, intended only to rule upon the constitutional issue as to the final clause, to wit: 'lacks the mental capacity to know the right and wrong of conduct in sexual matters.' "
The record and briefs now before us present the following issues: (1) whether trial court erred in holding the last portion of subsection 709.4(2) unconstitutionally vague and therefore void; and (2) if it is unconstitutional, whether the remainder of the statute remains viable and supports the charge as limited by the bill of particulars.
I. Constitutionality of the "right or wrong" provision in subsection 709.4(2).
Trial court's supplemental ruling makes clear it found only the following portion of subsection 709.4(2) unconstitutionally vague: "lacks the mental capacity to know the right and wrong of conduct in sexual matters."
The State contends this clause simply restates, in a different way, the essential meaning of "consent," the operative word in the first part of the challenged subsection. The State asserts the total subsection, interpreted in light of our prior decisions, merely requires one who would engage in a sex act with another to ascertain that the other participant is not suffering from a mental defect or incapacity that would prevent him or her from knowing and understanding the nature and consequences of the contemplated act.
Defendant argues it is not possible for a reasonable person to read the last part of the subsection and understand what specific conduct is prohibited; that the "right and wrong of conduct in sexual matters" invokes different standards in different people and is too indefinite to serve as a basis for a criminal charge.
The principles we apply in this type of case are well established. We briefly refer to only a few. The person mounting the constitutional challenge on a legislative enactment carries the heavy burden to rebut a strong presumption of constitutionality. See Miller v. Iowa Real Estate Commission, 274 N.W.2d 288, 291 (Iowa 1979); State v. Kueny, 215 N.W.2d 215, 216 (Iowa 1974). If a statute can be made constitutionally definite by a reasonable construction, this court is under a duty to give the statute that construction. State v. Williams, 238 N.W.2d 302, 306 (Iowa 1976) (quoting United States v. Harriss, 347 U.S. 612, 618, 74 S.Ct. 808, 812, 98...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Anderson v. Morrow, No. 02-35675.
...have recognized this distinction between an appropriate voluntariness inquiry and inappropriate moralizing. See, e.g., State v. Sullivan, 298 N.W.2d 267, 271 (Iowa 1980); People v. Cratsley, 86 N.Y.2d 81, 629 N.Y.S.2d 992, 653 N.E.2d 1162, 1165 (1995); Deborah W. Denno, Sexuality, Rape, and......
-
Reavis v. Slominski, No. S-94-288
...Who Is Allegedly Mentally Deficient, 31 A.L.R.3d 1227 (1970); State v. Olivio, 123 N.J. 550, 589 A.2d 597 (1991); State v. Sullivan, 298 N.W.2d 267 (Iowa 1980). Some jurisdictions follow an expansive interpretation and hold that unless one understands both the physical elements of sex and t......
-
State v. Olivio
...Id. at 56, 396 N.Y.S.2d at 639, 364 N.E.2d at 1332. The expansive view of mentally defective has been criticized. In State v. Sullivan, 298 N.W.2d 267 (1980), the Supreme Court of Iowa struck down as unconstitutionally vague the part of Iowa's analogous statute that read "or lacks the menta......
-
State v. Munz, 69378
...judgment, and others, are discussed in Carey and Coil. See also State v. Cobb, 311 N.W.2d 64, 67-68 (Iowa 1981); State v. Sullivan, 298 N.W.2d 267, 271 (Iowa 1980); State v. Drake, 219 N.W.2d 492, 495 (Iowa 1974); People v. Gonzalez, 81 Cal.App.3d 274, 278, 146 Cal.Rptr. 417 (1978); In re I......
-
Anderson v. Morrow, No. 02-35675.
...have recognized this distinction between an appropriate voluntariness inquiry and inappropriate moralizing. See, e.g., State v. Sullivan, 298 N.W.2d 267, 271 (Iowa 1980); People v. Cratsley, 86 N.Y.2d 81, 629 N.Y.S.2d 992, 653 N.E.2d 1162, 1165 (1995); Deborah W. Denno, Sexuality, Rape, and......
-
Reavis v. Slominski, No. S-94-288
...Who Is Allegedly Mentally Deficient, 31 A.L.R.3d 1227 (1970); State v. Olivio, 123 N.J. 550, 589 A.2d 597 (1991); State v. Sullivan, 298 N.W.2d 267 (Iowa 1980). Some jurisdictions follow an expansive interpretation and hold that unless one understands both the physical elements of sex and t......
-
State v. Olivio
...Id. at 56, 396 N.Y.S.2d at 639, 364 N.E.2d at 1332. The expansive view of mentally defective has been criticized. In State v. Sullivan, 298 N.W.2d 267 (1980), the Supreme Court of Iowa struck down as unconstitutionally vague the part of Iowa's analogous statute that read "or lacks the menta......
-
Amana Soc. v. Colony Inn, Inc., No. 63269
...As to all of these grounds, of course, the Society confronts a strong presumption of constitutional validity. See State v. Sullivan, 298 N.W.2d 267, 270 (Iowa 1980); Miller v. Iowa Real Estate Commission, 274 N.W.2d 288, 291 (Iowa 1979); Presbytery of Southeast Iowa v. Harris, 226 N.W.2d 23......