State v. Frazier

503 P.2d 1073, 81 Wash. 2d 628, 1972 Wash. LEXIS 767
CourtWashington Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 7, 1972
Docket42334
StatusPublished
Cited by117 cases

This text of 503 P.2d 1073 (State v. Frazier) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Washington 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. Frazier, 503 P.2d 1073, 81 Wash. 2d 628, 1972 Wash. LEXIS 767 (Wash. 1972).

Opinions

Utter, J.

Yolanda Annette Frazier was convicted of assault in the second degree. A special verdict was also returned finding she was armed with a deadly weapon at the time of the offense and she was sentenced under the provisions of RCW 9.41.025 to a mandatory 5-year term.

Appellant claims the court erred in failing to dismiss the case because the evidence failed to show apprehension on the part of the victim or sufficiently strong circumstantial evidence of a willful act by her. Appellant also urges she was improperly sentenced inasmuch as RCW 9.41.025 is unconstitutional.1 We find no error in the instructions or [630]*630the court’s action regarding the assault charge, and affirm that conviction. We find, however, the appellant was not accorded due process in the application of the provisions of RCW 9.41.025, and remand her for resentencing.

Evidence was introduced by the state which showed the appellant had threatened to kill Beverly Ann Johnson and that sometime following this threat, while the victim was in her residence, she heard a noise thought to be a firecracker. Later examination of the room showed a bullet lodged in the wall. Four days later the appellant was arrested for a traffic violation and a .25 caliber pistol found in her purse. The pistol was test fired, and the test bullet matched the bullet removed from the wall of the victim’s home.

The first assignment of error is based on the argument that apprehension before the fact is a necessary unwritten element of the second-degree assault statute, RCW 9.11.020. This argument has been rejected in State v. Stewart, 73 Wn.2d 701, 440 P.2d 815 (1968); State v. Brakes, 1 Wn. App. 987, 465 P.2d 683 (1970); and State v. Wigley, 5 Wn. App. 465, 488 P.2d 766 (1971). We find the reasoning of the court persuasive in McCullers v. State, 206 So. 2d 30, 33 (Fla. 1968). There the court noted:

A criminal assault may be made upon a person even though he had no knowledge of the fact at the time. . . . It should be noted that herein lies the distinction between assault as a crime and assault as a tort. If the [631]*631intended victim is unaware of the attempt, he has suffered no harm and is not entitled to compensation for the tort committed against him. . . . However, a criminal assault is an offense against the peace and dignity of the state as well as an invasion of private rights.

There can in actuality be two concepts in criminal law of assault as noted in United States v. Rizzo, 409 F.2d 400, 403 (7th Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 911, 24 L. Ed. 2d 187, 90 S.Ct. 226 (1969).

One concept is that an assault is an attempt to commit a battery. There may be an attempt to commit a battery, and hence an assault, under circumstances where the intended victim is unaware of danger. Apprehension on the part of the victim is not an essential element of that type of assault. . . .
The second concept is that an assault is “committed merely by putting another in apprehension of harm whether or not the actor actually intends to inflict or is incapable of inflicting that harm.” The concept is thought to have been assimilated into the criminal law from the law of torts. It is usually required that the apprehension of harm be a reasonable one.

(Footnotes omitted.)

Appellant’s assertion that the circumstantial evidence was insufficient to justify submission to the jury of the issue of whether the defendant willfully assaulted the victim is not properly before us. No instruction regarding the quantity of the circumstantial evidence necessary for conviction was submitted to the court. Nondirection is not reversible error unless a constitutional right has been violated. Ogilvie v. Hong, 175 Wash. 209, 211, 27 P.2d 141 (1933).

We find no constitutional right violated by the failure to give a circumstantial evidence instruction and even .if a proper instruction on circumstantial evidence had been requested and given, we would not have found error, in the submission of the issue to the jury. The question of whether circumstantial evidence excludes every reasonable hypothesis other than the defendant’s guilt is a question for the trier of fact and there is sufficient relevant circumstan[632]*632tial evidence on the issue of the defendant’s guilt to warrant submitting the case to the jury. State v. Cerny, 78 Wn.2d 845, 849, 480 P.2d 199 (1971).

Appellant argues RCW 9.41.025 is unconstitutional on two grounds. If it defines a separate crime, she argues she was not charged in the information with this crime, or alternatively, if it is only a separate penalty statute, then it unconstitutionally amended the assault statute (RCW 9.11.020), without setting forth at full length the act revised or the section amended as required by article 2, section 37 of the Constitution of the State of Washington. We cannot agree with either of these contentions.

The question of whether the act creates a separate crime or is an added penalty was discussed in State v. Boyer, 4 Wn. App. 73, 480 P.2d 257 (1971). There the court held the legislative intent on this issue was unclear and a separate offense would not be held to be created in the absence of clear legislative intent. We adopt the reasoning of Boyer on this issue and hold that the act provides for an additional penalty where the original act committed or attempted to be committed is a felony. See also State v. Rose, 7 Wn. App. 176, 498 P.2d 897 (1972).

The legislative history of RCW 9.41.025 does not indicate there was an effort to amend RCW 9.11.020, the second-degree assault statute. Section 1 of the act provides a new section is added to chapter 9.41. Section 2 states “Section 2, chapter 172, Laws of 1935, as amended by section 2, chapter 124, Laws of 1961 and RCW 9.41.020

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Bluebook (online)
503 P.2d 1073, 81 Wash. 2d 628, 1972 Wash. LEXIS 767, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-frazier-wash-1972.