Court Opinion

ID: 9719876
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:07:39.827709+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:10.808256
License: Public Domain

LANCASTER, Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in Part I of the majority opinion, holding that the SDP Act does not *886violate the Ex Post Facto or Double Jeopardy Clause of the United States Constitution, and I agree with the majority’s characterization of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346, 358, 117 S.Ct. 2072, 138 L.Ed.2d 501 (1997) (holding that the Kansas Sexually Violent Predator Act does not violate substantive due process, as the law allows civil commitment only for people “who suffer from a volitional impairment rendering them dangerous beyond their control”). However, I cannot accept the majority’s interpretation of Minn.Stat. § 253B.02, subd. 18c(b) (1998), and therefore I respectfully dissent.
Minnesota’s Sexually Dangerous Person Act, as the majority correctly states, closely resembles the Kansas act at issue in Hendricks. Compare MinmStat. § 253B.02, subd. 18c(a) (1998), with Kan. Stat. Ann. § 59-29a02 (1994 & Supp.1998). However, unlike the Kansas statute interpreted in Hendricks, the Minnesota SDP Act contains an additional provision that provides: “it is not necessary to prove that the person has an inability to control the person’s sexual impulses.” MinmStat. § 253B.02, subd. 18c(b).
The majority interprets subdivision 18c(b) under what it terms “well-settled canons of statutory construction” to reach the conclusion that subdivision 18c(b) should be read “very narrowly” to “mean only that the state does not need to prove that a person meets Pearson ⅛ utter inability standard, thus differentiating the SDP Act from the PP Act or its successor statute, the SPP Act.” I cannot subscribe to the methods of construction employed or the reasons presented by the majority to justify its decision. What the majority has accomplished is not an interpretation of subdivision 18c(b) but rather an amendment to the statute’s plain meaning.
Our duty when reviewing acts of the legislature “is to ascertain and effectuate legislative intent. We presume that plain and unambiguous statutory language manifests legislative intent. If statutory language is plain and unambiguous, the court must give it its plain meaning.” In re Welfare of J.M., 574 N.W.2d 717, 721 (Minn.1998) (citations omitted). We have stated that if the legislature’s intent is “clearly manifested by [the] plain and unambiguous language” of the statute, statutory construction is neither necessary nor permitted. Ed Herman & Sons v. Russell, 535 N.W.2d 803, 806 (Minn.1995). In Commissioner of Revenue v. Richardson, we said: “No room for judicial construction exists when the statute speaks for itself.” 302 N.W.2d 23, 26 (Minn.1981).
Here we are confronted with a straightforward provision enacted by a legislature fully aware of our decisions and the controversy surrounding this law. The legislature wrote: “it is not necessary to prove that the person has an inability to control the person’s sexual impulses.” Minn.Stat. § 253B.02, subd. 18c(b). This language, on its face, can only be interpreted as having one meaning. The majority, through the use of statutory history and under the proviso of giving effect to all provisions of the SDP Act, abandons the plain meaning of the words enacted by the legislature and substitutes its own version, which in effect is an amendment - not an interpretation - of the SDP Act. Such amendments are impermissible and invade the province of the legislature. See State v. Moseng, 254 Minn. 263, 269, 95 N.W.2d 6, 11-12 (1959) (stating that statutes may not be construed so as to substitute amendment for statutory construction).
Perhaps the most persuasive argument demonstrating why the majority should refrain from doing (or redoing) the work of the legislature can be found in our statutes. The legislature in section 645.16 has promulgated rules to be used in the interpretation of statutes. “When the words of a law in their application to an existing *887situation are clear and free from all ambiguity, the letter of the law shall not be disregarded under the pretext of pursuing the spirit.” Minn.Stat. § 645.16 (1998) (emphasis added). The legislature’s own words preclude us from going beyond the plain language contained in the SDP Act to effectuate what may or may not have been the legislative purpose. In doing so, the majority has ignored well-settled canons of construction in favor of interjecting meaning into the SDP Act, specifically subdivision 18c(b), when the language of the statute is clear and unambiguous.
More than 50 years ago, Justice Peterson, dissenting from an opinion interpreting the Workmen’s Compensation Act, wrote:
Where, as here, the words of the act are plain and the legislative purpose manifest, it is not permissible to seek a hidden meaning at variance with the language used and to engraft such meaning on the statute. Such construction leads to amendment of the statute rather than ascertainment of the legislative intent.
Gleason v. Geary, 214 Minn. 499, 516, 8 N.W.2d 808, 816 (1943) (Peterson, J., dissenting).
Because subdivision 18c(b) does not require the state to demonstrate that Line-han has an “inability to control [his] sexual impulses,” I would hold that the statute violates Linehan’s substantive due process rights and declare it unconstitutional in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Hendricks.