State v. MacGuire

2004 UT 4, 84 P.3d 1171, 491 Utah Adv. Rep. 41, 2004 Utah LEXIS 6, 2004 WL 111454
CourtUtah Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 23, 2004
Docket20020071
StatusPublished
Cited by48 cases

This text of 2004 UT 4 (State v. MacGuire) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Utah 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. MacGuire, 2004 UT 4, 84 P.3d 1171, 491 Utah Adv. Rep. 41, 2004 Utah LEXIS 6, 2004 WL 111454 (Utah 2004).

Opinions

DURRANT, Associate Chief Justice:

INTRODUCTION

¶ 1 Utah’s criminal homicide statute provides that a person may be prosecuted for causing the death of an unborn child. This interlocutory appeal concerns (1) whether the term “unborn child” is unconstitutionally vague both on its face and as applied, and (2) whether the criminal homicide and aggravated murder statutes violate the federal and state guarantees of equal protection.

¶ 2 Defendant Roger Martin MacGuire has been charged with two counts of aggravated murder for allegedly killing his former wife and her unborn child. In a motion to dismiss Count I in part and Count II in its entirety, defendant contended he could not be prosecuted for killing the unborn child or be charged with aggravated murder based on that killing because Utah’s criminal homicide and aggravated murder statutes are unconstitutional. The district court denied defendant’s motion to dismiss and defendant peti[1173]*1173tioned for review of the interlocutory order. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

¶ 3 Defendant has been charged with the murder of his former wife, Susan C. MacGuire, and her unborn child. According to accounts presented at the preliminary hearing,1 defendant learned, several days pri- or to the murder, that Ms. MacGuire was engaged and expecting a baby. He called his former father-in-law on January 14, 2001, to confirm the information. On the morning of January 15, 2001, defendant allegedly entered the insurance office where Ms. MacGuire worked and shot her four times.

¶ 4 One of the bullets entered Ms. MacGuire at the base of her neck and traveled through the occipital bone of the skull. A second bullet entered and exited her left forearm. A third bullet entered the side of her abdomen approximately at the waistline and pierced her abdominal wall and small intestine. A fourth bullet entered her abdomen and traveled through her uterus, lodging in the right wall of her pelvis.2

¶ 5 This fourth bullet lethally injured the unborn child Ms. MacGuire was carrying. It severed the umbilical cord and traveled through the placenta and unborn child itself before lodging in the pelvic wall. The medical examiner estimated that the gestational age of the unborn child was between thirteen and fifteen weeks at the time of death. Ms. MacGuire was life-flighted to a hospital where she died later that day.

¶ 6 Defendant has been charged with two counts of aggravated murder. Count I of the information charges defendant with aggravated murder for the death of Ms. MacGuire and alleges two aggravating circumstances; namely, (1) two persons were killed during the same criminal episode, and (2) the homicide was committed to retaliate against or prevent Ms. MacGuire from testifying, providing evidence, or participating in a legal proceeding or official investigation.3 Count II of the information charges defendant with aggravated murder for the death of the unborn child during a criminal episode in which two persons were killed.

¶ 7 Defendant filed a motion to dismiss the first aggravating factor in Count I and to dismiss Count II in its entirety on the basis that an unborn child is not a person under the aggravated murder statute, and the criminal homicide and aggravated murder statutes are unconstitutionally vague and violate equal protection guarantees. The district court denied defendant’s motion, and defendant filed a petition for interlocutory appeal. We have jurisdiction pursuant to Utah Code Ann. section 78-2-2(3)(h) (2002).

ANALYSIS

I. STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶ 8 Whether the district court properly interpreted Utah’s criminal homicide and aggravated murder statutes “is a question of law that we review for correctness.” State v. Gomez, 2002 UT 120, ¶ 11, 63 P.3d 72. Likewise, “[w]hether a statute is constitutional is a question of law [that] we review for correctness, giving no deference to the trial court.” State v. Daniels, 2002 UT 2, ¶ 30, 40 P.3d 611 (citing State v. Mohi, 901 P.2d 991, 995 (Utah 1995)). Moreover, “legislative enactments are presumed to be constitutional.” Greenwood v. City of North Salt Lake, 817 P.2d 816, 819 (Utah 1991) (citations omitted). As a result, “those who challenge a statute ... as unconstitutional bear” a heavy “burden of demonstrating its unconstitutionality.” Id. (citations omitted); accord Mohi, 901 P.2d at 1009 (Russon, J., concurring and dissenting) (stating the burden of “challenging the constitutionality of a [1174]*1174statute” is “a heavy one”); United States v. Nat’l Dairy Prods. Corp., 372 U.S. 29, 32, 83 S.Ct. 594, 9 L.Ed.2d 561 (1963) (noting that a “strong presumptive validity” attaches to legislative acts).

II. VAGUENESS CHALLENGE

¶ 9 Defendant challenges the criminal homicide and aggravated murder statutes of the Utah Code as being unconstitutionally vague both facially and as applied. The criminal homicide statute provides as follows:

(a) A person commits criminal homicide if he intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, with criminal negligence, or acting with a mental state otherwise specified in the statute defining the offense, causes the death of another human being, including an unborn child.
(b) There shall be no cause of action for criminal homicide for the death of an unborn child caused by an abortion.

Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-201(1) (1999) (emphasis added).

¶ 10 The aggravated murder statute provides, in relevant part, as follows:

(1) Criminal homicide constitutes aggravated murder if the actor intentionally or knowingly causes the death of another under any of the following circumstances:
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(b) the homicide was committed incident to one act, scheme, course of conduct, or criminal episode during which two or more persons were killed ....

Id. § 76-5-202(l)(b) (emphasis added).

¶ 11 Defendant contends the term “unborn child” in the criminal homicide statute is unconstitutionally vague because the legislature failed to define the term and, absent that definition, it lacks a clear and specific meaning. Moreover, because “unborn child” is not defined, defendant contends the terms “another” and “persons” in the aggravated murder statute are also unconstitutionally vague because it is impossible to know when an unborn child achieves the status of a person. We disagree.

A. Void for Vagueness Doctrine

¶ 12 Where, as here, a statute “implicates no constitutionally protected conduct,” a court will uphold a facial vagueness challenge “only if the [statute] is impermissi-bly vague in all of its applications.” Village of Hoffman Estates v. The Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S.

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Bluebook (online)
2004 UT 4, 84 P.3d 1171, 491 Utah Adv. Rep. 41, 2004 Utah LEXIS 6, 2004 WL 111454, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-macguire-utah-2004.