Court Opinion

ID: 9739183
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:10:09.832838+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:10.537463
License: Public Domain

*88DAVIES, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
We have here an incident of non-consensual intercourse. The complainant had a right to say “no” and her protestations should have been respected by appellant.
But criminal sexual conduct in the third degree is not defined simply as sexual intercourse without consent. It involves more; as charged in this case it involves penetration “caused by force or coercion.” Because that is not what happened, the conduct of the appellant does not fulfill the elements of third degree sexual conduct.
Both “force” and “coercion” are defined in the statute. The state, conceding that “force” was not present, sought to prove “coercion.” “Coercion,” as defined, is thus an essential element of the crime.
“Coercion” means words or circumstances that cause the complainant reasonably to fear that the actor will inflict bodily harm upon, or hold in confinement, the complainant or another, or force the complainant to submit to sexual penetration or contact, but proof of coercion does not require proof of a specific act or threat.
Minn.Stat. § 609.341, subd. 14 (1990). Relevant to my concern is that there must be something to “cause the complainant reasonably to fear that the actor” will inflict bodily harm upon the complainant. That requirement was not met in the circumstances of this case.
Here, there was intercourse between appellant and complainant in complainant’s condominium unit on consecutive nights, a Thursday and Friday. Appellant pressed himself upon complainant, who was his wife’s sister. It is undisputed that appellant’s wife was in an adjoining room on both occasions. All testimony, including that of the complaining witness, establishes without doubt that rescue was a shout away throughout both incidents; by raising her voice and calling for help, the complainant could have stopped appellant in an instant.1
Complainant’s explanation for not calling out to her sister is that she “did not want to embarrass her.” Complainant’s admitted choice was between being a victim of unwanted sexual relations or causing embarrassment. Complainant’s testimony established that what she feared was embarrassment. Fear of embarrassment is not fear of “bodily harm. ”
The conduct here may fall within the definition of criminal sexual conduct in the fifth degree; but the defendant was not convicted of that crime.
Few principles are more firmly established in the jurisprudence of Minnesota and other American states than that a crime must be defined by the legislature. That idea is expressed by Minn.Stat. § 609.-015, subd. 1 (1990).
Common law crimes are abolished and no act or omission is a crime unless made so by this chapter or by other applicable statute * * *.
Further, penal statutes are to be construed strictly and any reasonable doubt must be interpreted in favor of the defendant. This is true both under the Minnesota Constitution and the United States Constitution. State v. Layman, 376 N.W.2d 298, 300 (Minn.App.1985), pet. for rev. denied (Minn. Jan. 17,1986); State v. Corbin, 343 N.W.2d 874, 875-76 (Minn.App.1984); see Wisniewski v. United States, 247 F.2d 292, 295 (8th Cir.1957).
In State v. Small, 29 Minn. 216, 12 N.W. 703 (1882), the Minnesota Supreme Court held that penal statutes are specifically and clearly described and provided for. The reason for the rule is that the law will not allow constructive offenses or arbitrary punishment. Similarly, a criminal offense should never be created by an uncertain and doubtful construction of a statute. That has been the law in Minnesota since territorial days. See United States v. Gideon, 1 Minn. 292, 1 Gil. 226 (1857).
*89Thus, in this case the precise words of Minn.Stat. § 609.344, subd. 1(c), are the measure of the crime. By charging criminal sexual conduct in the third degree, and no other crime, the state cast the die on whether it could prove the elements of sexual conduct in the third degree, as legislatively defined. It did not.
Instead, the state proved the complainant could not reasonably have feared that the actor had the present ability to “inflict bodily harm or hold in confinement” when he was armed only with a “scary face,” and when all she had to do was raise her voice to be rescued.
I would reverse.

. The majority reliance on State v. Meech, 400 N.W.2d 166, fails. There the victim was in her house alone.