State v. LebeauState v. Lebeau
STATE of Nebraska, appellee,
v.
Laura LEBEAU, appellant.
Supreme Court of Nebraska.
*923 Thomas C. Riley, Douglas County Public Defender, and Sean M. Conway for appellant.
Jon Bruning, Attorney General, and James D. Smith, Lincoln, for appellee.
*924 HEAVICAN, C.J., WRIGHT, CONNOLLY, GERRARD, STEPHAN, McCORMACK, and MILLER-LERMAN, JJ.
GERRARD, J.
Laura Lebeau was charged with violating an Omaha city ordinance prohibiting telephone harassment. Lebeau filed two motions to discharge on statutory speedy trial grounds. The county court denied both motions to discharge, and the district court affirmed. The primary issue in this case is whether the "intimate partner" exception of
BACKGROUND
Lebeau was charged by complaint on September 17, 2008, with violating Omaha Mun. Code, ch. 20, art. IV, § 20-62 (1996), prohibiting "[t]elephone harassment" of another person. Among other things, § 20-62 makes it unlawful for any person, by means of telephonic communication, to purposefully or knowingly threaten to inflict injury to any person or his or her property or to use indecent or obscene language against such person. And specifically, it was alleged that Lebeau left harassing messages on her ex-husband's answering machine. Lebeau, however, was not arraigned until March 3, 2009. The record before the district court indicates that her appearance on March 3 resulted from her arrest on March 2.
On March 20, 2009, relying on September 17, 2008, as the starting date for the 6-month speedy trial period, Lebeau filed a motion to discharge alleging that her case had not been brought to trial within 6 months of the filing of the complaint, as required by
Following a hearing, the county court denied both motions, and on appeal, the district court affirmed. Lebeau appeals.
ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR
Lebeau assigns, consolidated and restated, that the district court erred in affirming the county court order which had denied her motions to discharge.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
The meaning of a statute is a question of law.[1] When reviewing a question of law, an appellate court resolves the question independently of the conclusion reached by the trial court.[2]
ANALYSIS
Nebraska's speedy trial statutes[3] provide in part that "[e]very person *925 indicted or informed against for any offense shall be brought to trial within six months, and such time shall be computed as provided in [
In this case, there are no excludable periods under
shall commence to run from the date the indictment is returned or the information filed, unless the offense is a misdemeanor offense involving intimate partners, as that term is defined in section 28-323, in which case the six-month period shall commence from the date the defendant is arrested on a complaint filed as part of a warrant for arrest.
(Emphasis supplied.) And
In this case, the alleged victim was Lebeau's former spouse. And as a result, there is no question that the alleged victim and Lebeau are intimate partners for the purposes of our analysis. But Lebeau argues that she is entitled to absolute discharge of her case because the intimate partner exception of
Statutory language is to be given its plain and ordinary meaning, and an appellate court will not resort to interpretation to ascertain the meaning of statutory words which are plain, direct, and unambiguous.[11]*926 But a statute is ambiguous when the language used cannot be adequately understood either from the plain meaning of the statute or when considered in pari materia with any related statutes.[12] Here, the language of
When a statutory term is reasonably considered ambiguous, we often find it helpful to examine the pertinent legislative history of the act in question to ascertain the intent of the Legislature.[13] The legislative record establishes that the intimate partner exception sought "to discourage perpetrators from evading prosecution by starting the six month period from the point in time a perpetrator is arrested on a warrant rather than from the point in time a prosecutor files a complaint."[14] The Introducer's Statement of Intent describes the apparently common situation which L.B. 623 sought to address:
Often, police arrive at the scene of a misdemeanor domestic violence crime only to learn that the perpetrator has fled. Unable to find and arrest the perpetrator at the time, law enforcement must resort to the issuance of an arrest warrant in order to have legal cause for the arrest. A criminal complaint is then filed by the prosecutor in support of the arrest warrant. Not surprisingly, perpetrators frequently take measures to avoid being located and arrested. If a perpetrator is able to avoid arrest for six months, he or she is rewarded because the charges must be permanently dismissed.[15]
And the testimony before the Judiciary Committee, and statements during the floor debate, certainly made clear that the intimate partner exception was necessary for domestic violence incidents, which, it was explained, were uniquely different from other misdemeanors.[16] And it was explained that L.B. 623 would "simply start" the 6-month speedy trial clock "at the point in time where the defendant is actually arrested for the domestic violence incident and not at the time that the law enforcement officer has the prosecutor file the complaint, at a point in time when the abuser has not been arrested or located."[17]
The principal objective of construing a statute is to determine and give effect to the legislative intent of the enactment.[18] And the legislative history of
And in this case, "intimate partner" is not an element of telephone harassment under § 20-62 of the Omaha Municipal Code. As briefly noted earlier, the elements of telephone harassment under § 20-62 are that a person:
(a) Threaten to inflict injury to any person or to the property of any person;
(b) Use indecent, lewd, lascivious, or obscene language;
(c) Intentionally fail to disengage the connection;
(d) Initiate a connection with the communication system of any recipient after expressed notice that the recipient excluded communication from that person; or
(e) Annoy by anonymous engagement of a line followed by disengagement after answer.[20]
Because telephone harassment neither involves nor includes "intimate partner" as an element, the exception of
We note briefly the State's argument that the speedy trial statute does not apply to the prosecution of city ordinances. The State contends that the statute does not apply to a city ordinance because
Our conclusion that the intimate partner exception of
*928 CONCLUSION
We conclude that the State did not bring Lebeau to trial within the required time and that the county court and district court erred in finding otherwise. We reverse the lower courts' orders denying Lebeau's motion for absolute discharge and remand the matter to the district court with directions to reverse the judgment of the county court and remand the cause with directions to dismiss the complaint against Lebeau.
REVERSED AND REMANDED WITH DIRECTIONS TO DISMISS.
NOTES
Notes
[1] Harvey v. Nebraska Life & Health Ins. Guar. Assn.,
[2] Curran v. Buser,
[3]
[4]
[5] See State v. Karch,
[6] See State v. Williams,
[7] See id.
[8] See id.
[9] See 2008 Neb. Laws, L.B. 623.
[10] See, Neb. Laws 2010, L.B. 712;
[11] State v. Hense,
[12] Id.
[13] See Scofield v. State,
[14] Introducer's Statement of Intent, L.B. 623, Judiciary Committee, 100th Leg., 1st Sess. (Mar. 7, 2007).
[15] Id.
[16] See, Judiciary Committee Hearing, L.B. 623, 100th Leg., 1st Sess. (Mar. 7, 2007); Floor Debate, L.B. 623, 100th Leg., 2d Sess. (Feb. 6, 2008).
[17] Floor Debate, supra note 16 at 47.
[18] Kuhn v. Wells Fargo Bank of Neb.,
[19] Floor Debate, supra note 16 at 47 (emphasis supplied).
[20] § 20-62.
[21] Karch, supra note 5.
[22] State v. Long,
[23] See State v. VanAckeren,