Court Opinion

ID: 9756679
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:47:00.425415+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:27.832653
License: Public Domain

BRODERICK, C.J.,
dissenting. Either of the two statutory variants of stalking at issue in this appeal requires proof of “a course of conduct targeted at a specific person.” RSA 633:3-a, 1(a) (emphasis added); see also RSA 633:3-a, 1(b). Here, however, the trial court issued a stalking final order against Madaline Minichiello because her conduct “well exceeded a concern for the care of her mother and entered an area of activity which threatened the well being of the plaintiff and was in its result a pattern of intimidation to plaintiff and her staff.” (Emphasis added.)
A pattern of intimidation to the plaintiff and her staff is not the same thing as a course of conduct targeted at the plaintiff, which is what the stalking statute requires. To be sure, the statute enumerates six acts which may be part of a course of conduct when directed toward “the targeted person or an immediate family member.” RSA 633:3-a, 11(a)(1); see also RSA 633:3-a, II(a)(2)-(6). But given the statutory requirement of a course of conduct targeted at a specific person, threatening, following, approaching or confronting an immediate family member is only part of a course of conduct for purposes of the stalking statute when the intent behind interacting with an immediate family member is to threaten the targeted person. Furthermore, the statute does contemplate a situation in which interactions involving a targeted person’s co-workers could count as part of a course of conduct, such as when a stalker communicates a threat against a targeted person through a targeted person’s co-worker or enters a targeted person’s place of employment for the purpose of threatening the targeted person, see RSA 633:3-a, 11(a)(3). But as with interactions involving an immediate family member, an interaction involving a coworker would only count as part of a course of conduct if it took place as a result of the stalker’s attempt to threaten the targeted person. To the extent the majority opinion seems to expand the legislature’s list of “all-purpose” surrogates to include co-workers, I disagree.
As defined by the legislature, stalking is an offense directed against individuals, not groups of individuals or institutions. While I do not doubt that the defendant’s conduct entitled Partridge House and its staff — and perhaps Renee Fisher individually — to legal protection, I do not believe *197that Minichiello engaged in the kind of conduct the legislature enacted the stalking statute to prevent. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.