Case Name: STATE v. DONALD PAUL PRUDHOMME
Court: Minnesota Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Minnesota
Decision Date: 1975-03-28
Citations: 303 Minn. 376
Docket Number: No. 44219
Parties: STATE v. DONALD PAUL PRUDHOMME.
Judges: 
Reporter: Minnesota Reports
Volume: 303
Pages: 376–386

Head Matter:
STATE v. DONALD PAUL PRUDHOMME.
228 N. W. 2d 243.
March 28, 1975
No. 44219.
C. Paul Jones, State Public Defender, and Mollie G. Raskind, Assistant State Public Defender, for appellant.
Warren Spannaus, Attorney General, Keith M. Brownell, County Attorney, and John E. DeSanto, Assistant County Attorney, for respondent.

Opinion:
MacLaughlin, Justice.
This appeal by defendant from a judgment of conviction raises issues involving (1) the protection contained in Minn. St. 609.035 against multiple punishment for multiple offenses arising from a single behavioral incident, and (2) the application of the policy, enunciated by this court in State v. Holmes, 281 Minn. 294, 161 N. W. 2d 650 (1968), against penalizing criminal defendants who are successful on appeal.
At approximately 1:30 a. m. on February 5, 1972, defendant picked up three teenage girls who were standing on the sidewalk outside a downtown Duluth hotel hoping to secure a ride home. Instead of taking the girls to the address they gave, defendant drove them against their will to the remote Fish Lake area, where he flashed a knife and forced the girls to submit to various sexual acts. At one point, while defendant was outside the automobile for a moment, the girls jumped out and tried to escape. Two of the girls did escape, but defendant captured the other and dragged her back to the automobile where he raped her and committed other sexual indecencies. Later, the girl freed herself from defendant and ran down the road. Defendant chased her with his automobile and then, after his automobile got stuck, on foot, finally catching her. After unsuccessfully attempting to jack up the automobile, defendant took the keys and left the scene, leaving the girl alone in the automobile at a time when the temperature was well below zero. After retrieving her coat from the road, the girl started to honk the horn, hoping to attract attention. The other two girls, hearing this, returned and found her in the automobile. After telling her to remain in the automobile while they sought help, they left and began a long trek, ending at 6:30 a. m. in the discovery of an occupied cabin where they obtained help.
After a trial by jury in district court, defendant was found guilty, as charged, of seven separate offenses and sentenced by the trial court to seven consecutive sentences as follows: 5 years for kidnapping one of the girls and 5 years for committing indecent liberties upon her; 5 years for kidnapping another of the girls and 10 years for raping her; and 5 years for kidnapping the third girl, 4 years of committing indecent liberties upon her, and 6 years for assaulting her with a knife.
Minn. St. 609.035 provides as follows:
" [I] f a person's conduct constitutes more than one offense under the laws of this state he may be punished for only one of such offenses and a conviction or acquittal of any one of them is a bar to prosecution for any other of them. All such offenses may be included in one prosecution1 which shall be stated in separate counts."
As we have stated on numerous occasions, the statute contains two protections — the protection against multiple punishment, which is designed to ensure that punishment will be commensurate with culpability, and the protection against serialized prosecution, which protects defendant from harassment by repeated prosecution for the same conduct until a desired result is reached —both of which turn on the same determination, that is, whether the conduct underlying the multiple offenses may be said to be unitary or divisible. In determining whether the conduct underlying the multiple offenses was unitary or divisible, the test employed (at least when intent is a factor) is whether the conduct involved was motivated by an effort to obtain a single criminal objective. State v. Johnson, 273 Minn. 394, 141 N. W. 2d 517 (1966).
However, we have held that even though the involved conduct is motivated by an effort to obtain a single criminal objective a different application of the statute is appropriate where there are multiple victims. In State ex rel. Stangvik v. Tahash, 281 Minn. 353, 161 N. W. 2d 667 (1968), the defendant, in the course of a few minutes, stabbed his wife and two children to death while he was on a visit home from the mental hospital where he was a patient. The trial court permitted two of the three first-degree murder charges against defendant to be reduced to second-degree murder in exchange for defendant's agreement to plead guilty and, after accepting defendant's pleas, sentenced him to life imprisonment on the first-degree murder conviction and to two concurrent 40-year sentences on the other convictions. This court, in rejecting defendant's contention that the imposition of three concurrent terms violated § 609.035, held that the fact that the crimes occurred at substantially the same time and place as part of a single behavioral incident did not in itself require the application of the statute because the three murders involved three victims and that "the legislature did not intend in every case to immunize offenders from the consequences of separate crimes intentionally committed in a single episode against more than one individual." 281 Minn. 360, 161 N. W. 2d 672. We also stated that the philospohy of the statute is to protect against exaggerating the criminality of a person's conduct and to make both punishment and prosecution commensurate with culpability.
The instant case is similar to Stangvik because there are multiple victims involved. Whether defendant may be punished for more than one crime against each victim depends upon whether he had a single criminal objective. Because it appears that defendant had a single criminal objective of committing acts of sexual misconduct with each girl, and because the kidnappings were for the purpose of committing these acts, we conclude that defendant may not be sentenced for more than one crime for each victim. Therefore, under the reasoning in Stangvik, it is our judgment that the case should be remanded to the trial court for resentencing with direction that the trial court is limited to sentencing defendant for a total of three crimes, one crime against each victim.
This leads us to the second issue: Whether, on resentencing, the trial court, after selecting the three offenses for which it will sentence defendant, is limited to the sentences which it has already set for those offenses.
The closest case is State v. Holmes, 281 Minn. 294, 161 N. W. 2d, 650 (1968), in which we held that when a defendant is granted a new trial on appeal the trial court may not impose a greater sentence after a subsequent conviction than was imposed after the first conviction. We did not base our rule in Holmes on constitutional grounds but rather on procedural fairness and principles of public policy. We emphasized that this approach "precludes inquiry into the motives of the sentencing judge and holds as a matter of law that any increase in penalty upon a retrial inevitably discourages a convicted defendant from exercising his legal rights and is contrary to public policy." 281 Minn. 298, 161 N. W. 2d 653.
The instant case differs somewhat in that the trial court will be faced with the matter of resentencing after a sentence has been set aside, not resentencing after successful reprosecution following the granting of a new trial. We believe that this difference is insignificant and that to permit the trial court to increase the penalty for any of the offenses on which it will sentence defendant would be to violate the spirit of the Holmes case. Accordingly, we hold that the trial court, in resentencing defendant for one crime against each of the three separate victims, must limit its sentences for those offenses to the sentences which it has already set for those offenses.
Sentence vacated; remanded for resentencing.
In People v. Ridley, 63 Cal. 2d 671, 678, 47 Cal. Rptr. 796, 800, 408 P. 2d 124, 128 (1965), the California Supreme Court observed; " [T]he purpose of the protection against multiple punishment is to insure that the defendant's punishment will be commensurate with his criminal liability and a defendant who commits an act of violence with the intent to harm more than one person or by means likely to cause harm to several persons is more culpable than a defendant who harms only one person."
For example, in connection with the crimes committed on the first victim, the court sentenced defendant to 5 years for kidnapping and 5 years for committing indecent liberties. Upon resentencing the court must choose one of those crimes, and the sentence imposed therefor may not exceed the sentence which was originally imposed upon defendant for that particular crime.
Likewise for the second victim, the court sentenced defendant to 5 years for kidnapping and 10 years for rape. The trial court must select one of those crimes for resentencing. If the court selects the rape conviction, it may not sentence defendant to more than 10 years for that crime. If the court selects the kidnapping crime, it may not sentence defendant to more than 5 years.
Lastly, in connection with the third victim, the court sentenced defendant to 5 years for kidnapping, 4 years for committing indecent liberties, and 6 years for assault with a knife. In resentencing, the court must select one of those crimes, and the sentence therefor may not exceed the sentence which was originally imposed upon defendant for that particular crime.
The sum total of the sentence imposed upon defendant, therefore, may not in any event exceed 21 years, which is the total of 5 years maximum for either the crime of kidnapping or indecent liberties against the first victim, 10 years maximum for the crime of rape against the second victim, and 6 years maximum for the crime of assault against the third victim.