Request By:
Mr. A. Jack May
Kentucky Department of Justice
Bureau of Training
354 Stratton Building, E.K.U.
Richmond, Kentucky 40475
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Reid C. James, Assistant Attorney General
This is in reply to your recent request for an opinion of this Office relative to Senate Bill 252, enacted by the 1978 General Assembly as a new section of KRS Chapter 506. This new provision, KRS 506.120, provides in pertinent part.
No person, with the purpose to establish or maintain a criminal syndicate or to facilitate any of its activities, shall do any of the following:
(4) knowingly furnish legal accounting, or other managerial services to a criminal syndicate.
You have suggested that a comma should have been inserted between the words "legal" and "accounting" , and inquire as to the correctness of your speculation, and the effect of such an omission, if, in fact, a comma was unintentionally deleted.
A review of the original draft of this legislation, furnished by the Legislative Research Commission, indicates that a comma should appear between the words noted. However due to an apparent typographical error such punctuation does not appear in the bill enrolled in the Office of the Secretary of State. The enrolled bill is controlling until such time as the General Assembly chooses to correct the error, presumably at its next regular session.
However, notwithstanding this error, it is our opinion that a court confronted with this problem could supply the needed punctuation sua sponte in order to carry out the legislative intent of the act.
In
Hatchett v. City of Glasgow, Ky., 340 S.W.2d 248, 251 (1960), the Court of Appeals observed that, "the courts may supply clerical and grammatical omissions in obscure phrases or language of a statute in order to give effect to the intention of the Legislature, presumed or ascertainable from the context, or to rescue the act from an absurdity." Similarly, in
Hodges v. Quire, Ky., 174 S.W.2d 9, 14 (1943), it was noted, "punctuation marks are no part of an act and to determine legislative intent, punctuation will be disregarded or the phrase repunctuated if that be necessary in order to arrive at the natural meaning of the words employed."
KRS Chapter 446, relating to the construction of Kentucky's statutes, requires that a liberal construction be applied to promote the object and intent of the legislature, and that all words and phrases be construed according to their common and approved usage. KRS 446.080(1), (4).
In KRS 506.120(4), the phrase "legal accounting" has no meaning. Accounting is accounting is accounting. The statute's purpose is to outlaw the establishment and maintainance of criminal syndication in Kentucky, and any facilitation thereof. Certainly the furnishing of legal services, accounting services, and other managerial services to facilitate such syndication is to be avoided and was clearly within the intent of the General Assembly in enacting Senate Bill 252.