Bixby v. State

344 N.W.2d 390, 1984 Minn. LEXIS 1244
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedFebruary 17, 1984
DocketC1-83-975
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 344 N.W.2d 390 (Bixby v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bixby v. State, 344 N.W.2d 390, 1984 Minn. LEXIS 1244 (Mich. 1984).

Opinion

AMDAHL, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from an order of the district court denying a petition for post-conviction relief. The appeal concerns whether petitioner’s two 1977 convictions of criminal sexual conduct in the third degree were based on a single behavioral incident. If so, then the sentencing court erred in 1982 when, in computing petitioner’s criminal history score in order to determine the presumptive sentence for a current offense of receiving stolen property, it gave petitioner two felony points for the 1977 convictions. We hold that the sentencing court erred and that the postcon-viction court erred in refusing to correct the error.

In 1977, when he was 18 years old, petitioner was tried in district court on two counts of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree, Minn.Stat. § 609.342(f)(i) (1982) (forced sexual penetration). Those charges were based on two acts of penetration of the same victim, a 15-year-old girl, on June 23, 1977.

The transcript reveals that on the evening of the events in question, at about 5:30 p.m., petitioner, his brother, and one Claude Mangel picked up the victim, who was petitioner’s former girlfriend, and drove her to an isolated place. The victim claimed that petitioner and Mangel forced her to have sexual intercourse with them there, then drove her to a different place and again forced her to have sexual intercourse with them. Petitioner claimed he blacked out from drinking too much and had no memory of the incident. Mangel— who pleaded guilty to one count of criminal sexual conduct in the third degree, section 609.344(b) (sexual intercourse with a person under age 16 by a person who is more than 24 months older) — testified for the state. He claimed that the victim wanted to resume her relationship with petitioner and that petitioner agreed to do that if she would have sexual intercourse with Mangel and him. He testified that, although she was reluctant at first, she eventually agreed. He testified that he and petitioner each had consensual sexual intercourse with her at the first location but he denied that they had sexual intercourse with her at the second location. He testified that at the second location petitioner told her that he was unwilling to resume their relationship, and that she became angry at petitioner. They dropped her off sometime between 7 and 8:30 p.m. (the testimony was conflicting). She made her complaint to the police at about 11 p.m.

The jury apparently concluded that petitioner did not force the victim to have sexual intercourse with him because it found petitioner guilty only of two counts of the lesser-included offense of criminal *392 sexual conduct in the third degree, section 609.344(b) (sexual intercourse with a person under age 16 by a person who is more than 24 months older). In other words, the jury found petitioner guilty of two counts of what used to be called statutory rape.

Subsequently, petitioner was sentenced for the two offenses. Petitioner moved for imposition of only one sentence pursuant to section 609.035, but the trial court denied that motion, sentencing him to two concurrent 5-year indeterminate prison terms. Petitioner did not appeal presumably because it did not then appear that there would be any collateral consequences of the imposition of two concurrent terms.

In 1982 petitioner was charged with receiving stolen property and theft, the property involved having a value of approximately $400. Petitioner was found not guilty of theft but guilty of receiving stolen property. The sentencing worksheet that was prepared showed petitioner as having a criminal history score of four. Two of the four points were felony points based on the two convictions of criminal sexual conduct in the third degree. The presumptive sentence for the offense of receiving stolen property, a severity level IV offense, when committed by a person with a criminal history score of four at the time of sentencing is 25 (24-26) months executed. If petitioner had been given only one felony point for the two 1977 sex convictions his criminal history score would have been only three. The presumptive sentence for the offense of receiving stolen property by a person with a criminal history score of three is 21 months stayed.

Petitioner’s attorney urged the court to put petitioner on probation. Although at that time petitioner’s attorney did not challenge the propriety of assigning petitioner two felony points for the 1977 sex convictions, the attorney did point out to the court that two of the points were based on two separate acts of intercourse with the same girl on the same evening. The court sentenced petitioner to 25 months in prison and executed the sentence.

Petitioner thereafter tried to get the trial court to modify the sentence on the ground that giving him two felony points for the two sex convictions was erroneous because those convictions arose from the same behavioral incident under section 609.035. Petitioner’s brief indicates that the trial court declined to rule on the matter because the prior sentences were imposed by a different judge.

Petitioner subsequently filed a petition for postconviction relief. The postconviction court did not address the issue of whether the two 1977 sex convictions arose from a single behavioral incident. Instead, the court simply denied relief on the ground that petitioner had not proven that his early release would not present a danger to the public or would not be incompatible with the welfare of society.

Petitioner was sentenced to 25 months in prison on July 16, 1982. Assuming good time credit, petitioner would serve 16% months of prison time. This means that petitioner probably was released from prison sometime in December of 1983.

The postconviction court erred in refusing to rule on the issue raised by petitioner. The court based its refusal on the ground that petitioner had not proved that his early release would not present a danger to the public or would not be incompatible with the welfare of society. A petitioner bears this burden only if he is seeking retroactive application of the Sentencing Guidelines to a crime committed before the Guidelines became effective. Minn. Stat. § 590.01, subd. 3 (1982). Petitioner was not seeking retroactive application of the Sentencing Guidelines to the 1977 convictions. Instead, he was simply using the postconviction procedure to challenge the computation of his criminal history score for the 1982 offense. See Jackson v. State, 329 N.W.2d 66 (Minn.1983), and Davis v. State, 324 N.W.2d 802 (Minn.1982) (both upholding the use of the postconviction remedy to obtain review of a sentencing issue under the Sentencing Guidelines).

Petitioner’s contention that the two sex convictions arose from a single behavioral *393 incident is based on our decision in State v. Herberg, 324 N.W.2d 346 (Minn.1982). In Herberg the defendant forced a girl into his car in Stearns County, drove her a short way into Todd County, then sexually abused her. Believing that they were in an area where they might be observed, the defendant then drove to a gravel pit in a nearby township and sexually abused her again.

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Bluebook (online)
344 N.W.2d 390, 1984 Minn. LEXIS 1244, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bixby-v-state-minn-1984.