Lee v. Municipality of Anchorage

70 P.3d 1110, 2003 Alas. App. LEXIS 97, 2003 WL 21230987
CourtCourt of Appeals of Alaska
DecidedMay 23, 2003
DocketA-8205
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 70 P.3d 1110 (Lee v. Municipality of Anchorage) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Alaska primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lee v. Municipality of Anchorage, 70 P.3d 1110, 2003 Alas. App. LEXIS 97, 2003 WL 21230987 (Ala. Ct. App. 2003).

Opinion

OPINION

COATS, Chief Judge.

This case presents the question of what culpable mental states the Municipality must prove when it charges a person with maintaining a place of prostitution under Section 8.65.060 of the Anchorage Municipal Code (AMC). Kyong Suk Lee was convicted of two separate violations of AMC 8.65.060(A), which provides that it is "unlawful for any person to knowingly maintain or operate a place, building, structure or part thereof, vehicle, mobile home, or other conveyance for the purpose of prostitution or assignation." Lee claims that under this ordinance, the Municipality not only had to prove that she knowingly maintained a place where prostitution occurred, but that she did so with the intent that the place be used for prostitution. For the reasons set out below, we agree.

Lee also claims that with regard to the "maintaining" charge, the district court should have instructed the jury on a lesser-included offense derived from AMC 10.40.050, the section of the municipal code that pertains to the licensing and regulating of adult-oriented service establishments. Lee presented this argument to District Court Judge Stephanie Rhoades, who concluded that this section of the municipal code did not apply. We agree with Judge Rhoades.

Facts

Lee's convictions arose from two undercover operations conducted by the Anchorage Police Department in January 2001 and May 2001. At both times, Lee was the manager of Fantasy Club, an escort service in Anchorage. In January 2001, and again in May 2001, the Anchorage Police Department's Special Assignment Unit conducted two undercover operations to determine if prostitution was occurring at Fantasy Club. Both times, the unit's undercover officers found escorts engaging in prostitution. 1

As a result of these undercover operations, Lee was charged in two separate cases for violating AMC 8.65.060. Additionally, in the instant case, Lee was charged with violating the release conditions imposed after her January 2001 arrest. 2 Lee had a separate trial for each incident. Her first trial began in late October 2001. She was tried by a jury, who found her guilty as charged for the January 2001 incident Approximately a week after her jury trial, Lee's second trial began. In the second trial, she waived her right to a jury, and the judge found her guilty of both charges relating to the May 2001 incident. Judge Rhoades presided over both trials.

Discussion

The mental states of AMC 8.65.060

As set out above, Lee was charged with "knowingly maintain[ing] or operat[ing] a place, building, structure or part thereof ... for the purpose of prostitution or assignation." 3 At her second trial, Lee argued that this ordinance has two mental states, "knowingly" and "intentionally." Judge Rhoades, however, applied only the "knowingly" mental state. On appeal, Lee claims that the language "for the purpose" connotes specific intent. Hence, she argues that not only did the Municipality have to prove that she knowingly maintained a place where prostitution occurred, but the Municipality also had to prove that she did so with the intent that prostitution take place there.

We conclude that Lee is correct. Although we have not had the occasion to construe this ordinance before, in Dawson v. *1112 State 4 we construed a similar state statute. Dawson required us to determine the mental state required by AS 11.71.040(a)(5), Alaska's "crack-house" statute. In pertinent part, this statute makes it an offense for a person to "knowingly keep[ ] or maintain[ ] any store, shop, warehouse, dwelling, building, vehicle, boat, aircraft, or other structure or place that is used for keeping or distributing controlled substances in violation of a felony offense under this chapter[.]" 5 We concluded that this statute required that a defendant act knowingly "both with respect to the proscribed conduct ... and with respect to the existence of the illegal use itself." 6

In reaching this conclusion we relied both on related federal case law and on the language in the statute. Importantly, when analyzing this statute, we illustrated the difference in mental states between two subsections of a federal drug statute, one of which has "for the purpose" language and one of which does not. We pointed out that the subsection that applies when the accused " 'knowingly open[s] or maintain[s] any place for the purpose of illegal drug-related activity is interpreted to require that the accused act knowingly with respect to the conduct of maintaining, and intentionally with respect to the illegal use of the premises opened or maintained." 7 We noted that when interpreting the statutory language, federal courts have held that there are two mental elements, knowledge and purpose. 8

This result is supported by Professor La-Fave, who writes that the modern approach, adopted by the Model Penal Code, is to use the word purpose to mean intent. 9 According to Professor LaFave, under this approach, "as to the results of one's conduct, the Code provides that one acts 'purposely' when 'it is his conscious object ... to cause such a result', while one acts 'knowingly' if he is aware that it is practically certain that his conduct will cause such a result. 10

Additionally, when discussing common law accomplice liability, Professor LaFave recognizes that an alleged accomplice's actions often fall short of criminal. He states that "there are many ... instances in which the alleged accomplice's actions will qualify only as knowing assistance, in that he is lending assistance or encouragement to a criminal scheme toward which he is indifferent. 11 " Professor LaFave provides as an example of this a "lessor [who] rents with knowledge that the premises will be used to establish a bordello. 12 Professor LaFave points out that the majority view-which he notes has been adopted under the Model Penal Code 13 -holds that "traditional definitions of accomplice liability 'demand that [the accessory] in some sort associate himself with the venture, that he participate in it as in something that he wishes to bring about, that he seek by his action to make it succeed.. " 14 Hence, under the majority view of common law accomplice liability, the Municipality would have to prove that Lee knowingly maintained a place where prostitution occurred with the intent that the place be used for prostitution.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
70 P.3d 1110, 2003 Alas. App. LEXIS 97, 2003 WL 21230987, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lee-v-municipality-of-anchorage-alaskactapp-2003.