Court Opinion

ID: 9516290
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 23:39:51.33978+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:33:23.314486
License: Public Domain

KLAPHAKE, Judge
(dissenting)
I respectfully dissent. Because I believe the trial court committed prejudicial error when it rejected Sanderson’s proposed jury instruction, the postconviction court further erred in failing to grant Sanderson a new trial.
The cautionary instruction requested by Sanderson was intended to emphasize the limited purposes for which the Spreigl evidence in his case was admitted — modus operandi and intent. A party is entitled to an instruction limiting the use of evidence that has been allowed only for a specific purpose. See Minn. R. Evid. 105 (providing for instruction on limited admissibility on request). In cases involving Spreigl evidence, it is particularly important to caution the jury against using that evidence impermissibly as evidence of a defendant’s bad character or propensity to commit a crime. Although the trial court here gave CRIMJIG 2.01 and 3.16, which are the current standard cautionary instructions for Spreigl evidence, I believe these instructions are inadequate. See 10 Minnesota Practice CRIMJIG 2.01, 3.16 (1990).
In two prior cases, this court has commented on CRIMJIG 2.01 and 3.16, but in both cases the defendant failed to preserve the issue for appeal or the trial court added extraneous language to these standard instructions. See, e.g., State v. Elvin, 481 N.W.2d 571, 575 (Minn.App.1992) (noting there was no defense objection but finding standard instructions proper), review denied (Minn. Apr. 29, 1992); State v. Haala, 415 N.W.2d 69, 76-77 (Minn.App.1987) (noting lack of objection, finding standard instructions, even with extraneous language, not plain error), review denied (Minn. Dec. 22, 1987). In the two supreme court cases cited by the majority, CRIMJIG 2.01 and 3.16 were either not given by the trial court or were not challenged on appeal. See, e.g., State v. Lynch, 590 N.W.2d 75, 80-81 (Minn.1999) (not challenged on appeal); State v. Frisinger, 484 N.W.2d 27, 30 (Minn.1992) (not given in trial court). Thus, this is the first time we are squarely presented with the inadequacy of these instructions.
The instruction requested by Sanderson follows the Eighth Circuit’s standard cautionary instruction for other-crimes evidence. See 1 Devitt, Blackmar, Wolff & O’Malley, Federal Jury Instructions § 17.08, at 665 (4th ed.1992). This instruction war 3 the jury that evidence of a prior similar offense is not evidence that the defendant “committed such an act in this case.” Id. This instruction also requires the court to specify the issues on which the jury may properly consider the other-crime evidence. Id. Similar standard instructions in other federal circuits accomplish the same two ends. See id. at 652-668 (quoting pattern instructions from 5th, 7th and 9th Circuits). Minnesota’s standard cautionary instructions do neither.
The danger involved in admitting Spreigl or other-crime evidence is that the jury may use it for the “forbidden purpose of inferring propensity from character.” Frisinger, 484 N.W.2d at 32 (footnote omitted). The rules of evidence forbid the admission of such evidence “to prove the character of a person in order to show action in conformity therewith.” Minn. R. Evid. 404(b). CRIMJIG 2.01 and 3.16, however, contain no hint of any such prohibition. They merely inform the jury that the Spreigl evidence is admitted for a “limited purpose,” but fail to identify that purpose. CRIMJIG 2.01, 3.16. By stating that the evidence has been admitted for use “in determining whether defendant committed the [charged] crime(s),” the standard instruction invites the jury to *228misuse the evidence. CRIMJIG 3.16. Although CRIMJIG 3.16 warns against convicting “solely” based on the Spreigl evidence, that is only a small part of the danger recognized in rule 404. As the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has stated,
[t]o apply Rule 404(b) fairly, the district court must carefully identify, in its instructions to the jury, the specific factor named in the rule that is relied upon to justify admission of the other acts evidence, explain why that factor is material, and warn the jurors against using the evidence to draw the inferences expressly forbidden in the first sentence of Rule 404(b).
United States v. Johnson, 27 F.3d 1186, 1194 (6th Cir.1994).
Minnesota’s cautionary Spreigl instructions have, over time, lost this sense of clarity. In the seminal case on Spreigl procedures, trial courts were required to “admonish the jury that the testimony is received for the limited purpose of establishing identity.” State v. Billstrom, 276 Minn. 174, 179, 149 N.W.2d 281, 285 (1967) (footnote omitted). This plain-language limitation to a specific purpose has since been diluted into a vague and wordy standard form instruction that is blindly followed and that does not protect defendants from the dangers of the use of character evidence expressly recognized in rule 404(b).
I therefore would reverse the decision of the postconviction court and grant Sander-son a new trial.