(6) It shall be a violation of this regulation to obtain, possess, or utilize
duplicate harvest record forms, or to provide false information on
harvest record forms, for the purpose of avoiding the requirements of
this regulation.

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