Trindle v. State

KARWACKI, Judge. A jury in the Circuit Court for Kent County (Boyer, J.) convicted William Orville Trindle, III, of violating Maryland Code (1984), § 9-305 of the Family Law Article 1 and Md. ²⁷ Code (1957, 1987 Repl.Vol.) Article 27, § 2. 2 Sharon Marcus, who was tried jointly with Trindle, was also convicted of violating Article 27, § 2. Following their sentencing, both Trindle and Marcus appealed those judgments to the Court of Special Appeals. Before the cases were heard by ²⁸ the intermediate appellate court, we issued a writ of certiorari on our own motion.

The prosecution of Trindle and Marcus was based upon facts that were undisputed at trial. Trindle and his wife, Alexa Matthai, separated in August of 1987. Matthai was granted a limited divorce by the Circuit Court for Kent County on December 31,1987. Custody of their three children, Jamila (born on January 1, 1980), Jamal (born on December 2, 1981), and Alia (born on January 6, 1985), was granted to Matthai.

Trindle was allowed reasonable visitation with his children. Matthai continued to reside in the family home at Better-ton in Kent County with the children. On March 1, 1989, the Circuit Court for Kent County entered a judgment absolutely divorcing Trindle and Matthai. The court continued the custody of the children in Matthai, allowing Trindle reasonable visitation.

During the spring of 1989, Matthai and Trindle had made arrangements for the children to visit Trindle on weekends. He was then living in Overbrook, Pennsylvania, with his new wife, Sharon Marcus. Matthai would drive to Wilmington, Delaware, on Fridays, where she and the children would be met by Trindle. The children would then join their father for the trip to his home.

On Sundays, Trindle and Matthai would again meet in Wilmington where Trindle would return the children to their mother for their return to their Kent County home. At Trindle’s request, Matthai agreed to an extended weekend visit from Thursday, May 11, through Sunday, May 14, on Trindle’s representation that he was taking the children to a special event in Philadelphia. On May 11, Matthai and the children met Trindle in Wilmington. Trindle agreed to telephone Matthai on the morning of May 14 and advise her of the time they would meet to transfer the children that afternoon.

Matthai then returned home. At 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 13, Trindle telephoned Frances Matthai, an aunt of his ex-wife, who lived in ²⁹ Baltimore County. He asked her to advise Matthai that he would not be returning the children. This information was immediately relayed to Matthai who began a frantic effort to locate Trindle and the children.

She enlisted her lawyer and the Maryland State Police to help her, but the whereabouts of Trindle and the children could not be ascertained. It was later learned that on May 13, Trindle, Marcus and the children left on an airplane from Kennedy Airport in New York to fly to Amman, Jordan. The tickets for this trip had been purchased on April 24, 1989, by Marcus with her own funds. Soon after the children arrived in Amman, Jordan, Frances Matthai received a telephone call from Jamila, the eldest of the children.

Jamila assured her that she and her brother and sister were well and advised her how they could be contacted by telephone. Frances Matthai immediately advised her niece of this information. Matthai then placed a telephone call to the number she had been furnished. Trindle answered the telephone.

When Matthai demanded the return of the children, Trindle advised her that he had conditions to doing so. He insisted that they renegotiate the property settlement that they had reached at the time of their absolute divorce. He also wanted joint custody of their children. Finally, he demanded that she deposit between $6,000 and $8,000 in his checking account.

During repeated telephone conversations which Matthai had with Trindle until the end of September, he maintained these positions. In the course of her attempts to persuade Trindle to return the children, Matthai also had occasion to speak with Marcus. At trial, Matthai recalled that when she spoke with Marcus, “the big question I put to her is 'Why are you financing this? These are my children.

And you may think you are not involved but you are the reason that they are there.’ Because Bill didn’t have any money and she had the money.” Matthai’s pleas were unavailing. ³⁰ Corporal Frank Ford of the Maryland State Police, who was assigned the investigation of the abduction of the children, learned on September 25, 1989, from the State Department of the United States that Trindle, Marcus and the children had been deported from Jordan and ordered to return to the United States and that their airplane from Jordan was due to land at Kennedy Airport in New York on September 29. Matthai, in the company of Corporal Ford, traveled to New York to meet that flight. Matthai regained the custody of her children, and Trindle and Marcus were arrested and returned to Kent County. Trindle In his appeal Trindle contended that the Circuit Court was without jurisdiction to hear his prosecution for child abduction since none of his conduct took place in Maryland.

Alternatively, he asserted that § 9-305 of the Family Law Article “pre-empted the field of parental kidnapping, thereby invalidating his convictions under Article 27, § 2.” Prior to his case being argued, Trindle died. Consequently, all issues he had raised are moot. Since at the time of his death he had not had the one appeal from his convictions to which he was statutorily entitled, his convictions and sentences shall be vacated, and the cases remanded with directions to dismiss the criminal informations filed against him as moot. Jones v. State, 302 Md. 153, 158 , 486 A.2d 184, 187 (1985).

Marcus In her appeal, Marcus also challenges the jurisdiction of the trial court and, alternatively, argues that since she was merely an “aider and abettor” of Trindle, she cannot be convicted under Article 27, § 2, because that statute was pre-empted by § 9-305 of the Family Law Article utilized in Trindle’s prosecution for parental kidnapping. (1) In Pennington v. State, 308 Md. 727 , 521 A.2d 1216 (1987), we had occasion to uphold the jurisdiction of a ³¹ Maryland circuit court to hear a prosecution for obstruction of justice prohibited by Md.Code (1957, 1982 Repl.Yol.) Article 27, § 27. There, Pennington stabbed another woman in the District of Columbia to dissuade her from testifying in a criminal case pending in Baltimore City. We observed that Md.Code (1974,1984 Repl.Vol.), § 1-501 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article provides that each circuit court “has full common-law and equity powers and jurisdiction in all civil and criminal cases within its county, and all the additional powers and jurisdiction conferred by the Constitution and by law, except where by law jurisdiction has been limited or conferred exclusively upon another tribunal.” 308 Md. at 728 , 521 A.2d at 1216 .

Since neither the Constitution nor the Code of this State addressed jurisdiction over the offense of obstructing justice, we looked to the common law to resolve the jurisdictional issue. Id. at 729-30 , 521 A.2d at 1216-17 . We recognized that generally a state may only punish those crimes committed within its territorial limits, but where the various elements of a given offense do not occur entirely within the borders of any one state, it is necessary to decide in which state or states the crime has been committed. Id. at 730 , 521 A.2d at 1217 .

We held that at common law a crime is committed in the state where the criminal act (or omission) occurs if the crime is defined only in terms of that act (or omission) but a crime will also be considered as committed in the state where its intended result occurs if the definition of the crime includes such a result. Id. at 730-34 , 521 A.2d at 1217-19 . Consequently, we explained that in the latter instance the accused need not be present in the state where the result of his criminal act occurs. See id. at 731-33 , 521 A.2d at 1218-19 .

Applying this rationale to the crime of obstruction of justice, we concluded that causing or attempting to cause a particular result formed an essential ingredient of obstruction of justice proscribed by Article 27, § 27. Id. at 734, 521 A.2d at 1219 . Accordingly, since the intended result of Pennington’s act in the District of Columbia was the obstruction of justice in Maryland, we held that ³² the circuit court in Maryland had jurisdiction to punish that crime. Id. at 746 , 521 A.2d at 1225 .

We hold that the Pennington analysis supports the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court for Kent County in the instant case. Marcus’s conduct which constituted a violation of Article 27, § 2 consisted of knowingly secreting and harboring Matthai’s children with the intent to deprive Matthai of the custody, care and control of those children. It is clear that the intended result of that conduct, i.e. depriving Matthai of custody, forms an essential ingredient of her offense and had its effect in Kent County, Maryland, although the acts which produced that result took place outside of this State. Consequently, under the common law of Maryland interpreted in Pennington , the Maryland circuit court had jurisdiction to try Marcus for the crimes and to punish her for them.

We believe the better reasoned authority elsewhere supports our conclusion. In People v. Harvey, 174 Mich.App. 58 , 435 N.W.2d 456 (1989) defendant took his daughter for visitation in 1978 but failed to return her to his ex-wife in Michigan, who had been granted custody of the child at the time of the parties’ divorce. It was not until 1986 that the child was located in Colorado and returned to her mother. Defendant was prosecuted in Michigan under a 1983 statute which proscribed parental kidnapping.

The court held that Michigan had territorial jurisdiction over the offense, reasoning: “In this case, defendant had a legal duty to return his daughter to her mother. His failure to perform this duty, which was made criminal by the enactment of MCL 750.350a; MSA 28.582(1), should be considered a crime committed within the State of Michigan. Acts done outside a state which are intended to produce, and in fact do produce, detrimental effects within the state may properly be subject to the criminal jurisdiction of the courts of that state. The detrimental effects of defendant’s intentional retention of the girl in violation of the Michigan court’s custody order occurred here, in Michigan, since it ³³ was the authority of a Michigan court that was thwarted and it was the custodial right of a Michigan resident that was infringed upon.” Id. at 61 , 435 N.W.2d at 457 (footnote omitted).

In Wheat v. State, 734 P.2d 1007 (Alaska Ct.App.1987), defendant was prosecuted for violation of a custodial interference statute which prohibited a non-custodial relative of a child from keeping that child from a lawful custodian with intent to hold the child for a protracted period. Defendant and wife had been divorced in 1983 at which time the Alaska divorce court awarded custody of their daughter to the wife, granting summer visitation to defendant. In June of 1985, the daughter traveled from her mother’s home in Alaska to spend the summer with defendant in Arizona. Defendant refused to return child and was convicted of custodial interference.

In rejecting defendant’s contention that the Alaska court was without jurisdiction over that crime since all of his criminal conduct took place in Arizona, the Court of Appeals of Alaska reasoned: “Wheat contends that Alaska law forbids the extraterritorial application of its criminal statutes. Criminal jurisdiction in Alaska is governed by AS 12.05.010, which provides: Crime commenced outside state but consummated inside. When the commission of a crime commenced outside the state is consummated inside the state, the defendant is liable to punishment in this state even though out of the state at the time of the commission of the crime charged, if the defendant consummated the crime through the intervention of an innocent or guilty agent, or by other means proceeding directly from the defendant. Wheat reads this provision to be strictly territorial, requiring the commission of a criminal act within the confines of the state.

Because the conduct for which he was convicted — unlawfully keeping his daughter in Arizona, away from the lawful custody of her mother in Alaska — occurred entirely outside the state, Wheat ar ³⁴ gues that his offense was not ‘committed’ in Alaska and that jurisdiction never attached under AS 12.05.010. We disagree with Wheat’s interpretation of this statute. Although AS 12.05.010 is primarily territorial in its approach to criminal jurisdiction, its terms are broader than Wheat suggests. The plain language of the statute permits the assertion of jurisdiction over crimes ‘consummated inside the state.’ Wheat equates the word ‘consummate’ with the commission of some criminal act — with some element of the requisite actus reus of the offense.

In our view, however, the word ‘consummate’ requires a broader reading. In its common meaning, consummation denotes completion. In many instances, of course, a crime is completed upon commission of the last element of the required actus reus. Where, however, a statute, in addition to prohibiting conduct, includes within its definition of the offense a specific result, then the crime is not completed until that result occurs.

And if the prohibited result occurs in a place other than the conduct which occasioned it, the location of the result may fairly be deemed the place where the crime is ‘consummated.’ ” Id. at 1008-09 . (emphasis in original). In Rios v. State, 733 P.2d 242 (Wyo.), cert, denied, 484 U.S. 833 , 108 S.Ct. 108 , 98 L.Ed.2d 68 (1987), Rios and the mother of his child met in New Mexico in 1975, and subsequently, they lived together as man and wife. In 1977, a child was born of this union.

In 1979, they were married in New Mexico but divorced the following year. The mother was granted custody of their child with Rios retaining reasonable visitation rights. This situation progressed satisfactorily until the summer of 1984 when the mother informed Rios that she and her new husband were moving to Wyoming. Rios took custody of the child in New Mexico for the summer, as agreed to by the parties, with the understanding the child would be returned to the mother in Wyoming by August 14, 1984.

On that day, Rios telephoned his ex-wife asking for a few more days and she agreed. Rios did not return the child to his mother on the ³⁵ day stipulated. Her efforts to locate the child, despite assistance from police authorities in New Mexico, proved fruitless. At that juncture, the mother filed a criminal complaint against Rios in Wyoming, charging him with the statutory crime of interfering with child custody.

In July of 1985, Rios was apprehended as he attempted to cross the border from California into Mexico. The child was located in Los Angeles and reunited with his mother in Wyoming. The court, acknowledging that Wyoming did not have a specific statute which permitted the exercise of jurisdiction when extraterritorial criminal conduct caused an intended result within the state, looked to the common law rule and upheld the jurisdiction of Wyoming courts to entertain the custody interference prosecution. Id. at 249.

In Roberts v. State, 619 S.W.2d 161 (Tex.Crim.App.1981), the defendant retained her grandchild, who was under the age of 18, in Colorado in direct violation of a custody order of a Texas Court. Roberts was charged and convicted under V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 25.03, which provided: “(a) A person commits an offense if he takes or retains a child younger than 18 years out of this state when he: (1) knows that his taking or retention violates a temporary or permanent judgment or order of a court disposing of the child’s custody; or (2) has not been awarded custody of the child by a court of competent jurisdiction and knows that a suit for divorce, or a civil suit or application for habeas corpus to dispose of the child’s custody, has been filed.” The court, in upholding the jurisdiction of a Texas court to entertain that prosecution, relied on the language in V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 1.04, which provides in part: “(a) This state has jurisdiction over an offense that a person commits by his own conduct or the conduct of another for which he is criminally responsible if: (1) either the conduct or a result that is an element of the offense occurs inside this state;” ³⁶ The courts of three other states have rejected the view that child abduction or custody interference prosecutions can be heard in the state where the parental custody has been deprived by acts or omissions which occurred outside the state. People v. Gerchberg, 131 Cal.App.3d 618 , 181 Cal.Rptr. 505 (1982); State v. McCormick, 273 N.W.2d 624 (Minn.1978); State v. Cochran, 96 Idaho 862 , 538 P.2d 791 (Idaho 1975). We do not find them persuasive.

(2) Finally, the argument by Marcus that she could not be convicted under Article 27, § 2 as an accessory to Trindle proceeds on a faulty premise; she was not convicted of that crime as an accessory but as a principal. The evidence fully supported that conviction. She participated with her accomplice, Trindle, in the preparation for and consummation of the plan to “secrete and harbor” Matthai’s children from her lawful custody. In doing so, she was guilty of criminal conduct expressly punishable by Article 27, §'2, and was properly convicted thereunder.

JUDGMENTS AGAINST APPELLANT, WILLIAM ORVILLE TRINDLE III, VACATED; CASE REMANDED TO THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR KENT COUNTY WITH DIRECTION TO DISMISS THE CRIMINAL INFORMATION FILED AGAINST TRINDLE AS MOOT. JUDGMENTS AGAINST SHARON MARCUS AFFIRMED; COSTS TO BE PAID BY APPELLANT, SHARON MARCUS. ELDRIDGE, Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part: I agree with the majority’s decision vacating Trindle’s convictions on the ground of mootness. I dissent, however, from the affirmance of Marcus’s convictions under Maryland Code (1957, 1992 Repl.Vol.), Art. 27, § 2. 1 I do not ³⁷ believe that the Circuit Court for Kent County or any Maryland court had jurisdiction to entertain a prosecution of Marcus for violating Art. 27, § 2, under the circumstances here.

The affirmance of Marcus’s convictions is inconsistent with settled Maryland common law principles, with Article 20 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, and with the Constitution of the United States. As reiterated by this Court on numerous occasions, “under the common law ... a state may punish only those crimes committed within its territorial limits.” Pennington v. State, 308 Md. 727, 730 , 521 A.2d 1216,1217 (1987). See, e.g., Urciolo v. State, 272 Md. 607, 640 , 325 A.2d 878, 897 (1974) (“An offense against the laws of this State is punishable only when the offense is committed within its territory”); Goodman v. State, 237 Md. 64, 67 , 205 A.2d 53, 54 (1964); Breeding v. State, 220 Md. 193, 200 , 151 A.2d 743, 747 (1959) (“the State of Maryland cannot punish for a crime committed in another state”); Bowen v. State, 206 Md. 368, 375 , 111 A.2d 844, 847 (1955) (“Of course, an offense against the laws of the State of Maryland is punishable only when committed within its territory. A person cannot be convicted here for crimes committed in another ³⁸ state”); Stout v. State, 76 Md. 317 , 25 A. 299 (1892); Worthington v. State, 58 Md. 403 (1882).

The same principle is embodied in Art. 20 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, which, in addition, grants to a criminal defendant the right ordinarily to be tried in the county where the crime was committed. 2 Greco v. State, 307 Md. 470, 474 , 515 A.2d 220, 222 (1986); Lodowski v. State, 302 Md. 691, 707 , 490 A.2d 1228, 1236 (1985), vacated and remanded on other grounds, 475 U.S. 1078 , 106 S.Ct. 1452 , 89 L.Ed.2d 711 (1986) (“ordinarily a Grand Jury may not indict and a State’s Attorney may not try an accused in a jurisdiction outside the county in which the offense took place”). Moreover, the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, made applicable to state judicial proceedings by the Fourteenth Amendment, requires that “in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a ... trial, by an impartial jury of the State ... wherein the crime shall have been committed____” See Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 93-96 , 90 S.Ct. 1893, 1902-1904 , 26 L.Ed.2d 446, 456-458 (1970); Lodowski v. State, supra, 302 Md. at 708, 490 A.2d at 1236-1237 . A state may not, consistent with the Sixth Amendment, try an accused for a crime committed entirely in another state. See, e.g., Lane v. State, 388 So.2d 1022, 1028-1029 (Fla.1980); State v. Smith, 421 N.W.2d 315, 318-320 (Minn.1988); Mississippi Publishers Corp. v. Coleman, 515 So.2d 1163, 1165, 1166 (Miss.1987); State v. Preite, 172 Mont. 318, 321-325 , 564 P.2d 598, 600-602 (1977); State v. Darroch, 305 N.C. 196, 201-210 , 287 S.E.2d 856, 860-865 , cert denied, 457 U.S. 1138 , 102 S.Ct. 2969 , 73 L.Ed.2d 1356 (1982); State v. Beuke, 38 Ohio St.3d 29, 42 , 526 N.E.2d 274, 288 (1988), cert denied, 489 U.S. 1071 , 109 S.Ct. 1356 , 103 L.Ed.2d 823 ³⁹ (1989); State v. Harrington, 128 Vt. 242, 251 , 260 A.2d 692, 698 (1969); State v. Moore, 189 Wash. 680, 689-693 , 66 P.2d 836, 840-842 (1937).

Even before the Sixth Amendment was held applicable to state proceedings, it was implicit that, under the federal system created by the United States Constitution, a state such as Maryland had no territorial jurisdiction over an offense committed in another state, even if that offense may have had some “effects” in Maryland. Thus in Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 428 , 5 L.Ed. 257, 297 (1821), the Chief Justice, referring to the offense of misprison of felony, stated: “It is equally clear that a State legislature, the State of Maryland for example, cannot punish those who, in another State, conceal a felony committed in Maryland.” See also Nielsen v. Oregon, 212 U.S. 315, 322 , 29 S.Ct. 383, 385 , 53 L.Ed. 528, 530 (1909). Where all of the elements of criminal offense take place outside of Maryland, in another state or in other states, it is clear under the previously cited authorities that a Maryland court has no jurisdiction over that offense. See, in particular, Pennington v. State, supra, 308 Md. at 730-732 , 521 A.2d at 1217-1218 , and the authorities there reviewed. 3 As pointed out by Judge Smith for the Court in the Pennington case, however, “[i]f the various elements of a given offense do not occur within the borders of a single state, it becomes necessary to decide in which state or states the offense has been ‘committed.’ ” Ibid., emphasis added.

Thus, it is only when an element or essential part of an offense takes place within Maryland that there is any basis for possible Maryland jurisdiction. See, e.g., Urciolo ⁴⁰ v. State, supra, 272 Md. at 636 n. 17, 325 A.2d at 895 n. 17 (“it is necessary ‘to discriminate with great care between acts essential to the crime and acts merely incidental thereto' ”); Goodman v. State, supra, 237 Md. at 66 , 205 A.2d at 54 (“The crime consists of two elements: the criminal intent and the act. Here, the criminal intent was formed in Maryland, but the proscribed act took place in Washington, D.C.”); Peddersen v. State, 223 Md. 329, 333 , 164 A.2d 539, 542 (1960) (“there is evidence ... that both of these elements [of the offense] occurred in this State”); Bowen v. State, supra, 206 Md. at 375 , 111 A.2d at 847 (referring to place where the “essential element in the crime” occurred); Stout v. State, supra, 76 Md. at 325-326 , 25 A. at 302 . Judge Smith in Pennington v. State, supra, 308 Md. at 730-733 , 521 A.2d at 1217-1219 , went on to explain that, in the situation where the elements of an offense occur in different states, and in the absence of any statute expanding common law territorial jurisdiction in criminal cases, courts look to a particular element, or certain particular elements, of an offense in order to determine the situs of that offense.

For example, in Stout v. State, supra, 76 Md. at 323-328 , 25 A. at 301-302 , involving the crime of murder, where the mortal blow was struck in one state but death occurred in another state, this Court held that the state in which the blow was struck, and not the state where death occurred, had jurisdiction to try the defendant. In Bowen v. State, supra, 206 Md. at 375-379 , 111 A.2d at 847-849 , involving the theft of real estate settlement moneys, the Court held that the place having jurisdiction to prosecute for larceny after trust was the District of Columbia where the conversion took place, and the place having jurisdiction to prosecute for embezzlement was also the District of Columbia where the intent to appropriate was formed and where the appropriation took place. The Court in Bowen held that Maryland, where the settlement took place, where the moneys were received, and where the property and the victims were located, had no jurisdiction to prosecute either offense. To the same effect, see Urciolo v. ⁴¹ State, supra.

In Goodman v. State, supra, the defendant was charged in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, Maryland, under a statute making it an offense to obtain or procure a narcotic drug by, inter alia, misrepresentation or alteration of a prescription or by use of a false name. The defendant, by misrepresentations and by using a false name, obtained from a physician in Montgomery County a prescription for a narcotic drug, and he had the prescription filled in the District of Columbia. Despite the occurrence of some elements of the crime in Maryland, i.e., the criminal intent and misrepresentations, this Court held that the Maryland court lacked jurisdiction because the critical element or gravamen of the crime was the obtention of the narcotic drug which took place in the District of Columbia. See also Frye v. State, 62 Md.App. 310 , 489 A.2d 71 , cert, denied, 303 Md. 618 , 495 A.2d 837 (1985).

The Court in Pennington v. State, supra, 308 Md. at 728-729 , 521 A.2d at 1216-1217 , observed that some states have enacted statutes expanding territorial jurisdiction over criminal cases but that Maryland has not enacted such a statute. Moreover, even under these statutes, some element or essential part of the offense ordinarily must occur within a state in order for that state to exercise jurisdiction over the offense. Thus, in State v. Smith, supra, 421 N.W.2d 315 , involving a very broad territorial jurisdiction statute, the Supreme Court of Minnesota reversed a murder conviction where the victim’s body was found in Minnesota but where the elements of the offense, including the death, all apparently occurred outside of Minnesota. The court stated ( 421 N.W.2d at 318-319 ): “Both the Minnesota and the United States Constitutions preserve the theory of territorial jurisdiction to some degree____ [T]he Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides the right to a trial in ‘the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.’ (emphasis added).

By use of the term ‘committed,’ both Consti ⁴² tutions evidence an intent to maintain some form of territorial jurisdiction. “Statutes have been enacted in the various states that broaden the common law concept of territorial jurisdiction. These statutes basically have allowed a state to assume jurisdiction where any element of the crime was committed within its borders____ [A] state may now assume jurisdiction where the result or effect of the crime occurred within its boundaries. Thus, the state where a victim died (i.e., the result or effect of the murder) can assert jurisdiction over the murder under modern statutes. * * # * * * “However, even under the broad, modem statutes, some territorial aspects of jurisdiction remain. In order to withstand constitutional attack, some operative event, a triggering event if you will, must occur within the jurisdiction for the court to have power to act.

The event needed, as required by the Minnesota and United States Constitutions, is that some part of the crime charged must be ‘committed’ within the jurisdiction.” (Emphasis supplied). After discussing the existing Minnesota statue, the court went on (id. at 319-320): “However, the statute still requires that some territorial event be committed in Minnesota to confer jurisdiction. In [State v.] McCormick [, 273 N.W.2d 624 (Minn.1978) ], we expressly held that this statute does not totally abrogate ‘the limitations on extraterritorial jurisdiction which have long been recognized as the law of the land.’ 273 N.W.2d at 625 . On this basis, the court struck down a statute that made totally extraterritorial activity a crime in Minnesota.

Id. 273 N.W.2d at 625 . We agree with appellant in this case that under McCormick , an attempt to exercise totally extraterritorial jurisdiction is contravened both by state and federal constitutional principles. Only if some part of the crime was committed within the ⁴³ State of Minnesota does the state have jurisdiction to punish the crime.” Because “no act comprising the murder was committed in Minnesota” (id. at 320), the court overturned the murder conviction. Numerous other cases are to the same effect, namely that even under statutes expanding common law territorial jurisdiction over criminal offenses, some element or essential part of the offense must take place in the state for that state to have territorial jurisdiction.