Court Opinion

ID: 9676800
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:34:16.645038+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:51.421003
License: Public Domain

CRIPPEN, Judge
(dissenting),
It first seems instructive, here and in other Krotzer-Foss-Thoma appeals, to ask why the appeal is initiated. As against the defendant, the state seeks what is unworthy to pursue, a pound of flesh. The trial court has already imposed substantial conditions upon the defendant, including incarceration, a fine, and supervision, that protect the interests of public safety. In fact, as is so often the case in these matters, the conditions are especially ample in light of the wrong that has been done by the defendant; it is undisputed in this matter that the defendant’s lawlessness is mostly in failing to undo record-keeping errors associated with a wrongful act done over 15 years ago. Although nominally pursued in the interests of justice, this appeal is nothing more that the assertion by the prosecutor that the defendant should suffer senselessly, that he should lose his job.
If for no other reason, these appeals should not succeed because they condone this prosecutorial pursuit, lending support for deformation of the office of public prosecutor into a function that is wholly foreign to the appropriate model for a democratic society. In this regard, it is compelling to keep before us remarkable words attributed to a giant of the profession, Hennepin County Attorney Floyd B. Olson, in 1930:
As County Attorney, I’ve tried to be a minister of justice rather than a policeman. I do not believe that a prosecutor should always point with pride to the number of convictions he has secured. The administration of justice often means leniency and frequently it is to the best interests of society to put a wayward lad back with his home instead of in prison.
Sentiments like these may be out of sync with the aims of some modern prosecutors, but they are profoundly important to the system of government in which we live. Dishonor of the ideal reflects not its obsolescence but instead the bad judgment of another generation of practitioners.
Of course, there is more involved in these appeals than meanness directed at misdemeanants. The vision of the prosecutor is aimed differently, but toward a goal that is equally distasteful. The target is to diminish the authority of trial judges, to make them subservient to the will of the prosecution in the disposition of criminal cases. For good cause, students of American judicial administration have become convinced that the independence of the judiciary has suffered alarming erosion. A judiciary with a modicum of concern for its independence should not be sleeping through encroachments, thinly veiled as the pursuit of public safety, from another branch of government.
Can the courts be roused? It remains to be seen. The conditional stay of criminal proceedings is a historic element of *166sound judicial discretion, certainly in Minnesota, and it was an unchallenged element of justice in Minnesota’s courts until the last decade of the 20th century. It is disheartening to see the appellate decisions that have occurred on stays of proceedings, especially in misdemeanor cases, holdings that disregard history and tear down the structure of justice rather than strengthen it. It is even more discouraging to hear the resulting confident reports of some trial judges — acting in the good spirit of respect for appellate authority— who say that they will have nothing to do with stays of adjudication, acceding completely in that regard to the demands of the prosecutors who appear before them.
Because of these concerns about the role of the prosecutor and the function of the independent judiciary, the substance of the issue should no longer be determined without substantially greater deference to trial court discretion than is stated in Foss.
Equally as important, we should not agree to examine the trial court’s exercise of discretion in this case. I am not convinced that Thoma is defensible. As Judge Randall has continuously and wisely said, the state’s right of appeal can be no greater than the right of the parties to dispute a misdemeanor sentence or the right of the state to question a dismissal in the interests of justice. State v. Prabhudail, 602 N.W.2d 413, 415 (Minn.App.1999) (Randall, J., dissenting); State v. Thoma, 569 N.W.2d 205, 209 (Minn.App.1997) (Randall, J., dissenting). Stays for a later dismissal are dispositions of the case, sentencing decisions. They occur in lieu of a trial, almost always accompanying a plea of guilty, and they are not preliminary to a trial. They affect the prosecutor’s judgment on sentencing but do not affect pros-ecutorial discretion to file charges. In my opinion, the characterization of these stays as pre-trial decisions is indefensible.
Judge Randall pleads with the Minnesota judiciary to defend what it has enjoyed, a “nationwide reputation for fairness and stability in its criminal justice system.” Prabhudail, 602 N.W.2d at 420. I support this position. Out of concern for our system and its fundamental elements, I respectfully dissent in the present case. The matter should be dismissed. Alternatively, on its substance, the decision below should be affirmed as part of the ordinary, just exercise of discretion by the trial court.