Bocchi v. State

212 P. 463, 25 Ariz. 37, 1923 Ariz. LEXIS 106
CourtArizona Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 6, 1923
DocketCriminal No. 533
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 212 P. 463 (Bocchi v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Arizona Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bocchi v. State, 212 P. 463, 25 Ariz. 37, 1923 Ariz. LEXIS 106 (Ark. 1923).

Opinion

LYMAN, J.

Appellant, Frank Bocehi, was tried and found guilty of an offense which is defined in paragraph 282 of the Penal Code of Arizona. From the judgment rendered upon that verdict, and denial of motion for new trial, he appeals, and assigns many errors claimed to have been committed by the trial court. Among other things, he contends that the statute defining the offense with which he was charged is unconstitutional, because in its passage the provisions of section 13 of article 4 of the Constitution of Arizona, that “every act shall embrace but one subject and matters properly connected therewith, which subject shall be expressed in the title,” were not observed in the passage of this law. The proof of this defect is said to be found in the memorandum placed by the codifiers at the head of chapter 6, .of which this paragraph is a part.

This provision of the Penal Code is of ancient origin, and has been a part of the laws of this state for many years, antedating the adoption of our state Constitution. "Whether the title under which this act was passed by the legislature conformed to the requirements of our present Constitution is immaterial, since the Constitution was not in existence at the time of its passage. The title of an act in the sense referred to in the Constitution is not found in the chapter headings of the Code.

Appellant objects that the information does not state a public offense, and that whatever allegations there are in the information tend to allege an attempt to commit rape, and not the offense for which he was tried. Paragraph 282 of the Penal Code reads as follows:

[40]*40“Any person who shall willfully and lewdly commit any lewd or lascivious act other than the act constituting other crimes provided for in part one of this Code, upon or with the body, or any part, or member thereof, of a child under the age of fourteen years, with the intent of arousing, appealing to or gratifying the lust or passions or sexual desires of such person or of such child, shall be guilty of a felony and shall be imprisoned in the state prison not less than one year.”

The charging part of the information alleges that appellant—

“did then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously, maliciously and lewdly, commit a lewd and lascivious act upon and with the body and sexual parts of one Lydia Griacoma, a child under the age of 14 years, of the age, to wit, 11 years, by then and there placing his sexual organ between the legs of the said Lydia Griacoma, with the intent then and there and thereby of arousing, appealing to and gratifying the lust, passion, and sexual desires of him, the said Frank Bocchi.”

The Code, after defining various sex crimes, adds paragraph 282 for the manifest purpose of making unlawful such acts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child under the age of fourteen years as were not by any other provision of the statute made unlawful. This provision of the statute is also included in Penal Code of California, section 288, and in the case of People v. Grinnell, 9 Cal. App. 233, 98 Pac. 681, the Supreme Court of California approved an information charging the offense created by this statute in the language substantially of the statute itself, including as the statute does an express negation that the acts sought to be charged were such acts as came within the purview of any other provision of the Penal Code. The same case intimates, however, what is, of course, true, that the offense [41]*41might also with propriety be charged by an allegation of the particular facts and circumstances constituting the crime. It would then appear as a matter of law whether the acts alleged constituted an offense under the provisions of this statute, and did not constitute an offense under the provisions of any other portion of the Penal Code. It would then be unnecessary in so many words to say that the acts so alleged did not constitute an offense under the terms of any other provision of the Penal Code. In this case, the pleader has adopted the latter method, and a reading of the information fails to show that it is objectionable either because of the facts which it alleges, or because of any essential allegation which is omitted. The appellant was not left in the dark as to the character of the charge against him, and could not complain that it was not sufficiently specific. Appellant’s criticism that the information hints at an attempt to commit rape is without merit.

Several objections are made to the charge given by the court, both for what it contains and for what it fails to contain. Apparently the charge given by the court was upon its own motion, with no request made by the defendant. In the absence of request for particular instruction, the charge of the court seems to be sufficiently full and complete.

A more serious question arises as to the effect of one instruction, which is as follows:

“’As I have heretofore instructed you, gentlemen of the jury, the defendant is charged with a violation of our- Penal statute. You are instructed that ‘any person who shall willfully commit any lewd or lascivious act upon or with the body or any part or member thereof, of any female or male person, with the intent of arousing, appealing to or gratifying the lust or passions or sexual desires of either of such persons, in any unnatural manner,’ is guilty of a felony under our statute.”

[42]*42It will be noted that this instruction embodies the language of an act passed by the Third Legislative Assembly of Arizona, and is printed at page 2, Laws of 1917, an act defining an offense similar to the one with which this appellant was charged. Both make criminal certain lewd and lascivious conduct. In the old law, the acts condemned are felonious only when engaging a child of fourteen years or under, and applies only to such acts as do not come within the scope of any other penal statute. The act of 1917 makes felonious lewd and lascivious acts which are unnatural, without reference to the age of either party thereto. It will be noted that the instruction given leaves out of it one of the essential elements of the offense charged, and that is the childhood of the person upon whom the act was committed, and includes in it one element not belonging to the offense charged, and that is the unnatural character of the act. The age of the person upon whom the appellant was accused of having committed the offense was undisputedly eleven years, so that her age was not a disputed issue, and the appellant could not have been prejudiced by the failure of the court to charge upon the undisputed facts of the case. Instructions are to be given only upon controverted questions of fact. Paragraph 515, Rev. Stats. Ariz. If we take the view of the appellant that there is nothing in the information, or in the evidence, which shows the conduct of the appellant to have been unnatural in character, then this instruction becomes a mere abstract statement of the law, and wduld not be calculated to divert the attention of the jury from the issues. Rodgers v. State (Miss.), 21 South. 130; Meyer v. State (Tex. Cr. App.), 49 S. W. 600. The information does not characterize the acts of the appellant as unnatural. The law upon which the information is based does [43]*43not make the unnatural character of the act condemned one of its elements. The state was not required to prove that the acts charged were unnatural.

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State v. Hudgens
423 P.2d 90 (Arizona Supreme Court, 1967)
Hancock v. State
254 P. 225 (Arizona Supreme Court, 1927)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
212 P. 463, 25 Ariz. 37, 1923 Ariz. LEXIS 106, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bocchi-v-state-ariz-1923.