Court Opinion

ID: 9711414
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:31:25.177015+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:04.738160
License: Public Domain

KELLEY, Justice
(dissenting):
Because it seems to me that once again this term of court the majority by undue reliance on the legislative enactments (Minn.Stat. Chapters 627 and 609) and rules promulgated under the rule-making power of this court (Rule 24, Minn.R.Crim.P.), and by writing into criminal statutes language that neither appears therein nor is warranted, has effectively ignored the clear mandate of a provision of the Minnesota Constitution’s Bill of Rights restraining the state’s power against one accused of crime, I respectfully dissent.
About as clearly as it could be stated, Art. 1, § 6 of the Minnesota Constitution provides that one accused of a crime be given “the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the county or district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which county or district shall have been previously ascertained by law.” By holding as we did in State v. Hanson, 285 N.W.2d 483, 486 (Minn.1979) that the phrase “county * * * wherein the crime shall have been committed” means any county wherein any element of the offense was committed, we did no violence to that constitutional provision. Thus, consistent with Hanson, venue was properly laid consistent with Art. 1, § 6 in this case only if at least one element of the charged crime of first degree assault occurred in Henne-pin County.
The majority opinion appears to be bottomed on Minn.Stat. § 627.15 (1988), a special venue statute which purports to permit the setting of venue in a criminal action arising out of an incident of child abuse in a county where the child is “found.” By so doing it clearly conflicts with Art. 1, § 6 of the Constitution unless “finding” the child constitutes an element of the crime charged. Of course, it does not. Discovery of an assault — or a “finding” of the victim — is in no way an element of the crime of assault. Our statute defines the crime here charged, first degree assault, as an assault which inflicts great bodily harm. Minn.Stat. § 609.221 (1988). Assault is the intentional infliction of, or attempt to inflict, bodily harm upon another. Minn.Stat. § 609.02, subd. 10(2) (1988). It has never been disputed during the course of these proceedings that none of the elements for assault occurred in Hennepin County. Both the alleged assault and the injury to the child which resulted occurred in Morton, located in Renville County, approxi*415mately 100 miles from Hennepin County.1
Accordingly, I cannot accept the unsupported assertion that the legislature has the authority to enact special venue statutes, or that this court in promulgating criminal rules has the authority to ignore the specific and clear mandate of Art. 1, § 6 of the Minnesota Constitution. Because in this case it was never questioned that the alleged assault occurred in Ren-ville County, the constitutional requirement that trial take place where at least one element of the crime charged occurred simply was not met. Therefore, I dissent.

. The majority’s reliance on State v. Smith, 421 N.W.2d 315, 320 (Minn.1988) (a homicide case) is, in my opinion, misplaced. In death cases, it may be impossible to pinpoint where the death blows occurred or where the death transpired. That, however, is not the case with an assault where, usually, the place of an assault is known as it is here.