Court Opinion

ID: 9739091
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:08:38.342306+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:09.967712
License: Public Domain

COYNE, Justice
(dissenting).
I join in the dissent of Justice Yetka, but write to emphasize my agreement with the majority opinion of Justice Keith that the hearing on the motion to remove defendant from the room was not the sort of hearing contemplated by the statute. However, as the dissent makes clear, as a reviewing court we are not narrowly restricted to the record made at the hearing on the motion to remove. State v. Burns, 394 N.W.2d 495, 497 (Minn.1986). A review of the entire trial record establishes that special circumstances justifying defendant’s removal were present. The record on appeal shows that the victim was only four years old; that defendant, as her father, was in a position of authority over her and had warned the victim that she should not tell anyone about the abuse; that in the latter days of the abuse the victim had become frightened about visiting defendant; that the victim had not seen defendant in five months; and that, in the opinion of her foster mother, the victim was nervous and her nervousness was interfering with her ability to remember or recount the abuse. This record bears out the child’s functional unavailability to testify in defendant’s presence and justifies his removal despite the trial court’s failure to specifically find that this four-year-old child was “psychologically traumatized.” I also agree with the dissent that the record and our cases, including State v. Dana, 422 N.W.2d 246, 248-51 (Minn.1988), and State v. Burns, 394 N.W.2d 495, 497-98 (Minn.1986), support the trial court’s admission of the extrajudicial statements of the victim. I agree with the majority opinion that it was unnecessary for the prosecutor to stop the video tape and inform the jury that defendant had been removed from the room at that point, but I am satisfied that defendant received a fair trial, that the evidence of his guilt was strong, and that his conviction therefore should be affirmed.