Court Opinion

ID: 9883739
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:14:57.683159+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:29.887183
License: Public Domain

RANDALL, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The majority opinion in its analysis on the first issue correctly points out that the instructions given the jury on count II were erroneous as a matter of law. The State concedes that appellant is entitled to have his conviction vacated on that count. Yet the majority opinion examines the disputed instruction and concedes: “We are not persuaded, however, that the error on this charge influenced the jury to convict on count I.” I disagree.
I find the two counts so intertwined that if, as the State concedes, appellant did not receive a fair trial on count II, the prejudicial error as to count I, as a matter of law, cannot be overlooked.
Both counts I and II involve the same victim, appellant’s 12-year old stepdaughter, Y.C. Count I charged sexual penetration between approximately August 29 and December 21, 1983. Count II charged intentional acts of sexual abuse involving multiple acts over an extended period of time.
The majority vacates the count II conviction due to prejudicial error. The offending instruction on count II was the trial court’s statement that “abuse means penetration, and it also means sexual contact if the acts can reasonably be construed for the purpose of satisfying the actor's sexual or aggressive impulses.” (emphasis added).
With the jury being told that count one involves sexual penetration and that count two involves intentional sexual abuse, and that abuse means penetration, the jury easily could have used the offending parts of the count II instruction in determining whether or not appellant was guilty of count I, which required penetration.
Juries are free to discuss multiple counts in any order they choose. Quite commonly they may decide the counts on which there is unanimity, or near unanimity, of opinion before going on to the counts in which there is an initial division of opinion. They are neither instructed by the court nor bound to decide counts in chronological order. Thus, they may have arrived at their finding of guilty by proof beyond a reasonable doubt on count II before discussing count I.
It would be contrary to reason and logic to assume that a jury that already has found defendant guilty by proof beyond a reasonable doubt of sexual abuse of a victim (count II) will not keep that conviction in mind as they assess the credibility of the State’s evidence on count I and the credibility of the defendant’s denial. This presumption of overlap is even stronger because count I was a virtually identical charge against the same victim.
There is no way for this court to assume that the jury reviewed the evidence and the laws as to count I independently of count II, and no way to assume that their conviction of appellant on count II, which today we are vacating because of prejudicial error, did not firm up the resolve of any jurors who may have had lingering doubts as to count I.
In Moll v. State, 351 N.W.2d 639 (Minn.Ct.App.1984) we held that the offending instruction (given in count II) was plain error calling for a reversal of a conviction despite defendant’s failure to object.
With the trial court advising the jury that count I called for penetration; instructing the jury, on count II, that sexual abuse means penetration; and defining sexual contact, in count II, with the improper instruction: “ * * * reasonably be construed * * I cannot find a way around the inference of impermissible overlap between counts I and II.
*914I would reverse and remand for a new trial on both counts I and II.