Court Opinion

ID: 9593226
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:20:42.035587+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:18.957867
License: Public Domain

SCHUMACHER, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. A careful reading of the statute under which Dr. Poole was convicted demonstrates its ambiguity. The legislative history must then be consulted in determining the legislative intent. That history unmistakably shows the legislature intended that the “false representation” must be false both as to the reason for the penetration, and the health care status of the actor. However, Poole, as a physician, could not falsely represent he was a “health care professional.” Therefore, his conduct is not covered by the statute.
The third degree criminal sexual conduct provision criminalizes sexual penetration if:
the actor accomplishes the sexual penetration by means of false representation that the penetration is for a bona fide medical purpose by a health care professional.
Minn.Stat. § 609.344, subd. l(k) (1990). The statute does not unambiguously define the “false representation” which makes the penetration a criminal act. This representation could be either as to the medical justification alone, or as to both the medical justification and the health care status of the actor. The ambiguity of the statute is demonstrated by the state’s construction of it at trial, where the state argued that only a health care professional could violate the statute.
If the language of a statute is ambiguous, this court may consider “contemporaneous legislative history” in construing it. Minn.Stat. § 645.16(7) (1990); Handle With Care, Inc. v. Department of Human Servs., 406 N.W.2d 518, 522 (Minn.1987). That history shows indisputably that the statute was passed in response to an imposter performing gynecological examinations at a hospital in St. Paul, and was intended to apply only to impostors. The distinction becomes all the more critical in view of Dr. Poole’s testimony that his medical practices were done in good faith and that these practices had helped patients and even saved lives.
*545Thus, the conduct of a doctor such as Dr. Poole does not fall within the terms of the statute and his conviction must be reversed.