Court Opinion

ID: 9945384
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-27 19:08:05.041924+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:25:28.041973
License: Public Domain

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by
                         Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

                                STATE OF MINNESOTA
                                IN COURT OF APPEALS
                                      A23-1371

             In the Matter of the Civil Commitment of: Norberto Hugo Salinas.

                                 Filed February 26, 2024
                                        Affirmed
                                       Ross, Judge

                                Commitment Appeal Panel
                                  File No. AP21-9044

Steven D. Winkler, Brandt & Winkler, PA, St. Peter, Minnesota (for appellant Norberto
Salinas)

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, Leaf McGregor, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul,
Minnesota (for respondent Commissioner of Human Services)

Julie Kelley, Watonwan County Attorney, St. James, Minnesota (for respondent Watonwan
County)

         Considered and decided by Schmidt, Presiding Judge; Segal, Chief Judge; and Ross,

Judge.

                            NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION

ROSS, Judge

         Appellant Norberto Salinas is indeterminately civilly committed as a sexually

dangerous person and sexually psychopathic personality. Salinas has consistently admitted

to one of his criminal sex offenses as part of his sex-offender treatment, but he has denied

committing other offenses, including one to which he pleaded guilty. The special review

board recommended the denial of Salinas’s petition for provisional or full discharge, and a
commitment appeal panel followed the recommendation. Because Salinas failed to meet

his burden to produce competent evidence to show that he satisfied the statutory factors for

discharge outlined in Minnesota Statutes sections 253D.30 and 253D.31 (2022), we affirm.

                                         FACTS

       The state indeterminately civilly committed Norberto Salinas to the Minnesota Sex

Offender Program (MSOP) as a sexually dangerous person and sexually psychopathic

personality in March 2010 after five incidents of alleged sexual misconduct. Three of the

allegations resulted in Salinas pleading guilty for his sexual behavior—raping a stranger in

1999, sexually assaulting a 9-year-old relative in 1999, and masturbating in front of a

female corrections officer in 2004. Two resulted in his pleading guilty for nonsexual

offenses, but Salinas has previously admitted that he engaged in the sexual misconduct that

led to one of those charges—sexually assaulting an acquaintance while she slept in 1996.

The only charge for criminal sexual conduct that resulted in a guilty plea to a nonsexual

charge and about which he has never admitted guilt for the sexual misconduct was his

alleged rape of a 20-year-old acquaintance in 1996.

       In March 2020, Salinas petitioned the special review board (SRB) for a provisional

or full discharge from his civil commitment. An MSOP clinician opined that Salinas’s

petition was premature. The SRB conducted a hearing in March 2021, and it issued fact

findings and its recommendation denying Salinas’s discharge petition. Salinas petitioned

the commitment appeal panel (CAP) in April 2021 to reconsider the SRB decision. The

program transferred Salinas to Community Preparation Services in 2022, and he is now in

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phase II of MSOP’s three-phase program. The CAP conducted a hearing on Salinas’s

petition in April and July 2023.

       The testimonial and documentary evidence presented during the CAP hearings

summarized Salinas’s treatment and progress in the program. Salinas’s treatment included

his need to acknowledge and address his sexual-offense history. Salinas called Tina Olson,

who had been Salinas’s primary therapist until 2020, and Dr. Andrea Lovett, an

independent examiner whom the CAP appointed, to testify before the CAP. Olson testified

that she had no sexual-violence risk-assessment training, that she had no experience

evaluating MSOP clients for discharge, and that she had not reviewed Salinas’s provisional

discharge plan. Dr. Lovett opined that Salinas continues to need secured-facility treatment,

that it is highly unlikely that Salinas’s presenting issues would improve if he were

discharged provisionally or fully, and that Salinas’s recidivism risk is too high to afford a

reasonable degree of safety for the public if he were discharged.

       Salinas offered into evidence MSOP’s standard provisional discharge plan, but he

offered no testimony supporting the supposition that the plan should be applied to him. The

commissioner of human services moved to dismiss Salinas’s petition under Minnesota

Rule of Civil Procedure 41.02(b), arguing Salinas failed to present prima facie evidence

supporting his requested discharge. The CAP granted the commissioner’s motion.

       Salinas appeals.

                                        DECISION

       Salinas urges us to reverse the CAP’s decision dismissing his discharge petition

under Minnesota Rule of Civil Procedure 41.02(b). That rule allows the CAP to dismiss

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the petition at the close of the committed person’s presentation of evidence in a CAP first-

phase hearing only if, viewing that evidence in the light most favorable to the committed

person, no legal basis exists supporting the requested relief. Coker v. Jesson, 831 N.W.2d

483, 491 (Minn. 2013); Minn. R. Civ. P. 41.02(b). We review de novo the CAP’s dismissal

of a discharge petition under the rule. Larson v. Jesson, 847 N.W.2d 531, 534 (Minn. App.

2014). Our de novo review leads us to affirm the dismissal here.

       We must decide whether Salinas met his “burden of going forward with the

evidence, which means presenting a prima facie case with competent evidence to show that

[he] is entitled to the requested relief.” Minn. Stat. § 253D.28, subd. 2(d) (2022). To

support his request for a full discharge, Salinas had to produce evidence that he “is capable

of making an acceptable adjustment to open society, is no longer dangerous to the public,

and is no longer in need of treatment and supervision.” Minn. Stat. § 253D.31. And to

support his request for a provisional discharge, he had to produce evidence showing that

he can acceptably adjust to open society based on a consideration of two factors: whether

his treatment course and current mental status indicate that he no longer needs treatment

and supervision in his treatment setting, and whether his provisional-discharge-plan

conditions “will provide a reasonable degree of protection to the public and will enable

[him] to adjust successfully to the community.” Minn. Stat. § 253D.30, subd. 1. The CAP

correctly concluded that Salinas failed to meet his burden for either discharge.

       We have carefully considered the evidence Salinas presented, and we hold that it

does not constitute prima facie support for his requested relief. He presented only the

testimony of Olson and Dr. Lovett as described, along with previous treatment reports and

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a copy of a generic provisional discharge plan created by the department of human services.

He identifies nothing in the evidence that shows he is capable of adjusting acceptably to

society to warrant a provisional discharge, let alone a showing on the additional two

elements (no longer dangerous to the public and no longer needing treatment and

supervision) to support a full discharge. See id. Salinas failed to meet his burden of

production.

       Salinas unconvincingly argues that we should reach a different conclusion, relying

on contentions that only vaguely bear on the issues. He contends, for example, that the

CAP’s findings are flawed because they rest largely “on [the CAP’s] criticism of MSOP

treatment decisions.” But this allegation, even if true, does not bear on our conclusion that

he presented insufficient evidence to survive the commissioner’s motion to dismiss. He

contends that the CAP erroneously relied on Dr. Lovett’s report and testimony, which is

an odd contention given that he is the party who offered Dr. Lovett’s report and testimony

as evidence bearing on his motion for discharge. And regardless of whether Dr. Lovett’s

concerns about the quality of Salinas’s treatment plan in light of Salinas’s failure to

acknowledge all his sexual misconduct history are persuasive, ignoring those concerns (and

even ignoring her testimony altogether) would not constitute evidence supporting Salinas’s

discharge motion.

       Salinas also contends that “[m]any of the [CAP’s] most important findings are not

supported in the record.” One of those findings, Salinas argues, results from Dr. Lovett’s

allegedly relying on more previous acts of sexual misconduct than Salinas engaged in and

admitted to. We need not parse the record to establish conclusively whether it is Dr. Lovett

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who inflates Salinas’s sexual-misconduct history or it is Salinas who minimizes it (but it

appears that it is the latter), because the exercise is irrelevant to our de novo review of

whether Salinas presented sufficient evidence to overcome the motion to dismiss.

       Salinas identifies parts of the record that he believes undercut Dr. Lovett’s testimony

and the CAP’s reliance on it. He contends that the record shows that he was “active in his

treatment and programming” while he was confined at Moose Lake. He observes that he

was given “great” matrix scores. He says that he was transparent about his sexuality, was

behaviorally compliant, participated in vocational training, received good reviews for his

work, and was chosen to mediate roommate and personality issues involving other clients.

He also highlights his excellent attendance for all his treatment programming, his having a

good relationship with his peers, and his being awarded increased liberties and movement

on campus. But this evidence of laudable participation and some success in the program

falls short of constituting evidence showing the statutory elements necessary to justify

being provisionally or fully discharged from the program.

       Salinas argues that this court should infer from his past, positive reports of progress

in treatment that he would continue that behavior while discharged from commitment. But

that inference constitutes a substantive factual leap that goes beyond merely viewing the

evidence in the light most favorable to him. No professional testimony suggested that

inference, and we are in no position to draw it on appeal. The hearing evidence failed to

show that Salinas is entitled to a provisional or full discharge.

       Affirmed.

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