Court Opinion

ID: 9848887
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:29:22.312071+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:51.974060
License: Public Domain

PAGE, Justice
(concurring specially).
I agree that the district court’s decision to adopt the recommendation of the sentencing circle should be affirmed, but would do so not because the state agreed to be bound by the circle recommendation, but because the restorative justice statute authorizes that result. While the statute admits of some ambiguity, I conclude that, by applying established principles of statutory construction, the legislature intended that the recommendations of restorative justice programs be given effect.
The statute explicitly gives restorative justice programs the authority to assign appropriate sanctions to an offender. However, as the majority recognizes, the statute fails to identify what constitutes an appropriate sanction, who decides appropriateness, and how that determination operates in light of the judiciary’s role in sentencing. To that extent, the statute is ambiguous. However, while section 611A.775 is ambiguous in the logistics of how the program is to operate, the purpose of the legislation is clear and provides a basis to answer the question presented in this case: whether the district court had the authority under Minn.Stat. § 611A.775 to stay adjudication of Pearson’s guilt based on the sentencing circle’s recommendation. We can look to our rules of statutory construction to determine the legislature’s intent in enacting the statute. See generally Minn.Stat. § 645.16 (2000) (providing that legislative intent may be determined by looking to object to be attained by the law’s enactment, consequences of a particular interpretation, and contemporaneous legislative history).
Section 611A.775 expressly states the objectives the legislature sought to achieve. One of these objectives was to have restorative justice programs assign sanctions to offenders. Another objective was to have restorative justice programs “provide methods for reintegrating the offender into community life.” Minn.Stat. § 611A.775(4) (2000). This provision, which is clearly directed at reducing recidivism by promoting rehabilitation and reconciliation between offenders and community members, including victims, could not operate unless the restorative justice programs are given some authority for determining what constitutes an “appropriate sanction .” That is, offenders, victims, and community members would have little in*850centive to participate in the often time-consuming, difficult, and painful process of reconciliation and integration if the sentence can be only that provided under the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines. To hold otherwise would render meaningless the hours of effort and discussion aimed at reintegrating offenders and victims into community life, as the statute intends. See Minn.Stat. § 645.16(6) (2000) (providing that courts may consider “[t]he consequences of a particular interpretation” in ascertaining legislative intent).
It appears the legislature’s central purpose in enacting this groundbreaking legislation was to provide communities with an opportunity to actively and meaningfully participate in the criminal justice process. It would be unreasonable to conclude that the legislature intended that the array of sanctions available to communities in this novel alternative process simply mirror those traditionally available to the district courts. Minn.Stat. § 645.17(1) (2000) (in ascertaining legislative intent, courts may presume that “[t]he legislature does not intend a result that is absurd, impossible of execution, or unreasonable”). In other words, why would circle participants invest 14 hours, as in this case, to do what often takes a court less than a half hour to accomplish? To avoid an absurd result, I can only conclude that the legislature intended that community members reach consensus as to the appropriate sanction, within the framework of the restorative justice statute, and that the group’s consensus be then communicated to the court.
This interpretation finds support in section 611A.775’s contemporaneous legislative history, another factor enumerated in Minn.Stat. § 645.16. The restorative justice planner for the Minnesota Department of Corrections stated during a senate committee meeting that the statute was intentionally drafted to give restorative justice programs “lots of possibilities, lots of flexibility.” Hearing on S.F.2090, Sen. Crime Prevention Comm., 80th Minn. Leg., Jan. 26, 1998 (audio tape) (comments of Kay Pranis, Restorative Justice Planner for the Minnesota Department of Corrections). Allowing communities to determine for themselves what constitutes an appropriate sanction is consistent with the goal of flexibility.
The state argues that, to allow a sentencing circle to assign a sentence allows “a group of people off the street * * * more power than our judges,” and that no county attorney will agree to send a case to a sentencing circle after such a ruling. The legislative history suggests, however, that the legislature did not contemplate that the court would completely abdicate its sentencing authority.1 A community justice program coordinator told legislators that circle sentencing was a process by which people in the community “set a sentence under the guidance of a judge and county attorneys.” Id. (comments of Carolyn McLeod, Community Justice Program Coordinator for Washington County Court Services); see also United States Dep’t of Justice, Restorative Justice Fact Sheet (1997) (“A sentencing circle is a community-directed process, conducted in partnership with the criminal justice system, to develop consensus on an appropriate sentencing plan that addresses the concerns of all interested parties.”);2 Kay Pranis, Restoring Community: The Process of Circle Sentencing (presented on June 6, 1997, at Justice Without Violence: *851Views from Peacemaking Criminology and Restorative Justice)3 (same).
Certainly a judge or members of the law enforcement community participating in ¿ restorative justice program can inform the sentencing circle participants of the presumptive sentence to which an offender is subject, thereby giving the circle participants some guidance in making a sanction recommendation. Indeed, the sentencing circle can incorporate the values of rationality and consistency in sentencing in its recommendation to the court. See Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines I. Consideration of the presumptive sentence would serve to fulfill the legislature’s dual goals of facilitating restorative justice programs and achieving rational and consistent sentencing standards.4
Therefore, to give effect to legislative intent, I consider restorative justice programs to be an adjunct to, rather than a replacement of, the sentencing authority of the district court.
The state claims that the particular sentence imposed here, a stay of adjudication, is an illegal sentence. The state correctly notes that the inherent judicial authority to stay adjudication of an offense should be “relied upon sparingly and only for the purpose of avoiding an injustice resulting from the prosecutor’s clear abuse of discretion in the exercise of the charging function.” State v. Foss, 556 N.W.2d 540, 541 (Minn.1996). The state further notes that there has not even been an allegation of, much less an actual, abuse of discretion in the charging function in this case. Therefore, the state concludes, the district court had no authority on its own to impose a stay of adjudication here.
The state next asserts that sentencing circles have no authority to assign a sanction that a district court could not impose as a sentence. The state, however, does not offer an explanation as to why a sentencing circle lacks authority to impose a stay of adjudication. Citing to State v. Krotzer, 548 N.W.2d 252 (Minn.1996), and Foss, the state simply asserts that “[t]here are no statutory or constitutional provisions granting the Sentencing Circle the power to be above the law.” This assertion seems to ignore the fact that “the law” now includes restorative justice programs. Moreover, Minn.Stat. § 609.095(b) (2000) allows the parties to agree to a stay of adjudication, and Krotzer and Foss recognize that stays of adjudication may be appropriate in particular circumstances.
The district court judge’s adoption of a sentencing circle’s sanction recommendation is reviewed for abuse of discretion. When the court’s rationale for the sanction, viewed in light of the facts surrounding the offense, do not support the sanction actually imposed or when the sanction recommended and imposed is so extreme as to be inappropriate, the appellate court should not hesitate to reverse and remand for resentencing, regardless of the involvement of a sentencing circle.5 In this case, *852the sentencing circle identified several reasons why a stay of adjudication was in the community’s best interest. The court adopted those reasons as a basis for following the recommendation of the sentencing circle. I conclude that those reasons are supported by the record and are in keeping with the legislature’s purpose in enacting section 611A.775. While the district court judge could not have, in the absence of a recommendation from the sentencing circle, stayed adjudication of Pearson’s offense based on those reasons, see Foss, 556 N.W.2d at 541; Krotzer, 548 N.W.2d at 254, the judge must be allowed to do so in this case'in order to recognize and give effect to the unique function and nature of restorative justice programs.
Given the objectives to be attained by the enactment of section 611A.775, the statute’s contemporaneous legislative history, the parties’ actions in this case, and the possible limiting effect of a contrary interpretation, I conclude that the district court judge did not abuse his discretion in following the circle’s recommendation when the reasons for the recommendation support the conclusion that a stay of adjudication is in the community’s best interest. I would reverse on that basis.

. Thus, I would reject Pearson's claim made at her sentencing hearing that the case was taken out of the criminal justice system once referred to the restorative justice program.

. Available at http://ssw .che.urnn.edu/rjp/re-sources/Documents/USDoJ97A.PDF.

. Available at http://www .corr.state.mn.us/or-ganization/commjuv/rjcircle.htm.

. At oral argument, the state argued that section 611A.775, although broadly written, must be reined in. That, however, is the responsibility of the legislature, not this court. Regardless of how we believe statutes should be written, we are bound to "take the statutes as we find them.” McNeice v. City of Minneapolis, 250 Minn. 142, 147, 84 N.W.2d 232, 236 (1957). Our role is simply to interpret the statutory language, not to "in effect rewrite a statute so as to accomplish a result which might be desirable and at the same time conflict with the expressed will of the legislature.” Id. at 147, 84 N.W.2d at 236-37.

.I would reject the state’s assertion that permitting sentencing circles to assign a sanction that a district court lacks the authority to *852impose on its own could result in an unjustified triple upward sentencing departure or, in the extreme, death by lethal injection.