A basic rule of review in criminal cases is that criminal statutes are to be strictly construed in favor of those persons sought to be subjected to their operation, i.e., defendants. Schenher v. State, 38 Ala. App. 573, 90 So.2d 234, cert. denied, 265 Ala. 700, 90 So.2d 238 (1956).

Penal statutes are to reach no further in meaning than their words. Fuller v. State, 257 Ala. 502, 60 So.2d 202 (1952).

One who commits an act which does not come within the words of a criminal statute, according to the general and popular understanding of those words, when they are not used technically, is not to be punished thereunder, merely because the act may contravene the policy of the statute. Fuller v. State, supra, citing Young's Case, 58 Ala. 358 (1877).

No person is to be made subject to penal statutes by implication and all doubts concerning their interpretation are to predominate in favor of the accused. Fuller v. State, supra.


A statute defining a crime must be strictly construed and "one cannot commit an offense under a statute except in the circumstances it specifies." Peinhardt v. State, 161 Ala. 70, 49 So. 831, 832 (1909), overruled on other grounds, Williams v. State, 177 Ala. 34, 58 So. 921, 923 (1912). The rules of statutory construction which this Court must follow were succinctly set out in Clements v. State, 370 So.2d 723, 725 (Ala. 1979), overruled on other grounds, Beck v. State, 396 So.2d 645 (Ala. 1980):


In Sheffield v. State, 708 So.2d 899 (Ala. Cr. App. 1997), this court addressed the implications of § 13A-1-6, Code of Alabama 1975, as that section pertains to the construction of criminal statutes:

"The focus in § 13A-1-6 on the 'fair import of [a penal statute's] terms' is the legislature's manifestation of its 'preference for the meaning of the statute over legislative intent as a criterion of interpretation.' 2A N. Singer, Sutherland Statutory Construction § 45.07 (5th ed. 1992). 'The reference to a "meaning of the statute" which is juxtaposed with and therefore distinct from legislative "intention," expresses concern for giving effect to the way in which the statute is understood by others than the members of the legislature itself.' Id. 'Inquiry begins not with conjecture about what [the legislature] would have liked to have said when it wrote the statute or with what [the legislature] would say today given the chance, but rather what [the legislature] indeed expressed in the statutory context.' Id."

708 So.2d at 905 (emphasis supplied).