Reynoza

Opinion of the Court by Guerrero, C. J.

We granted review in this case to interpret a witness dissuasion statute. Penal Code section 136.1, subdivision (b)(2) makes it a crime to attempt to dissuade a victim or witness from “[c]ausing a complaint . . . to be sought and prosecuted, and assisting in the prosecution thereof.”1 (Italics added.) A jury found defendant Raymond Gregory Reynoza guilty of violating this statute based on actions that occurred entirely after the complaint in the underlying criminal case had been filed. The question before us is whether section 136.1(b)(2) supports this disjunctive interpretation — in which the statute independently applies where a defendant dissuades a witness from “assisting in the prosecution” of a case after the charging document has already been filed — or whether a conjunctive interpretation precludes a conviction under such circumstances. On the one hand, the word “and,” which joins the subject clauses of section 136.1(b)(2), is ordinarily used as a conjunction (In re C.H. (2011) 53 Cal.4th 94, 101). On the other hand, the word “and” also “is sometimes, in a fair and rational construction of a statute, to be read as if it were or, and…