In re the Civil Commitment of Crosby

824 N.W.2d 351, 2013 WL 57731, 2013 Minn. App. LEXIS 1
CourtCourt of Appeals of Minnesota
DecidedJanuary 7, 2013
DocketNo. A12-1224
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 824 N.W.2d 351 (In re the Civil Commitment of Crosby) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re the Civil Commitment of Crosby, 824 N.W.2d 351, 2013 WL 57731, 2013 Minn. App. LEXIS 1 (Mich. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

[353]*353OPINION

ROSS, Judge.

Timothy Crosby’s sexual crimes against girls and women include a 1987 rape that resulted in his pleading guilty to third-degree criminal sexual conduct in exchange for the state’s promise that it “will not file petitions in probate court” for civil commitment of Crosby as “mentally ill and dangerous” or a “sexual psychopath.” But in 2009 the district court committed Crosby indeterminately as a sexually dangerous person and sexual psychopathic personality predicated on a finding that Crosby reengaged in a cycle of sexual misconduct. The district court relied on Crosby’s 2009 conviction of using a minor in a sexual performance and on his possession of sexually violent literature and images depicting behavior consistent with his own prior sexually violent behavior. Now appealing from the order for civil commitment, Crosby argues that the district court erred by failing to enforce the state’s 1987 promise not to pursue his civil commitment, by misconstruing his 2009 conduct as “harmful sexual conduct,” and by finding that he cannot control his sexual impulses and is likely to engage in acts of harmful sexual conduct. Because the 1987 plea agreement prohibited the state from seeking civil commitment solely for his extant offenses but not for future misconduct, the state’s 1987 promise does not prevent Crosby’s current commitment. And because the district court had a sufficient factual basis to find that Crosby has returned to his violent offense cycle and clear and convincing evidence supports his civil commitment, we affirm.

FACTS

Timothy Crosby is a violent sexual recidivist. We recount some of his predatory behavior to frame the legal issues he raises on appeal.

By his own account, Crosby began attacking girls and young women in the early 1970s. In about 1972, he picked up a teenage hitchhiker and forced her at gunpoint into the back seat of his car where he made her disrobe. He fondled her breasts and vagina. In the months that followed, Crosby masturbated daily while fantasizing about this assault until his next offense in December 1974.

The December 1974 offense was an escalated version of the 1972 offense. Crosby kidnapped and raped a 20-year-old hitchhiker. He picked her up in St. Paul, handcuffed her at gunpoint, cut her bra off with a knife, and taped her eyes shut. He drove her to his parent’s cabin near St. Cloud, and along the way he threatened to kill her. He tied her wrists and legs to bedposts and photographed her. After several hours, Crosby removed her from the bed, handcuffed her again, and drove her to a spot by the Mississippi River in Monticello. There, he stripped her naked and raped her at knifepoint while she remained handcuffed. He then slowly drove her back to St. Paul. During the drive he told the victim about a girl who had recently been raped and murdered and dismembered, stating, “Why should I start caring now, you’re no different.” Back in St. Paul, Crosby drove in circles. The victim, convinced that Crosby would kill her, lunged and pressed the gas pedal when she saw an occupied police car. This caused a crash, leaving Crosby to flee on foot from the officer and the victim to escape toward the officer.

Criminally convicted and civilly committed to the Intensive Treatment Program for Sexual Aggressives for his 1974 sexual assault, Crosby was eventually released to a halfway house in 1982. He had told his [354]*354sex-offense treatment providers that he had his sexually aggressive fantasies under control. A year later he moved into his parents’ St. Paul home and received only monthly outpatient treatment services. But he had already returned to fantasizing about rape, looking at photographs and magazines depicting sexual violence, and watching films about rape and sexual bondage at a pornographic bookstore. He walked at night carrying a knife, watching women in bars while imagining raping them. He drove around looking for hitchhikers or prostitutes and masturbated while imagining raping them.

Before long, in April 1983, Crosby assembled a kit consisting of a gag, a blindfold, and rope, and then he drove around until he found a girl hitchhiking. He drove her to her requested destination, but then he put a knife to her ribs. He planned to blindfold and bind her hands before driving her to a rural area and raping her. And he imagined hanging her by her hands from the ceiling to facilitate his planned sexual assault. But she resisted, screaming and fighting for the knife. She finally wrested the knife from Crosby, cut him on the hand, and escaped from his car.

Crosby was reported and returned to the Minnesota Security Hospital in 1983 for more treatment. He continued to fantasize about rape and to constitute an “extremely high risk” to reoffend, but he was given passes to shop in St. Peter and the Twin Cities area. In early 1986, he again told treatment providers that he was no longer engaging in sexually violent fantasies, and he was provisionally discharged in June 1987.

The month after his June 1987 release, Crosby brought a 21-year-old prostitute to his apartment. He' choked her, tied her to a bed, taped her mouth and eyes shut, and raped her six or seven times over several hours. The victim eventually freed herself from the restraints and escaped after Crosby left her momentarily unattended. She tore through concealing cardboard and then broke through the window, which Crosby had nailed shut. She crawled outside and was found fleeing naked, bleeding from her hands and feet from their having been wired behind her back. Crosby pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal sexual conduct for this. Crosby’s plea agreement in that 1987 case is the focal point of this appeal. In it, the state dismissed a count of false imprisonment, agreed not to seek an upward departure at sentencing, and, most important here, agreed not to file a petition seeking Crosby’s commitment as a sexual psychopath or as a mentally-ill and dangerous person. The district court sentenced him to 41 months in prison. Crosby declined sex-offender treatment.

The state released Crosby from prison at the conclusion of his sentence in October of 1989 and returned him to the Minnesota Security Hospital where the term of his prior commitment had been extended another five years. Crosby was discharged from that commitment on a writ of habeas corpus because the district court had erred in his original 1975 commitment by basing the commitment on kidnapping, which was not then one of the enumerated offenses authorizing commitment.

After that, Crosby lived free of supervision, and on the surface his life appeared to have somewhat stabilized. He married in 1996 at age 40; his wife was a 19-year-old whom he had begun dating when she was 17. Crosby and his wife had three children. He lived without any new reported improper sexual incident until 2000.

In 2000 Crosby was fired from his custodial job at the University of Minnesota when he printed more than 50 pages of [355]*355violent pornographic stories about dominance, torture, rape, incest, and other violent or deviant sex acts. Although Crosby’s workplace misconduct violated his employer’s policies and revealed his renewed interest in the same violent criminal conduct he had previously engaged in, the misconduct itself was not criminal. Law enforcement officials remained uninvolved with him until 2009.

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Bluebook (online)
824 N.W.2d 351, 2013 WL 57731, 2013 Minn. App. LEXIS 1, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-the-civil-commitment-of-crosby-minnctapp-2013.