Court Opinion

ID: 9660884
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:23:15.925766+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:22.450597
License: Public Domain

AMUNDSON, Justice
(concurring specially).
Reutter has obviously presented numerous reasons why his petition for reinstatement should be granted: (1) His convictions have been reversed; (2) compliance with the terms and conditions for reinstatement in the State of Minnesota, In re Reutter, 474 N.W.2d 343, 346 (Minn.1991); (3) work as a legal assistant with the South Dakota law firm representing him in this matter; and (4) community support for his reinstatement.
On the other hand, there is a troubling part of Reutter’s history as reflected in the previous writings of this court that causes this Justice to hesitate in granting this petition. There is no question that in Reutter v. Solem, 888 F.2d 578 (8th Cir.1989), the court held that Reutter had not gotten a fair trial because the prosecutors failed to disclose information regarding their star witness — Trygstad’s hearing for commutation of his sentence. This case does not discuss or infer that the testimony of any other witness in the trial was tainted or unreliable. In Reutter, the Minnesota court stated:
Immediate reinstatement on the heels of a reversal, however, ignores that a reversal, other than for evidentiary insufficiency, implies little as to the actual occurrence of the alleged underlying events.
... Similarly, in the wake of the reversal of a conviction, this court ... remain[s] free to examine the entire record of the attorney’s conduct, including the allegations underlying the original criminal charges and conviction[.]
474 N.W.2d at 345. Such a review discloses the following evidence having been presented against Reutter:
*904Mrs. Soto testified that she first met Reutter in Oroville, California, in the summer of 1981 through her husband, John Soto, who at the time was an employee of Reutter’s company, S & R Minerals. Reutter visited the Soto home in Oroville for the first time in early 1982 and on several occasions thereafter. During one visit, Mrs. Soto observed her husband and Reutter use cocaine. During another visit, occurring sometime between January and March of 1982, she overheard a conversation between her husband and Reutter, during which Reut-ter stated that he would send money to her husband, who in turn would mail cocaine to Reutter in Sioux Palls. John Soto’s source of cocaine was located in San Francisco. In March 1982, Mrs. Soto observed Reutter give her husband $10,-000. Mrs. Soto later witnessed her husband packaging cocaine in a Western Airlines speed pack, which he subsequently mailed from San Francisco. At trial, Mrs. Soto verified her husband’s signature on several receipts from Western Airlines Speed Pack Service. These same receipts showed Sioux Falls as the point of origin and Reutter as “shipper.” Mrs. Soto testified that her husband died on July 25, 1982.
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Mrs. Soto’s testimony satisfies the test of relevancy in that it constituted evidence of Reutter’s overall scheme to distribute cocaine in Minnehaha County[.]
State v. Reutter, 374 N.W.2d 617, 624-25 (S.D.1985).
With this incisive evidence of a scheme to distribute cocaine standing in black and white and nothing having been presented to ameliorate its impact, I cannot vote for reinstatement. This is not a criminal proceeding where every aspect of a case must be shown by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The petitioner’s contention that he was merely a recreational user of cocaine rings hollow in this Justice’s ears as it apparently did with the Board.