Garcia v. BrowningGarcia v. Browning
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- Before:
- Ryan
¶ 1 This case requires us to decide whether recent amendments to Arizona’s affirmative defense and justification laws apply to criminal offenses committed before the effective date of the new statutes. We hold that these changes apply only to offenses committed on or after the effective date of the amendments.
I
¶ 2 On December 13, 2004, a Pima County grand jury indicted David Garcia for first degree murder for events that occurred on December 5, 2004. Garcia subsequently disclosed several justification defenses, including self-defense, third-party defense, and crime prevention.
See
Ariz.Rev.Stat. (“A.R.S.”) §§ 13 — 404, -405, -406, -411 (2001). At the time of the offense,
¶3 Before Garcia’s trial began, however, the legislature enacted Senate Bill 1145. That bill made several changes to the criminal code provisions pertaining to affirmative defenses and justification defenses.
See
2006 Ariz. Sess. Laws, ch. 199. Among other things, the bill amended
¶ 4 The Governor signed Senate Bill 1145 into law on April 24, 2006. Because the bill contained a clause stating that “[t]his act is an emergency measure that is necessary to preserve the public peace, health or safety and is operative immediately as provided by law,”
id.
§ 6, it became effective on that date.
See
¶ 5 Shortly thereafter, Garcia filed a motion to remand his case to the grand jury for a new finding of probable cause because the grand jury had been .instructed on the “now repealed A.R.S. [§ ] 13-205.” Garcia also asked the superior court to instruct the trial jury using the new version of
¶ 6 The State filed a petition for review, which we granted because this matter concerns an issue of statewide importance on which lower courts have reached differing conclusions. We have jurisdiction under Article 6, Section 5(3), of the Arizona Constitution,
II
A
¶7 No law is “retroactive unless expressly declared therein.”
¶8 The legislature plainly knows how to provide for the retroactivity of measures that it enacts. For example, House Bill 2132 and Senate Bill 1461, both considered by the same legislature that enacted Senate Bill 1145, incorporated detailed sections on the retroactivity of those bills. House Bill 2132 specifically provided that the amended section “applies retroactively to taxable periods beginning from and after June 30, 1999.” 2006 Ariz. Sess. Laws, ch. 171, § 2. Senate Bill 1461 stated that “[s]ections 2 and 3 of this act are effective retroactively to July 1, 2006.” Id. ch. 391, § 8. Senate Bill 1145, in contrast, contains no provision regarding ret-roactivity. Id. ch. 199.
B
¶ 9 The court of appeals acknowledged that
¶ 10 But the “operative immediately” language in an emergency clause simply means that the bill will go into effect on the date it is signed by the Governor instead of ninety days after the end of the legislative session.
See
¶ 11 In
C
¶ 12 Although the mandate of
¶ 13 The court of appeals concluded that “a defendant’s trial is the operative event for applying a statutory amendment that was enacted as an emergency measure, rendering it effective immediately.”
Garcia,
213 Ariz. at 607, ¶ 26, 146 P.3d at 1016. Further, the court reasoned that the application of the new version of
¶ 14 We disagree. First, Arizona cases have consistently held that the date of the offense is the operative event for retroactivity analysis when a new statute regulates primary conduct.
See Mauro,
139 Ariz. at 427, 678 P.2d at 1391;
see also In re Shane B.,
198 Ariz. 85, 87, ¶ 7, 7 P.3d 94, 96 (2000);
cf. Landgraf v. USI Film Prods.,
511 U.S. 244, 291, 114 S.Ct. 1483 (1994) (“Most statutes are meant to regulate primary conduct, and hence will not be applied in trials involving conduct that occurred before their effective date.”) (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment). Second, Senate Bill 1145 does not merely affect the conduct of trial, but rather also regulates primary conduct. The bill not only shifts the burden of proof from the defendant to the state, which now must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant’s actions were not justified, but also declares that conduct that is justified “does not constitute criminal or wrongful conduct.”
D
¶ 15 Although the court of appeals maintained that the provisions of Senate Bill 1145 were “prospectively applicable, not retroactive,”
Garcia,
213 Ariz. at 605, ¶ 21, 146 P.3d at 1014, it recognized that our decision in
¶ 16 In
Mauro,
the defendant was charged with first degree murder and child abuse. 139 Ariz. at 423, 678 P.2d at 1387. He claimed insanity as a defense to the charges.
See id.
When the alleged offenses occurred, “a defendant could rebut the presumption of sanity by introducing evidence which generated substantial and reasonable doubt as to his sanity. The burden was then on the state to prove the accused’s sanity beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Id.
at 426, 678 P.2d at 1390 (citations omitted). Before trial, however, the legislature amended the insanity defense to require “the accused . . . prove he is not criminally responsible by reason of insanity. He carries his burden of proof if he introduces clear and convincing evidence.”
Id.
(citing
¶ 17 The court of appeals attempted to distinguish this case from
Mauro. Garcia,
213 Ariz. at 606, ¶¶ 22-23, 146 P.3d at 1015. The court believed that in this case, unlike in
Mauro,
“the legislative history of
¶ 18 The court of appeals further attempted to distinguish
Mauro
on the ground that ex post facto considerations “potentially were implicated” in that case.
Garcia,
213 Ariz. at 606, ¶ 23, 146 P.3d at 1015. But as discussed above, in
Mauro
we expressly did not address whether the change in the burden of proof for an insanity defense would violate ex post facto proscriptions; instead we decided the case solely on the basis of the plain language of
E
¶ 19 Finally, the court of appeals reasoned that the provisions of Senate Bill 1145 could be applied to criminal cases in which the offense occurred before the bill’s effective date, even if that gave the statute retroactive effect, because the court found “no constitutional or statutory impediment to such an application.”
Garcia,
213 Ariz. at 607, ¶ 26, 146 P.3d at 1016. We agree that nothing in the United States Constitution or the Arizona Constitution prohibits applying Senate Bill 1145 to defendants who committed their offenses before the effective date of the amendments; it is undisputed that the Ex Post Facto Clause is not implicated here. But that is not the issue before us. The question is not whether the legislature
could
have made Senate Bill 1145 retroactive, but rather whether it did so. Because
III
¶20 In sum, the legislature did not expressly declare in Senate Bill 1145 that it applied to criminal offenses committed before its effective date. The bill’s changes to the criminal code’s affirmative defense and justification defense provisions therefore apply only to offenses occurring on or after its effective date of April 24,2006.
IV
¶ 21 For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the opinion of the court of appeals and remand the case to the superior court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Notes
. The court of appeals, however, declined to consider Garcia‘s challenge to the grand jury proceedings because “the grand jury was instructed in accordance with the law that existed at the time it indicted Garcia.” Garcia, 213 Ariz. at 601, ¶ 6, 146 P.3d at 1010.
. We note that the legislative history cited by the court of appeals,
see Garcia,
213 Ariz. at 602-03, ¶¶ 11-13, 146 P.3d at 1011-12, which consists primarily of comments of individual legislators, does not necessarily lead to that court’s conclusion that the legislature intended the bill to apply to cases that had not yet been tried.
See City of Tucson v. Consumers for Retail Choice,
197 Ariz. 600, 604-05, ¶ 14, 5 P.3d 934, 938-39 (App.2000) (noting that statements of individual legislators are not necessarily indicative of full legislature’s intent). In any event, legislative history does not satisfy