State v. Cariaga

523 P.2d 32, 95 Idaho 900, 1974 Ida. LEXIS 533
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedApril 30, 1974
Docket11318
StatusPublished
Cited by46 cases

This text of 523 P.2d 32 (State v. Cariaga) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Cariaga, 523 P.2d 32, 95 Idaho 900, 1974 Ida. LEXIS 533 (Idaho 1974).

Opinions

DONALDSON, Justice.

This case presents to the Court the question of whether a conviction for being a common prostitute on a charge of soliciting and offering to engage in lewd sexual acts for hire and engaging in an act of prostitution is a variance between the charge and the conviction that requires that the conviction be reversed. For reasons that will be discussed, we conclude that the conviction must be reversed because of the variance between the charged crime and the conviction.

On July 13, 1971, the appellant, Josephine Cariaga, was arrested by an undercover police agent of the Boise police department after she had allegedly performed an illicit sexual act upon the officer in return for twenty dollars. The amended complaint filed against her charged her with violation of section 6-1-29 of the Boise City Code, the pertinent parts of which are:

“ * * * every lewd and dissolute person, who lives in and about houses of ill fame, or solicits for the purpose of prostitution or lewdness upon the streets, alleys or public places of the City, and every common prostitute * * * is a vagrant and shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.”

Trial was had in the magistrate’s court, without a jury. Appellant was convicted, fined $200.00 and sentenced to sixty days in jail. She appealed to the Fourth Judicial District Court and, on the basis of the transcript of the proceedings in the magistrate’s court and briefs submitted by both sides, her conviction was affirmed. From the affirmance of that conviction, she prosecutes this appeal.

On appeal, appellant assigned as error the refusal of the trial court to dismiss the amended complaint. She contends that the statute pursuant to which she was convicted is an unconstitutional invasion of privacy and a denial of equal protection of the law guaranteed to her by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution because it is applied only to women. In addition, she contends that the repeal of section 6-1-29 of the Boise City Code by the enactment of city ordinance 3106 con[902]*902stitutes a bar to prosecution. She also raises the defense of entrapment.

During oral argument before this Court the question was raised as to whether or not appellant was convicted of the crime with which she was charged. The amended complaint, charging appellant, read in part:

“ * * * did then and there commit the crime of PROSTITUTION said crime being committed as follows, to wit: did solicit and offer to engage in lewd sexual acts for hire, and did engage in said act of prostitution in violation of 6-1-29, City Code.”

From the complaint it is apparent that appellant was charged with the crimes of soliciting and offering to engage in lewd sexual acts for hire and with engaging in an act of prostitution. However, the remarks of the trial court in passing judgment show that she was convicted of the crime of being a common prostitute, which is prohibited by the ordinance, but is not mentioned in the complaint. In passing judgment, the trial court stated:

“So at least under these decisions or these points of law I’ve tried to explain as I see them, it appears apparent the State has proved its case against Miss Cariaga beyond a reasonable doubt, that her act of involvement with the man in question does constitute the offense of being a prostitute, a common prostitute under the statute. The State has been able to prove that.” (emphasis ours)

In affirming appellant’s conviction, the District Court specifically affirmed her conviction of being a common prostitute.

In De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 362, 57 S.Ct. 255, 259, 81 L.Ed. 278 (1937), the Supreme Court stated: “Conviction upon a charge not made would be sheer denial of due process.” See also Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 60 S.Ct. 736, 84 L.Ed. 1093 (1940); State v. Lovejoy, 60 Idaho 632, 95 P.2d 132 (1939); Commonwealth v. Richardson, 313 Mass. 632, 48 N.E.2d 678 (1943). It therefore becomes the duty of this Court to determine if the appellant was in fact charged with being a common prostitute, the crime of which she was convicted.

Where a statute enumerates a series of prohibited acts, a complaint or information may charge each of those acts in a single count, even though each by itself constitutes a separate offense. I.C.R. 8; State v. Scott, 72 Idaho 202, 239 P.2d 258 (1952). In addition, the charge of an offense includes in it any lesser included offenses and the accused may be acquitted of the charged offense but convicted of the lesser included offense. I.C.R. 31(c). Therefore, although appellant was not charged in the complaint of the offense of being a common prostitute, she will not have been denied due process by being convicted of a charge not made if the crime of being a common prostitute is a lesser included offense of either soliciting and offering to engage in lewd sexual acts for hire or of engaging in an act of prostitution.

An offense will be deemed to be a lesser included offense of another, greater offense, if all the elements required to sustain a conviction of the lesser included offense are included within the elements needed to sustain a conviction of the greater offense. Of course, the greater offense may require proof of additional elements in order to sustain a conviction. Or, if in committing an offense one necessarily commits a second offense, that second offense will be deemed a lesser included offense. I.C. § 19-2312; In re McLeod, 23 Idaho 257, 128 P. 1106 (1913); State v. Hall, 88 Idaho 117, 397 P.2d 261 (1964); State v. Boyenger, 95 Idaho 396, 509 P.2d 1317 (1973). As stated in State v. Hall, 86 Idaho 63, 69, 383 P.2d 602, 605 (1963):

“An ‘included offense’ is one which is necessarily committed in the commission of another offense; or one, the essential elements of which are, charged in the information as the manner or means by which the offense was committed.”

Thus, if the elements of being a common prostitute are necessarily included in solic[903]*903iting for lewd sexual acts for hire, or in engaging in an act of prostitution, or if in committing either of these offenses one necessarily commits the offense of being a common prostitute, then being a common prostitute is a lesser included offense and will have been charged' in the complaint.

The city ordinance in question does not define a common prostitute. Nor has this Court had the occasion to define this term. However, several courts have defined the term common prostitute. The Minnesota Supreme Court in State v. Poague, 245 Minn. 438, 72 N.W.2d 620, 624 (1955), concluded that a common prostitute is:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
523 P.2d 32, 95 Idaho 900, 1974 Ida. LEXIS 533, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-cariaga-idaho-1974.