Court Opinion

ID: 9860044
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:08:18.779637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:17:10.315017
License: Public Domain

MESCHKE, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
There is no statutory authority for the state to appeal from a judgment of acquittal in a criminal case. NDCC 29-28-07(1) authorizes an appeal by the prosecution only from “an order quashing an information or indictment or any count thereof.” Here, a judgment of acquittal was entered at the end of a complete trial at which Melins offered extensive evidence about their defense of freedom of religion under the First Amendment. There was no order “quashing,” or even dismissing, the information or indictment. While a trial court’s characterization cannot control, neither should an appellate court’s convenient reconstruction. See State v. Hogie, 424 N.W.2d 630 (N.D.1988) and Smalis v. Pennsylvania, 476 U.S. 140, 144, footnote 5, 106 S.Ct. 1745, 1748 footnote 5, 90 L.Ed.2d 116 (1986).
Our statute is unlike the parallel federal statute on criminal appeals. The federal one authorizes an appeal by the prosecution from any decision “dismissing an indictment or information,” but goes on to say “except that no appeal shall lie where the double jeopardy clause of the United States Constitution prohibits further prosecution.” 18 U.S.C. § 3731. The majority opinion equates our restricted state statute with the federal version, as amended in 1971, authorizing appeals to the full extent allowable under double jeopardy jurisprudence. See United States v. Scott, 437 U.S. 82, 85, 98 S.Ct. 2187, 2190, 57 L.Ed.2d 65 (1978). In my view, this interpretive license extends our statute beyond its expression.
Since there is no statutory basis for appeal of this judgment of acquittal, I would dismiss the appeal.
Ordinarily, we avoid constitutional confrontations where there are appropriate alternative grounds to resolve the case before us. In Interest of Goodwin, 366 N.W.2d 809 (N.D.1985). But, if this case must be analyzed under the Double Jeopardy Clauses of the United States and North Dakota Constitutions, I also believe that this judgment of acquittal constitutionally bars a second prosecution. This acquittal was adjudged after a complete trial. It is too facile to analyze the judgment for legal errors and then to conclude that it did not represent “a resolution, correct or not, of some or all of the factual elements of the offense charged.”
It is fundamental that “when a defendant has been acquitted at trial he may not be retried on the same offense, even if the legal rulings underlying the acquittal were erroneous.” Sanabria v. United States, 437 U.S. 54, 64, 98 S.Ct. 2170, 2179, 57 L.Ed.2d 43 (1978).
Sanabria, supra, was decided on the same date as United States v. Scott, supra, but is not even mentioned in the majority opinion. In Sanabria, the United States Supreme Court held that the Double Jeopardy Clause barred a government appeal from a midtrial ruling resulting in exclusion of certain evidence, which it assumed was erroneous, and from a following judgment of acquittal entered at the end of the trial. Seven justices concurred in that result.
By contrast, Scott allowed the government to appeal from an order granting a defense motion to terminate a trial for preindictment delay, which was done at the close of evidence and before a verdict. Like Jenkins, which it overruled, the dis*235missal was based on a reason of procedural fairness prior to trial. Even then, only five justices concurred and four dissented.
That Scott does not go as far as it is applied in the majority opinion was explained in Smalis v. Pennsylvania, 476 U.S. 144-146, 106 S.Ct. 1748-49:
“The Pennsylvania Supreme Court erred in holding that, for purposes of considering a plea of double jeopardy, a defendant who demurs at the close of the prosecution’s case in chief ‘elects to seek dismissal on grounds unrelated to his factual guilt or innocence.’ (citation omitted). What the demurring defendant seeks is a ruling that as a matter of law the State’s evidence is insufficient to establish his factual guilt. Our past decisions, which we are not inclined to reconsider at this time, hold that such a ruling is an acquittal under the Double Jeopardy Clause. See, e.g., United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co., 430 U.S. 564 [97 S.Ct. 1349, 51 L.Ed.2d 642] (1977); Sanabria v. United States, 437 U.S. 54 [98 S.Ct. 2170, 57 L.Ed.2d 43] (1978). United States v. Scott does not overturn these precedents; indeed, it plainly indicates that the category of acquittals includes ‘judgments] ... by the court that the evidence is insufficient to convict.’ 437 U.S., at 91.
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“... [T]he Double Jeopardy Clause bars a postacquittal appeal by the prosecution not only when it might result in a second trial, but also if reversal would translate into ‘ “further proceedings of some sort, devoted to the resolution of factual issues going to the elements of the offense charged.” ’ Martin Linen, supra, [430 U.S.] at 570 [97 S.Ct. at 1354].” See also footnote 9, 476 U.S. at 146, 106 S.Ct. at 1748-49.
Melin’s situation is more analogous to that in Finch v. United States, 433 U.S. 676, 97 S.Ct. 2909, 53 L.Ed.2d 1048 (1977), a per curiam opinion which was not overturned by Scott. In Finch, after considering stipulated facts “and reviewing the applicable treaties” bearing on the charged offense of hunting on Indian lands, the trial court dismissed the charge for failure to state an offense. The Court of Appeals considered the appeal and reversed because it believed that no further factual inquiry was required in the trial court when its legal conclusions were incorrect. The United States Supreme Court vacated the action by the Court of Appeals and directed that the appeal be dismissed, saying:
“Absent a plea of guilty or nolo conten-dere, see Fed.Rule Crim.Proc. 11, a verdict or general finding of guilt by the trial court is a necessary predicate to conviction. See Rule 23(c). Because the dismissal was granted prior to any declaration of guilt or innocence, ‘on the ground, correct or not, that the defendant simply cannot be convicted of the offense charged,’ Lee [v. United States, 432 U.S. 23, 97 S.Ct. 2141, 53 L.Ed.2d 80 (1977)] supra, at 30, we hold that the Government’s appeal was barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause.” 433 U.S. at 677, 97 S.Ct. at 2910.
The majority analysis in this case ignores all affirmative defenses, particularly those based on constitutional freedoms. See NDCC 12.1-01-03(3). The effect of the majority ruling is to remove affirmative defenses from the purview of the Double Jeopardy Clauses and relegate them to some inferior status. Traditionally, affirmative defenses have been recognized as a part of double jeopardy jurisprudence. 21 Am.Jur.2d Criminal Law § 183 (1981); 75 Am.Jur.2d Trial § 425 (1974). No explanation is suggested for why they are now left out of consideration. An acquittal based upon an affirmative defense should not be subjected to judicial redetermination on appeal when, as here, it involves culpability. See United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78, 64 S.Ct. 882, 88 L.Ed. 1148 (1944) (freedom of religion defense) and Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978) (insanity defense).
The thin majority in Scott did not rule out the role of affirmative defenses in determining culpability. Scott recognized that justification defenses affecting culpability call for a different analysis than used *236in Scott. Thus, the majority opinion in Scott said:
“The defense of insanity, like the defense of entrapment, arises from ‘the notion that Congress could not have intended criminal punishment for a defendant who has committed all the elements of a proscribed offense,’ United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. 428, 435, [93 S.Ct. 1637, 1644, 36 L.Ed.2d 366] (1973), where other facts established to the satisfaction of the trier of fact provide a legally adequate justification for otherwise criminal acts. Such a factual finding does ‘necessarily establish the criminal defendant’s lack of criminal culpability,’ post, at 106 (BRENNAN, J., dissenting), under the existing law; the fact that ‘the acquittal may result from erroneous evidentiary rulings or erroneous interpretations of governing legal principles,’ ibid., affects the accuracy of that determination, but it does not alter its essential character. By contrast, the dismissal of an indictment for preindictment delay represents a legal judgment that a defendant, although criminally culpable, may not be punished because of a supposed constitutional violation.” United States v. Scott, 437 U.S. 82, 97-98, 98 S.Ct. 2187, 2197, 57 L.Ed.2d 65 (1978).
In dissent, Justice Brennan confirmed that the majority opinion recognized affirmative defenses bearing on culpability, but criticized the failure of the majority opinion to offer any “satisfactory explanation for the difference in treatment” for a defense based on procedural fairness.
Thus, I submit, we should distinguish between substantive determinations about culpability (including those based on affirmative defenses, particularly constitutional ones such as freedom of religion or speech) and procedural determinations about matters which do not bear on culpability as in Scott and Jenkins. In my view, this case involves substantive considerations of culpability like Sanabria and Finch, and unlike Scott and Jenkins.
As said in Green v. United States, 355 U.S. 184, 187-188, 78 S.Ct. 221, 223-224, 2 L.Ed.2d 199 (1957), the “underlying idea” of the Double Jeopardy Clause
“is that the State with all its resources and power should not be allowed to make repeated attempts to convict an individual for an alleged offense, thereby subjecting him to embarrassment, expense and ordeal and compelling him to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity, as well as enhancing the possibility that even though innocent he may be found guilty.”
To me, those reasons resonate here. They are emphasized by the awkward problem of disposition on remand in this case, exemplified by the lack of a clear direction in the majority opinion. Therefore, I also respectfully dissent on Double Jeopardy grounds.
Finally, I also respectfully dissent from the substantive holding on freedom of religion for the reasons given in my recent dissenting opinion in State v. Anderson, 427 N.W.2d 316 (N.D.1988).