Court Opinion

ID: 9735222
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:05:54.752403+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:56.134243
License: Public Domain

GARDEBRING, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion for two reasons. First, because I believe that, under the standards we have spelled out in State ex rel Pearson v. Probate Court of Ramsey County, 205 Minn. 545, 287 N.W. 297 (1939), aff'd, 309 U.S. 270, 60 S.Ct. 523, 84 L.Ed. 744 (1940), and In re Blodgett, 510 N.W.2d 910 (Minn.1994), there is sufficient evidence to support Linehan’s commitment as a psychopathic personality. While the testimony at trial was conflicting, the trial court apparently found more credible the evidence presented by Dr. Hector Zeller *615and Dr. Darel Hulsing, both of whom recommended that appellant’s commitment be continued. While these two experts did not utter the “magic formula” of Pearson, “a habitual course of misconduct in sexual matters, * * * an utter lack of power to control their sexual impulses and * * * [a] likely[hood] to attack or otherwise inflict injury, loss, pain or other evil,” a fair reading of their testimony supports the trial court’s conclusion as to the continuation of Linehan’s commitment as a psychopathic personality. Pearson, 205 Minn. at 555, 287 N.W. at 302.
However, although I believe the evidence here meets the standards set out in our previous decisions, this case illustrates a serious problem with the present statutory scheme in Minnesota directed at the management of sexual predators. In this ease, the state first convicted appellant of a crime which required intent, mens rea, and later, after he had served an extended prison term, committed him indefinitely on the basis that he “evidenced an utter lack of power to control [his] sexual impulses.” Id. I believe the state cannot have it both ways. Either appellant has the capacity to intend his vicious acts, in which case he is properly held accountable in the criminal justice system, or he suffers from the “utter lack of “power to control [his] sexual impulses,” and is therefore subject to commitment as a psychopathic personality. How can he simultaneously intend his acts and manifest an inability to control his behavior?
The notion of intent, or mens rea, as an element of a crime which the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt, is a commonplace notion of criminal law. Intent has been defined as having a purpose to do the thing or cause the result specified in a criminal statute, or having the belief that the act performed, if successful, will cause that result. Minn.Stat. § 609.02, subd. 9(3) (1992). There is no question that intent was a necessary element of the crime of kidnapping to which appellant pleaded guilty in 1965. Minn.Stat. § 609.25 (1965); Minn.Stat.Ann. § 609.25 advisory committee emt. (West 1987) (“It is the intent which makes the [false] imprisonment the serious crime known as kidnapping.”) Although the state did not present its case because of the guilty plea, the court implicitly found each element of the crime satisfied when it accepted appellant’s plea and convicted him. Intent was also a necessary element of appellant’s conviction for attempted rape. Wayne R. LaFave and Austin W. Scott, Jr., Handbook on Criminal Law 423 (1972). Nevertheless, some many years later, the committing court relies on evidence which looks in part to those very convictions to show that appellant manifests an utter lack of ability to control his sexual behaviors.
This court in Blodgett said that it is constitutional for the state legislature to choose either the civil or the criminal system, or both, for dealing with sexual predators. Blodgett, 510 N.W.2d at 918. It does not follow that the state may use both systems consecutively to control one individual when it demands clear and convincing evidence, or proof beyond a reasonable doubt, of inconsistent explanations for the same behavior. Appellant does not argue that this scheme is unconstitutional under either the federal or state constitutions. However, I conclude that such a scheme is both logically and legally inconsistent, and fundamentally unfair.
This fundamental unfairness is compounded when one considers the court’s position regarding evidence of diminished capacity. In case after ease, this court has rejected the notion of diminished capacity as a doctrine limiting the reach of criminal sanctions, or as a mechanism to reduce the length of the criminal sanction. See, e.g., State v. Bouwman, 328 N.W.2d 703, 706 (Minn.1982); State v. Hoffman, 328 N.W.2d 709, 716 (Minn.1982). But in the scenario presented in this ease, and increasingly in other psychopathic personality cases coming before the courts, the state uses a particular definition of “diminished capacity,” the inability to control sexual impulses, to impose the extraordinary sanction of indefinite commitment without periodic judicial review. Under this scheme, the defendant is barred from presenting evidence regarding his diminished capacity in the criminal system, but the state is allowed to present such evidence to justify a civil *616commitment after he has been convicted and serves his sentence.
This state has enacted carefully drafted enhanced sentencing mechanisms, which this court has upheld, for individuals convicted of a pattern of sexually-motivated crimes. See State v. Christie, 506 N.W.2d 293 (Minn.1993) cert. denied, — U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 1316, 127 L.Ed.2d 666 (1994); State v. Stirens, 506 N.W.2d 302 (Minn.1993). If such persons are found to intend such acts, they should be convicted of serious crimes and sentenced accordingly. If, however, it is the position of the state that they cannot—rather than will not—control their sexual appetites, and the state can so demonstrate, civil commitment under the psychopathic personality statute is appropriate. To allow the state to first choose the criminal sanction, which requires a finding of a specific state of mind, and when that sanction is completed, to choose another sanction which requires a finding of the opposite state of mind, is a mockery of justice which places both the criminal and civil systems for dealing with sexual predators in disrepute.