Territory v. Palai

• Decision Date: 01 February 1916
• Docket Number: No. 874.,874.
• Citation: 23 Haw. 133
• Parties: TERRITORY v. ANTONIO DELA CRUZ PALAI.
• Court: Hawaii Supreme Court

23 Haw. 133

TERRITORY

v.ANTONIO DELA CRUZ PALAI.

No. 874.

Supreme Court of the Territory of Hawai‘i.

Argued January 4, 1916.

Decided February 1, 1916.

EXCEPTIONS FROM CIRCUIT COURT, FOURTH CIRCUIT. HON. C. F. PARSONS, JUDGE.

Syllabus by the Court

The words “unlawful” and “unlawfully” are commonly used as meaning “without authority of law” or “not permitted by law.”

In a prosecution under section 4028, R. L. 1915, charging the unlawful use of dynamite with intent to injure or destroy property, it is not necessary to allege or prove that the property was actually injured.

The burden is on the prosecution to prove that an act charged to have been done with a specific intent was done with that intent. But it is sufficient in such cases to prove facts from which such intent may be inferred.

The mere fact that the language used in a penal statute is open to two constructions, one of which would include the acts charged and the other not, does not require that the latter view must necessarily prevail, and the former view will be adopted if the court is well satisfied that such was the sufficiently expressed intention of the legislature.

An exception to the admission of evidence, to be available in an appellate court, should point out the particular part of the evidence which was objected to. If any of the evidence was admissible, a general objection is not sufficient.

Evidence of motive, or lack of motive, being a matter properly to be considered by the jury in a criminal case, an appropriately framed instruction on the point, if requested, should be given. The instruction requested in this case was properly refused because incomplete and misleading.

The operation of evidence of an extra judicial statement relevant on the question of motive will not be limited by an instruction where the evidence went in generally and without objection.

C. S. Carlsmith, Deputy Attorney General ( W. H. Beers, County Attorney of Hawaii, and S. S. Rolph, Deputy County Attorney of Hawaii, with him on the brief), for the Territory.

J. W. Russell for defendant.

ROBERTSON, C.J., WATSON, J., AND CIRCUIT JUDGE ASHFORD IN PLACE OF QUARLES, J., ABSENT.

OPINION OF THE COURT BY ROBERTSON, C.J.

The defendant was convicted upon an indictment under R. L. 1915, Sec. 4028, charging that on the 1st day of April, 1915, in the district of South Hilo, county of Hawaii, he did unlawfully use dynamite with intent to injure, destroy and damage a certain sugar mill, the property of the Onomea Sugar Company, and brings the case to this court upon exceptions. After the case was submitted counsel were asked to file briefs upon a point which had not been presented, namely, whether in a case of this kind it is incumbent upon the prosecution to allege and prove actual injury to property as a result of the unlawful use of the explosive. The indictment, it will be observed, alleged the unlawful use of dynamite with intent to injure the property, and the evidence adduced at the trial showed that there had been no explosion and that no actual damage had been done to the mill in question. Section 4028 provides that “Any person unlawfully using dynamite or other explosive chemical or substance for the purpose of inflicting bodily injury upon, or to terrify and frighten, any person, or to injure or destroy any property, or damage the same in any manner, shall be liable,” etc.

Counsel for the defendant contends that so far as this case is concerned it is as though the statute read “Any person unlawfully using dynamite to injure, destroy or damage any property,” etc., and that as at the time the statute was first enacted (June 15, 1893) the only unlawful use of dynamite was its use in committing malicious injury, actual injury must be shown, and that the word “unlawfully” as used in section 4028 was not intended as a prohibition of the acts therein mentioned. He also argues that the fact that in the revision of 1905, and again in the revision of 1915, the provisions of the act of 1893 were included in the same chapter with the provisions relating to the offense of malicious injury adds force to his contention; that even if the words “for the purpose,” as used in section 4028, are the equivalent of “with the intent” they are not grammatically connected with the words “to injure or destroy any property;” and, further, that a use of dynamite with intent to injure property is not a use to injure it.

It is not necessary, in order to give the statute a proper meaning and operation, that the acts mentioned in it should be made unlawful by another statute. “A statute often speaks as plainly by inference, and by means of the purpose which underlies the enactment, as in any other manner, and whenever it appears by necessary inference from what is expressed, that a given act or acts are opposed to the policy of the law, and will defeat its purpose, or the object had in view by the legislature, such acts should be held to be thereby prohibited.” U. S. v. O'Connor, 31 Fed. 449, 451. The words “unlawful” and “unlawfully,” where the context or object of a statute requires, may be given a restricted meaning and construed as having reference only to acts expressly prohibited by statute, but such restricted meaning is by no means a necessary one for those words are commonly used in a wider sense, as the equivalent of “without authority of law” or “not permitted by law,” and as inclusive of actionable violations of civil rights whether or not they be punishable criminally as well. State v. Tinkler, 72 Kan. 262;People v. Loveless, 84 N. Y. S. 1114;Com. v. Hunt, 4 Met. 111, 123; State v. Savant, 115 La. 226; Terrell v. State, 86 Tenn. 523, 531; Martens v. Reilly, 109 Wis. 464, 473; Surles v. Sweeney, 11 Ore. 21, 24. The statute as passed in 1893 was entitled “An act relating to the unlawful use or possession of explosives,” and it had no apparent relation to the offense of malicious injury. In the Penal Laws of 1897 the two statutes were widely separated, and the fact that in the revisions of 1905 and 1915 they were incorporated in one chapter should not affect the construction. In other words, the provisions of sections 4028 to 4031 of the Revised Laws mean now just what they did when they were first enacted. Upon a strict grammatical construction, probably, the words “for the purpose” in section 4028 would be held to be connected only with “inflicting bodily injury” upon persons, but the strict rules of grammar should not be permitted to defeat the legislative intent. The words “purpose” and “intent,” according to the dictionaries, are synonyms. And see Smith v. State, 70 Tenn. 614, 619;Phillips v. State, 45 S. W. (Tex.) 709; Perugi v. State, 104 Wis. 230, 242; Anderson v. Hooks, 9 Ala. 704, 709. And we take the view that section 4028 was regarded by the legislature as providing that any person unlawfully using dynamite or other explosive chemical or substance for the purpose of injuring or destroying (or with the intent to injure or destroy) any property, should be punished as provided. The placing of such explosive in position for the purpose of injuring or with the intent to injure, another's property would constitute an unlawful use within the meaning of the statute though there be no explosion and no actual damage done. We think this view does not transgress the rule that penal statutes are to be construed strictly, nor the rule that the intent of the legislature is to be gathered primarily from the words used in the act. If the language used in a penal statute is susceptible of two equally probable meanings that interpretation which operates in favor of life or liberty will be preferred, but the mere fact that the language used is open to two constructions, one of which would include the acts charged and the other not, does not require that the latter view must necessarily prevail, and the former view will be adopted if the court is well satisfied that such was the sufficiently expressed intention of the legislature. U. S. v. Hart-well, 6 Wall. 385, 396;U. S. v. Reese, 92 U. S. 214, 219;U. S. v. Harris, 177 U. S. 305, 309; Northern Securities Co. v. U. S., 193 U. S. 197, 358. “While it is true that before a case can be held to fall within a penal statute, the case must come within the letter and spirit of the statute, yet if it comes within the spirit, and also within one reasonable interpretation of the letter, of the statute, it is sufficient, although there may be a literal construction that might be put upon the statute which would not include the case.” U. S. v. Williams, 159 Fed. 310, 313;U. S. v. Hocking Valley R. Co., 194 Fed. 232, 243. The act of 1893 was enacted at a time of political turmoil. It penalized the possession of explosives with the intent to use the same unlawfully as well as the unlawful use thereof, and we believe that a different form of expression would have been used if the intention of...