State v. Harris

465 N.E.2d 478, 11 Ohio App. 3d 294, 11 Ohio B. 558, 1983 Ohio App. LEXIS 11301
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedOctober 26, 1983
DocketC-820973
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 465 N.E.2d 478 (State v. Harris) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Harris, 465 N.E.2d 478, 11 Ohio App. 3d 294, 11 Ohio B. 558, 1983 Ohio App. LEXIS 11301 (Ohio Ct. App. 1983).

Opinion

Klusmeier, J.

The defendant, Mark J. Harris, was arrested on June 17, 1982 and charged with interference with the custody of a minor in violation of R.C. -2919.23, a misdemeanor of the third degree. The occurrences leading to his arrest may be briefly summarized. On June 15, 1982, a fifteen-year-old girl, Kelly, was given permission by her father to visit a friend “over the weekend,” a period of several days. That evening Kelly and her friend, Sonya, walked to a party in the neighborhood. The record does not indicate whether or not the two girls had been invited to the party which was attended by persons of both sexes. At some time during the party the defendant arrived. This was the second time Kelly had seen him; she had seen him earlier that afternoon. Subsequently, by mutual consent, but at the initiation of the defendant, he and Kelly left the party and went to the home of a friend of the defendant, also a male. The defendant and Kelly remained at this place all night and for a portion of the next day until the defendant drove Kelly back to Sonya’s home on June 16, 1982.

The defendant was tried without the intervention of a jury, was found guilty and sentenced as appears of record. In his appeal, the defendant assigns three errors in the trial which, he contends, require the reversal of his conviction. We find that none of the assigned errors has merit.

The first assignment of error, apparently of first impression in Ohio, asserts that R.C. 2919.23, which is the basis of the charge against the defendant, is unconstitutionally vague and is therefore in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court of Ohio has noted that the proper standard for determining if a statute is unconstitutionally vague is found in Connally v. General Construction Co. (1926), 269 U.S. 385. See State v. Phipps (1979), 58 Ohio St. 2d 271, 273 [12 O.O.3d 273], A vague statute is defined in Connally as one “which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application.” Connally, *295 supra, at 391. More recently, in Papachristou v. Jacksonville (1972), 405 U.S. 156, the Supreme Court held the Jacksonville vagrancy ordinance to be unconstitutionally vague in that it failed to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated action was prohibited, and also in that the ordinance encouraged arbitrary and erratic arrests and convictions. The same requirement that criminal enactments include ascertainable standards of guilt is reiterated in Columbus v. New (1982), 1 Ohio St. 3d 221, and State v. Young (1980), 62 Ohio St. 2d 370 [16 O.O.3d 416],

The statute in question, R.C. 2919.23, provides, as it is pertinent to the instant appeal, that:

“(A) No person, knowing he is without privilege to do so or being reckless in that regard, shall entice, take, keep, or harbor any of the following persons from his parent, guardian, or custodian:
“(1) A child under the age of eighteen * * * >>

The specific area of the defendant’s claim of vagueness is the use of the allegedly imprecise terms “entice, take, keep or harbor [a person] from his parent,” “reckless,” and “privilege.” The contention of defendant is that the statute is facially infirm rather than unconstitutional in its application to him. It is our conclusion that the terms so specified do not demonstrate the legislative imprecision of which defendant complains.

We start with a presumption of constitutionality of the legislative acts of the General Assembly. See Benevolent Assn. v. Parma (1980), 61 Ohio St. 2d 375 [15 O.O.3d 450]. Also, courts must apply all presumptions and rules of construction so as to uphold, if at all possible, the constitutionality of a statute. State v. Sinito (1975), 43 Ohio St. 2d 98 [72 O.O.2d 54], If the general class of offenses to which the statute is directed is plainly within its terms, the statute will not be held unconstitutionally vague even though marginal cases could be put where doubts might arise. United States v. Harriss (1954), 347 U.S. 612. A criminal statute is constitutionally definite if it is phrased in terms of “readily ascertainable standards of guilt, so that men of common intelligence will not have to guess at its meaning.” Cincinnati v. Hoffman (1972), 31 Ohio St. 2d 163, 165 [60 O.O.2d 117] (citing Connally v. General Construction Co., supra). Finally, in Hoffman, at page 168, the Supreme Court quoted with approval the following pertinent comments by the United States Supreme Court:

“* * * The root of the vagueness doctrine is a rough idea of fairness. It is not a principle designed to convert into a constitutional dilemma the practical difficulties in drawing criminal statutes both general enough to take into account a variety of human conduct and sufficiently specific to provide fair warning that certain kinds of conduct are prohibited.” See, also, Colton v. Kentucky (1972), 407 U.S. 104, 110.

The allegedly imprecise terms of “entice, take, keep, or harbor,” “reckless,” and “privilege” are to be found in the everyday working vocabulary of persons of common intelligence. In addition, “reckless” and “privilege” are specifically defined in R.C. 2901.22(C) and 2901.01(L), respectively. The injection of scienter in the statute provides a precise and comprehensible standard which governs the reading of the section of the Revised Code dealing with interference with custody. See Cincinnati v. Hoffman, supra. As the statute in question is written, we find that it provides an ascertainable standard of guilt and gives notice as to precisely what conduct is criminally proscribed. Columbus v. New, supra. We hold R.C. 2919.23 to be facially constitutional. The first assignment of error is overruled.

The defendant advances the overruling of his motion for acquittal pursuant to Crim. R. 29 as his second assignment of error. The motion was timely made at the *296 conclusion of the state’s case in chief and overruled. The defense called one witness whose direct testimony was stricken, without defense objection, after he interposed his Fifth Amendment right and refused to answer questions on cross-examination. Although not required since this was a non-jury trial, the Crim. R. 29 motion for acquittal was renewed and again overruled. See Dayton v. Rogers (1979), 60 Ohio St.

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465 N.E.2d 478, 11 Ohio App. 3d 294, 11 Ohio B. 558, 1983 Ohio App. LEXIS 11301, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-harris-ohioctapp-1983.