Kasim Faruqi appeals from a judgment of conviction for attempted enticement of a child. Mr. Faruqi argues that the trial court erred in overruling his motion to dismiss the indictment because the statute setting forth the crime of enticement of a child is unconstitutionally vague.
Mr. Faruqi was charged with and convicted of attempted enticement of a child. He did attempt to entice a child, but it turned out that the “child” was a police officer masquerading as a child. Mr. Fa-ruqi says that “affirmative defense” language in subsection 2 of section 566.151 RSMo Supp.2010 1 makes the statute unclear as to whether someone could be convicted of actual enticement of a child in a situation in which no actual child was involved; he argues, therefore, that he should not be able to be convicted of attempted enticement of a child either. But the attempt statute is explicit that “[i]t is no defense to a prosecution under this section that the offense attempted was, under the actual attendant circumstances, factually or legally impossible of commission, if such offense could have been committed had the attendant circumstances bеen as the actor believed them to be.” § 564.011 RSMo 2000. Mr. Faruqi’s vagueness challenge fails.
For the reasons stated below, this Court also rejects Mr. Faruqi’s arguments that his statements to police were involuntary and that certain computer evidence introduced to bolster the other evidence of his computer chats with someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl was obtained through an unlawful search and seizure. The judgment is affirmed.
In November 2006, the Maryland Heights police department conducted an undercover sting operation in which a police officer logged on to an Internet chat room posing as a 14-year-old girl named Kaitlin. On November 6th, “Kaitlin” received an unsolicited instant message from 33-year-old Kasim Faruqi, who was using the screen name “Kasim786.” She told him at the beginning of the chat that she was 14. Within 20 minutes, he expressed an interest in meeting her in person. During the first and the three subsequent conversations Mr. Faruqi had with “Kaitlin” online and via telephone, Mr. Faruqi stated that he wanted to hug and kiss “Kaitlin,” touch her breasts, perform and receive oral sex, and have unprotected sex with her. He told “Kaitlin” that he knew that this would be illegal because she was only 14, and he made her promise that she would not tell anyone. Ultimately, they agreed to meet at a park.
Mr. Faruqi showed up at the meeting place at the agreed-upon time and was arrested. After Mr. Faruqi’s arrest, Detective Steven Osterloh interviewed him. The detective was unarmed and alone with Mr. Faruqi in the interview room. Detective Osterloh began the interview by advising Mr. Faruqi of his Miranda rights. He asked Mr. Faruqi whether he could read and write English; Mr. Faruqi responded affirmatively. Mr. Faruqi read the first line of the Miranda form alоud and confirmed that he understood it. Then Detective Osterloh read each of Mr. Faruqi’s rights to him. After each right was read to him, Mr. Faruqi acknowledged that he understood it and marked it with his initials. When Detective Osterloh finished going through the Miranda form, Mr. Fa-ruqi said that he understood his rights and signed a waiver of them.
Detective Osterloh told Mr. Faruqi that the police were investigating complaints by the parents of a 14-year-old girl who were concerned that he was trying to have sex with their daughter. During the interview, when Mr. Faruqi told the detective that he was from Pakistan, the detective asked him аbout the customs of his home country and his familiarity with the laws of the United States “as far as having sex with a minor.”
Mr. Faruqi admitted to Detective Oster-loh that he had chatted online with a girl he thought was 14 years old and that he had asked her if she would engage in sexual acts with him. He said that when he went to the park, he believed he would be meeting a 14-year-old girl named Kaitlin. After making his verbal statement, Mr. Faruqi agreed to make a written statement. Mr. Faruqi’s first draft of the statement left out some details, so at Detective Osterloh’s, request he prepared a more detailеd final statement. The statement contained admissions that he had chatted with a 14-year-old girl, that they had talked about sex and that they had arranged to meet.
Mr. Faruqi signed a “consent to search” form permitting a search of the computer at his workplace. Police seized the computer and discovered on it data fragments corresponding with the chats between Mr. Faruqi and “Kaitlin.”
Mr. Faruqi was charged by indictment with attempted enticement of a child under section 566.151. Prior to trial, the court overruled Mr. Faruqi’s motion to dismiss the indictment, in which he alleged that the enticement statute violated the Due Process Clause because subsection 2 of section 566.151 was unconstitutionally vague. At his bench trial, he admitted that he had participated in the chats but said that he had believed that “Kaitlin” was really an adult, not a 14-year-old girl.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW AND PRINCIPLES GOVERNING THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF STATUTES
“ ‘Constitutional challenges to the validity of any alleged right or defense asserted by a party to an action must be raised at the earliest opportunity consistent with good pleading and orderly procedure.’ ”
State ex rel. Houska v. Dickhaner, 3
At a motion to suppress hearing, “the state bears both the burden of producing evidence and the risk of nonpersuasion to show by a preponderance of the evidence that the motion to suppress should be overruled.”
State v. Franklin,
III. DEFENDANTS VAGUENESS CHALLENGE HAS NO APPLICATION BECAUSE HE WAS CHARGED WITH ATTEMPTED ENTICEMENT
Mr. Faruqi argues that the trial court erred in overruling his motion to dismiss the indictment because the statute setting forth the crime of enticement of a child, section 566.151, is unconstitutionally vague when applied to someone who is charged with enticing a child when the person enticed actually is a police officer masquerading as a child.
The Due Process Clause requires that state criminal statutes demonstrate a basic level of clarity and definiteness. “No one may be required at peril of life, liberty or property to speculate as to the meaning of penal statutes. All are entitled to be informed as to what the State commands or forbids.”
Lanzetta v. New Jersey,
“On a challenge that a statute or ordinanсe is unconstitutionally vague it is not necessary to determine if a situation could be imagined in which the language used might be vague or confusing; the language is to be treated by applying it to the facts at hand.”
State v. Young,
Mr. Faruqi acknowledges this settled law. He also recognizes that
Pribble
rejected vagueness (and overbreadth) challenges to section 566.151.
1. A person at least twenty-one years of age or older commits the crime of enticement of a child if that person persuades, solicits, cоaxes, entices, or lures whether by words, actions or through communication via the Internet or any electronic communication, any person who is less than fifteen years of age for the purpose of engaging in sexual conduct.
2. It is not an affirmative defense to a prosecution for a violation of this section that the other person was a peace officer masquerading as a minor.
§ 566.151.1 and .2. Mr. Faruqi does not claim that subsection 1 is vague; it clearly states that enticement of a child under the age of 15 years is illegal. He alleges that vagueness is created by the addition of subsection 2, which states that it is not an “affirmative defense” that the victim of the enticement was actually “a peace officer masquerading as a minor.”
Mr. Faruqi seizes on this curious language, arguing that the statute is internally inconsistent because, he says, subsection 1 requires that the state prove as an element that the victim is a child younger than 15 years whereas subsection 2 seems to suggest that the age of the victim is an affirmative defense rather than an element of the crime and that the burden of proof is placed on the defendant. As a result, Mr. Faruqi argues, the statute lacks sufficient minimum standards to guide law enforcement officers in its enforcement or to provide citizens with fair warning of prohibited conduct and, therefore, is unconstitutionally vague under the principles set out in
City of Chicago v. Morales,
A plurality in
Morales
held a statute banning “loitering” invalid on vagueness grounds, stating, “When vagueness permeates the text of such a law, it is subject to facial attack,” while another plurality in the case held that the statute was so over-broad that it unconstitutionally interfered
This Court rejects Mr. Faruqi’s request that this Court find the statute subject to a facial challenge. Unlike in
Morales,
vagueness cannot be said to permeate the statute in question. Subsection 1 of the statute is unambiguous in its prohibition of sexual enticement of a child under the age of 15 years. This Court already has held subsection 3 not to be vague in
Pribble,
Mr. Faruqi’s “as applied” challenge is equally unavailing. As just noted, he argues that subsection 2 of section 566.151 makes the statute vague when applied to someone charged with actually enticing a child when the person enticed turns out to be a pоlice officer masquerading as a child, because it says, “It is not an affirmative defense to a prosecution for a violation of this section that the other person was a peace officer masquerading as a minor.” § 566.151.2.
The State agrees that the statute is not a model of precision, because it misuses the term
“affirmative defense
”
3
when what it seems to intend to state is that it shall not be
a defense
that the person enticed is a police officer.
4
See State v. Hall,
This Court need not resolve this troublesome issue here, for Mr. Faruqi was not charged with enticement of a child under the age of 15 yeаrs. Rather, as noted earlier, he was charged with and convicted of the inchoate crime of attempted enticement of a child. He admits that he thought the person he was speaking to was a 14-year-old child named Kaitlin, and substantial evidence was presented that he asked “Kaitlin” to meet yvith him to engage in sexual activity. This is sufficient to constitute an attempt under section 564.011, RSMo 2000, which provides, in pertinent part:
1. A person is guilty of attempt to commit an offense when, with the purpose of committing the offense, he does any act which is a substantiаl step towards the commission of the offense. A “substantial step” is conduct which is strongly corroborative of the firmness of the actor’s purpose to complete the commission of the offense.
§ 564.011.1, RSMo 2000. As such, the attempt statute requires only a showing that “defendant’s purpose was to commit the underlying offense and that defendant took a substantial step toward its commission.”
State v. Wadsworth,
Mr. Faruqi argues that the fact that “Kaitlin” was really a police officer should preclude application of the attempt statute for the same reasons that it causes vagueness problems in regard to persons charged with completed enticement of a child. But subsection 2 of the attempt statute specifically states that:
2. It is no defense to a prosecution under this section that the offense attempted was, under the actual attendant circumstances, factually or legally impossible of commission, if such offense could have been committed had the attendant circumstances been as the actor believed them to be.
§ 564.011.2, RSMo 2000. In other words, it is no defense to a charge of attempted enticement of a child that the underlying offense of enticement of a child was legally or factually impossible because the victim was a police officer masquerading as a child.
6
It does not matter, for purposes of proving attempted enticement, whether the defendant was communicating with an actual child, an undercover officer or any other adult masquerading as a child younger than 15 years. Mr. Faruqi’s belief
IV. MR. FARUQI’S STATEMENTS WERE NOT INVOLUNTARY
Mr. Faruqi also argues that the oral and written statements that he made to Detective Osterloh should have been suppressed as involuntary because they were procured by false statements that rose to the level of implied threats.
The Due Process Clause bars involuntarily obtained confessions from being admissible at trial.
Ashcraft v. Tennessee,
In this case, none of the factors listed above suggests that Mr. Faruqi’s statements to Detective Osterloh were involuntary. Mr. Faruqi was 33 years old at the time of the interview and is well-educated, having had two years of college. He was advised of his Miranda rights before the interview began, indicated that he understood them and signed a written waiver. Although English apparently is not Mr. Faruqi’s first language, he indicated no difficulty understanding Detective Oster-loh during the interview, and he wrote his statement in English. Equally important, there is nothing in the recоrd indicating that the physical conditions of Mr. Faru-qi’s interview were coercive. Mr. Faruqi was uncuffed, and the record shows that the interview lasted only approximately two hours. Sufficient evidence existed to support the trial court’s conclusion that Mr. Faruqi’s statements were not coerced.
Mr. Faruqi contends that two lines of inquiry by Detective Osterloh constituted implicit threats that rendered his confession involuntary. Specifically, as evidence that his confession was coerced, Mr. Faru-qi points to Detective Osterloh’s false represеntation that the police had received a complaint from a 14-year-old girl’s parents that Mr. Faruqi was trying to have sex with their daughter as well as Detective Osterloh’s inquiries about Mr. Faru-qi’s country of origin and the customs of that country.
This argument fails. First, contrary to the argument Mr. Faruqi now makes, nowhere in the record is there any indication that Detective Osterloh or anyone else threatened that Mr. Faruqi would be sued by the imaginary 14-year-old girl’s parents or that he would be deported if he did not confess. It does not appear from the
Finally, the fact that Detective Osterloh provided Mr. Faruqi with false information regarding the investigation does not
per se
invalidate Mr. Faruqi’s confession. Statements obtained by subterfuge on the part of police “are admissible unless the deception offends societal notions of fairness or is likely to produce an untrustworthy confession.”
State v. Davis,
Here, Detective Osterloh’s false representation that police were responding to complaints made by parents of a 14-year-old girl was not the sort of subterfuge that offends societal notions of fairness. Although Detective Osterloh himself was not undercover, his story about the 14-year-old girl during the interview was simply a part of the sting operation already underway. Moreover, nothing about Detective Osterloh’s misrepresentation was likely to produce an untrustworthy confession. There is no reason to think that a suspect who had not, in fact, engaged in sexual communications with a persоn he believed to be a 14-year-old girl would be more likely to confess falsely if he was told that the child’s parents were upset about it. Mr. Faruqi’s statements were not obtained involuntarily.
V. MR. FARUQI’S FOURTH AMENDMENT CLAIM IS BARRED AS HE MAINTAINED NO SUBJECTIVE EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY IN HIS WORK COMPUTER
Finally, Mr. Faruqi argues that the evidence discovered on his work computer should have been suppressed because it was discovered as a result of an unlawful search and seizure. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees that “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated ...” U.S. Const. amend. IV. Here, the State argues that Mr. Faruqi lacks “standing” to challenge the constitutional validity of the search. In the context of an alleged Fourth Amendment violation, this is another way of stating that the search and seizure did not infringe upon an
interest
that is protected by the Fourth Amendment.
7
Rakas v. Illinois,
In other words, the rights established by the Fourth Amendment are personal in nature and cannot be asserted vicariously.
Rakas,
Here, Mr. Faruqi acknowledges that he consented to the search of the computer. By granting the police permission to search the computer, Mr. Faruqi demonstrated that he maintained no personal expectation of privacy in the content stored on the computer. Because there was no subjective expectation of privacy as to the computer, Mr. Faruqi is barred from raising a claim that the computer was searched in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights.
Rakas,
VI. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment is affirmed.
Notes
. Henceforth, all references to section 566.151 are to RSMo Supp.2010.
. Similarly, in
Young,
the statute in question made it a crime to be in a place or connected with a place in where cockfighting occurred, without regard to whether one actually were involved in or attending cockfighting or knew that cockfighting occurred. It was so vague that it failed "to provide a person of ordinary intelligence with adequate notice of the proscribed conduct,”
. An affirmative defense is an independent bar to liability with respect to which the defendant carries the burden of persuasion that "does not serve to negative any facts of the crime which the State must prove in order to convict” the defendant.
Patterson
v.
New York,
. An ordinary defense is one in which the burden of proving guilt remains on the State and the defendant attempts merely to disprove one of the crime’s essential elements.
. For example, a similar statute from Tennessee provides:
(a) It is an offense for a person eighteen (18) years of age or older, by means of oral, written or electronic communiсation, electronic mail or Internet services, directly or through another, to intentionally command, request, hire, persuade, invite or attempt to induce a person whom the person making the solicitation knows, or should know, is less than eighteen (18) years of age, or solicits a law enforcement officer posing as a minor, and whom the person making the solicitation reasonably believes to be less than eighteen (18) years of age, to engage in conduct that, if completed, would constitute a violation by the soliciting adult of [several enumerated sexual] offenses....
. At least since the adoption of section 564.011 in 1979, the State has been permitted to charge criminal attempt even if there is evidence that the defendant committed the completed target offense. Compare § 556.160, RSMo 1959 (“No person shall be convicted of an assault with an intent to commit a crime, or of any other attempt to commit any offense, when it shall appear that the crime intended or the offense attempted was perpetrated by such person at the time of such assault or in pursuance of such attempt"), repealed and replaced by, § 564.011, RSMo 2000.
. Confusion over how to characterize the ability to challenge searches and seizures has arisen in some cases due at least in part to the prominent use of the word "standing” in
Jones v. United States,
