Court Opinion

ID: 9738639
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:59:18.019794+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:07.544100
License: Public Domain

WAHL, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
Not only should defendant’s two convictions for aggravated assault and his conviction for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle be vacated, as the majority holds, the conviction for burglary should be vacated as well.
It is unconscionable that a defendant, to avail himself of his right under Minnesota law to be tried by a jury of twelve, must run the risk of facing four additional charges arising out of the same incident and end up with a maximum of 40 years instead of the maximum 20 years he could have received on conviction of the aggravated robbery with which he was charged at the first trial.
The state had all the facts concerning the Orman robbery and defendant’s complicity in it before issuing the single-count complaint on which defendant was first tried. With knowledge of Minn.Stat. § 609.585, which makes possible convictions and consecutive sentences for both burglary and any other crime committed on entering or in the building entered, the state chose to proceed to trial on one count of aggravated robbery. During the course of that trial, through no fault of defendant, one of the jurors did not appear. In order to be assured of his right to a unanimous verdict by a jury of twelve, defendant moved for a mistrial, joined by the state. The court, agreeing that this was the “proper thing in the sense of justice,” declared a mistrial.
The state issued two new complaints before the second trial, adding two counts of aggravated assault, one count of burglary, and one count of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. On defendant’s conviction on all charges, the court imposed two consecutive 1- to 20-year sentences. Defendant’s assertion of his right to a jury of twelve resulted in a sentence twice what he might have received had he been found guilty at the first trial.
This court, in State v. Holmes, 281 Minn. 294, 161 N.W.2d 650 (1968), held that an appellant’s right to appeal a conviction *751could not be chilled by the imposition, on retrial, of a sentence more onerous than the one he initially received. The rule in Holmes, the court noted in State v. Prudhomme, 303 Minn. 376, 228 N.W.2d 243 (1975), was based on procedural fairness and principles of public policy, rather than on constitutional grounds. Those same principles of public policy, that same concern for procedural fairness apply with equal force to the case at bar. Regardless of what offenses might have been charged in the original or in a properly amended complaint, defendant should not be subjected to additional convictions and a double sentence for the exercise of so fundamental a right as trial by a jury of twelve. He should be convicted and sentenced on the aggravated robbery charge for which he was first partially tried and on that charge only.