Court Opinion

ID: 9739280
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:11:38.686846+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:11.327417
License: Public Domain

GILBERT, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion and would affirm the court of appeals. The majority adopts the reasoning of the dissenting judge in the court of appeals panel, which would have affirmed a district court’s dismissal of this charge. The district court dismissed this charge in part because, in its reasoning, “[t]he felony offense of felon in possession is more akin to the criminalization of the status of a person, namely, one who is a felon and who possesses a firearm or stolen firearm. Such felony offense is malum prohibitum as opposed to malum in se.” The majority wisely avoids adopting the status offense rationale of the district court but still appears to be intrigued by the district court’s reasoning. Rather than reverting to an exercise in Latin, we should deal with the realities of this situation, including the clear intent of the legislature.
The majority acknowledges that the appellant was a felon in possession of a firearm, in fact a stolen firearm. This firearm happened to be a loaded, shortened 12-gauge shotgun. See Minn.Stat. § 609.67, subd. 1(c) (2002). Furthermore, this appellant had already been adjudicated a delinquent of riot in the second degree, which is a crime of violence under Minn. Stat. § 624.712, subd. 5 (2002). It also appears to be undisputed that the appellant pointed the shotgun at the victim, it discharged, and Rogers was shot in the head.
The majority candidly admits that “under its plain language, except for the three specified exceptions, the statute appears to apply to all other felonies.” Accordingly, the majority concedes that the felon in possession statute and felon in possession of stolen goods are predicate acts under Minn.Stat. § 609.19, subd. 2(1) (2002). The majority then holds, “we conclude that the predicate offenses of felon in possession of a firearm and possession of a stolen firearm are not inherently dangerous.” I disagree. This case involves exactly the inherently dangerous situation the legislature envisioned.
The appellant had already been adjudicated delinquent of a crime of violence. The majority summarily concludes that “there is nothing about a felon’s possession of a firearm, or of a stolen firearm — in the abstract — that in and of itself involves a special danger to human life.” First of all, we should not decide this case in the abstract. Second, we must recognize that a felon in possession of a firearm is not one of those “many comparatively minor offenses [that] are classified as felonies” noted by the majority. The legislature has determined that felons and firearms are not a good mix. Likewise, the crime of riot in the second degree is a serious crime of violence, which had been recently committed by appellant. Now, the appellant has not only been adjudicated delinquent, but also acts to possess a stolen gun, which is loaded and had been shortened. Shortly upon entering the house of the victim, this gun, which the appellant was feloniously possessing, was pointed at the victim and used to shoot him in the head. Possession of a loaded gun in these circumstances is indeed the type of felony that is inherently dangerous and represents a special danger to human life. As the majority states, “we noted that the special danger standard requires consideration not only of ‘the elements of the underlying felony in the abstract, but also the facts of the particular case and the circumstances under which *703the felony was committed.’ ” (quoting State v. Cole, 542 N.W.2d 43, 53 (Minn.1996)). While I agree with the majority that we must be careful in the application of the felony murder doctrine so that not every felony offense serves as a predicate felony for a felony-murder charge, the legislature wisely included the felonies in issue here within the felony-murder statute.
The majority casts away the clear legislative directive of this enhanced crime by summarily concluding that the offenses of felon in possession of a firearm and possession of a stolen firearm are not felonies sufficiently dangerous to support a felony-murder conviction. The majority opinion effectively amends the statute and discounts the legislative process’s recognition of the obvious inherent danger of convicted felons possessing firearms. This is precisely the especially dangerous situation that the legislature may have anticipated in expanding the felony-murder statute to include all but a few designated felonies under this statute. The dangerous combination of a felon and an illegally possessed gun made it possible for the most serious of felonies to be committed; that of wrongfully taking an individual’s life.