Court Opinion

ID: 9852565
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:32:54.035281+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:29.841768
License: Public Domain

WAHL, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. Whether or not the action of the prosecutor rises to the level of willful or intentional conduct which triggers the double jeopardy clause of the federal constitution as a bar to Fuller’s third trial on the charged misdemeanor offense, Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U.S. 667, 673-79, 102 S.Ct. 2083, 2088-91, 72 L.Ed.2d 416 (1982), this court is not precluded and should not be inhibited from exercising what Justice Brennan termed “the independent protective force of state law.” Brennan, State Constitutions and the Protection of Individual Rights, 90 Har.L.Rev. 489, 491 (1977). Justice Hans Linde of the Supreme Court of Oregon understood the nature of that force, writing that state constitutional guarantees were “meant to be and remain genuine guarantees against misuse of the state’s governmental powers, truly independent of the rising and falling tides of federal ease law both in method and in specifics.” State v. Kennedy, 295 Or. 260, 666 P.2d 1316, 1323 (1983). The purpose of the double jeopardy provision of the Minnesota Constitution is to protect a defendant in a criminal case from a second trial for the same offense, not to punish an official for intentional misconduct. As this court emphasized in State v. Thompson:
The protective doctrine of double jeopardy is nothing more than the declaration of an ancient and well established public policy that no man should be unduly harassed by the state’s being permitted to try him for the same offense again and again until the desired result is achieved.
241 Minn. 59, 62, 62 N.W.2d 512, 516 (1954) (emphasis in original).
The majority finds this an inappropriate ease in which to decide whether the double jeopardy clause of the Minnesota Constitution gives a criminal defendant greater protection than the federal constitution against retrial after a mistrial has been provoked by prosecutorial misconduct because, in the majority’s view, there is no reasonable alternative to federal rule in *728Kennedy under which the defendant in this case would be entitled to relief. This view misperceives the nature and extent of the harm done to this defendant and this court’s power under the Minnesota Constitution to craft a reasonable standard to remedy such harm.
Three times this defendant took time off work, left his home in the Twin Cities, and traveled one hundred and fifty miles to Duluth to be tried on three misdemeanor offenses, fifth-degree assault, criminal damage to property, and driving after suspension. At the first trial, the prosecution and defense stipulated that at the time of the incident, the defendant’s license to drive had been suspended and he was aware of the suspension. After ordering the prosecution not to go into the defendant’s prior record or the fact that he had been in jail, the court read the stipulation to the jury. The prosecutor asked the state’s first witness, after several minutes of testimony, when she and the defendant had discussed whether or not he had a license to drive. This question concerned the very facts to which the parties had stipulated. The witness replied “I just asked how he could drive around the day he got out of jail or being locked up * * * ” The defendant’s motion for a mistrial was granted.
At the second trial, two weeks later, the parties' stipulation regarding the defendant’s license revocation and his awareness of that revocation was again accepted by the court. The court asked the prosecutor if he had prepared the witness who had made the prejudicial statement and ordered him, under the circumstances, not to go into “anything about prior driving or prior knowledge of the defendant about his driving privilege.” In spite of this warning, during examination of the same first witness, the prosecution asked:
Q. Did you have an occasion to express any concern about Mr. Fuller transporting you that evening?
A. No.
Q. Did you suspect there might be some difficulty with him doing it legally? (emphasis added.)
In response to this direct question, the witness said she knew Fuller did not have a driver’s license and she knew he always drove without one. This answer led to a second mistrial on defendant’s motion. In light of the stipulation, the only fact regarding the defendant’s driving the prosecutor needed to establish by this witness was that he had, indeed, driven the car that evening. Yet, the prosecutor deliberately asked the witness whether she suspected there was some difficulty with the defendant’s driving legally. A reasonable prosecutor would expect a witness to answer such a question with exactly the answer she gave. This question and the answer it elicited provoked the second mistrial.1
It is not contended that “ ‘every time a defendant is put to trial before a competent tribunal he is entitled to go free if the trial fails to end in a final judgment.’ ” State v. McDonald, 298 Minn. 449, 452, 215 N.W.2d 607, 609 (1974) (quoting Wade v. Hunter, 336 U.S. 684, 688, 69 S.Ct. 834, 837, 93 L.Ed. 974 (1949)). The public interest in convicting the guilty would be frustrated if retrial were barred when a mistrial was dictated by “manifest necessity,” such as a hung jury. There is agreement, however, that in some instances, the prosecutor’s actions have so unfairly prejudiced the defendant’s chances of acquittal that the defendant has no choice other than a mistrial motion. The disagreement comes over the standard required to bar retrial under double jeopardy protection in such instances.
The Kennedy “intent” standard now required by the United States Supreme Court under the double jeopardy clause of the federal constitution inadequately protects the objectives sought to be furthered by the double jeopardy provision of the Minnesota Constitution. Under the “intent” standard, where a defendant requests a *729mistrial, retrial is barred only where the governmental conduct in question is intended “ ‘to goad the [defendant] into requesting a mistrial.’ ” Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U.S. at 673, 102 S.Ct. at 2088 (citing United States v. Dinitz, 424 U.S. 600, 611, 96 S.Ct. 1075, 1081, 47 L.Ed.2d 267 (1976)). This standard uses the federal double jeopardy provision to deter prosecutorial misconduct rather than protect the defendant, which is the purpose of Minnesota’s double jeopardy bar. As well as focusing on prosecutorial misconduct, in Justice Stevens words, “[i]t is almost inconceivable that a defendant could prove that the prosecutor’s deliberate misconduct was motivated by an intent to provoke a mistrial instead of an intent simply to prejudice the defendant.” Id. 456 U.S. at 688, 102 S.Ct. at 2096. (Stevens, J., concurring).
The Supreme Court of Oregon, rejected the “intent” standard in considering Kennedy on remand from the United States Supreme Court. The court held “a retrial is barred by article I, section 12, of the Oregon Constitution when improper official conduct is so prejudicial to the defendant that it cannot be cured by means short of a mistrial, and if the official knows that the conduct is improper and prejudicial and either intends or is indifferent to the resulting mistrial or reversal.” State v. Kennedy, 666 P.2d at 1326. This is a reasonable alternative to the federal (“intent” standard and protects the defendant without the burden of an impossible problem of proof. At the same time, this standard protects the state’s interest in the administration of justice by requiring that thej prosecutor intentionally or knowingly pursue an improper course of action without heed to the consequences.
Applying this standard to the facts in Kennedy, the Oregon court concluded that the criteria barring retrial were not met where the prosecutor’s misconduct resulting in a mistrial consisted of seeking to' impeach an expert witness by asking if the reason he had never done business with the defendant was “because he was a crook.” The court noted that there was not “any suggestion that the prosecutor on previous occasions had been warned against similar transgressions.” Id. at 1327. In the present case, however, the prosecutor had been warned, indeed, ordered by the court, not to go into the defendant’s prior driving record or the fact that he had been in jail. Yet the prosecutor deliberately chose to ask the same witness at the second trial if she had any reason to suspect that defendant was driving illegally on the evening in question. Such disregard of the court’s order meets the criteria of “ ‘knowing’ misconduct coupled with indifference toward the probable risk of a mistrial” required by the Oregon standard. Id.
It is not the intent here to definitively urge this court’s adoption of the Oregon standard. It is to indicate the existence of alternative standards which reasonably balance both the defendant’s and state’s interests refuting the majority’s contention that no fair alternative to the federal intent standard exists under which this defendant would receive relief from retrial. The standard applied by the Court of Appeals in this case, gross negligence constituting bad faith, is also a reasonable standard. The failure of the prosecutor to adequately prepare his witness so she would not repeat her mistake in the second trial, then deliberately asking her a question about the legality of defendant’s driving after having been warned by the court not to do so, also raises the double jeopardy bar of the Minnesota Constitution to a third trial under either standard. I would affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals. The writ should be made absolute.
YETKA,. J., took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

. The parties had agreed earlier that the brief, innocent conversation of a selected juror with the wife of the defense counsel in the hall was not grounds for preventing the defendant from getting a verdict of guilty or not guilty from this second tribunal.