People v. Butler

This case affords us the opportunity to examine the fascinating and often uncertain relationship between law and technology. While courts must be sufficiently receptive to the notion of adapting legal principles to address societal changes brought upon by new technologies, where, as here, the issue involves an interpretation of existing statutes, we must maintain our usual deference to the Legislature in such matters and ask ourselves first how that body would have handled the problem if it had anticipated it. (Lewis v. Ryan (1976) 64 Cal.App.3d 330, 333 [ 134 Cal.Rptr. 355 ].)

Here we are presented with the question of whether the possession of an unlawfully cloned cellular phone constitutes a violation of the access card law. (Pen. Code, § 484d et seq.) After due analysis of the act, the legislative history and analogous federal authorities, we conclude that possession of such a device falls within the access card law and that the Legislature did not intend to bar prosecution under that law by its enactment of a telephone fraud law. For this reason, and because defendant’s other arguments on appeal are without merit except for an error in sentencing, we modify part of…