Delinquency Case Law

In re Dallas W. (2000) 85 Cal.App.4th 937 [ 102 Cal.Rptr.2d 493]. Court of Appeal, Second District.

The juvenile court sustained a petition against a child for violating Penal Code section 314 (misdemeanor indecent exposure).

The 16-year-old child was walking with friends and twice stopped to moon oncoming traffic. An employee of the City of Artesia was concerned for the safety of the people in the street and called the police. The employee was adamant about action being taken, and the child was detained and cited. The juvenile court found that the child was not acting with the intent to arouse himself or a third person, and had committed the act to affront and annoy people. The juvenile court nonetheless sustained the petition. The child appealed.

The Court of Appeal reversed the decision of the juvenile court. The child contended that the evidence was insufficient to categorize his behavior as indecent exposure because there was no evidence that he bared his buttocks "lewdly." Penal Code section 314 provides that every person who willfully and lewdly exposes his person or private parts in a public place where there are other people to be offended or annoyed is guilty of a misdemeanor. The appellate court determined that lewd intent is an essential element of this offense and is something more than nudity. It was not enough to act with the intent to "affront" others. The appellate court relied on the Supreme Court case In re Smith (1972) 7 Cal.3d. 362, in which a sunbather on an isolated beach was not found to have lewdly exposed his private parts within the meaning of section 314. The Supreme Court in Smith declined to attribute the Legislature with the belief that a person sunbathing in the nude needs constant police surveillance to prevent such crimes against society in the future. The appellate court analogized this rationale to the case described here, in which a teenager found to be mooning passing traffic did not require constant police surveillance to prevent that action in the future. The California Criminal Jury Instructions, (CALJIC) 16.220 defines "lewdly" as "with the specific intent to direct public attention to one's person [or] genitals for the purpose of one's own sexual arousal or gratification, or that of another, or to affront others." (Id. at 366.) The juvenile court mistakenly read the clause "to affront others" as a nonmodified independent clause, and this interpretation is not a proper statement of law. The child in this case did not act with sexual intent to arouse himself or a third person. The appellate court stated that CALJIC 16.220 may be inconsistent with the Smith finding. The appellate court reversed the decision of the juvenile court and noted that the child had exhibited bad judgment and poor taste.