State v. C. A.

304 N.W.2d 353, 1981 Minn. LEXIS 1257
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedApril 17, 1981
DocketNo. 50817
StatusPublished
Cited by55 cases

This text of 304 N.W.2d 353 (State v. C. A.) 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
State v. C. A., 304 N.W.2d 353, 1981 Minn. LEXIS 1257 (Mich. 1981).

Opinion

SHERAN, Chief Justice.

C.A.1 appeals from an order granting in part and denying in part his motions for expungement of criminal records in the hands of various governmental officials. The relief appellant requested was wide-ranging and cast in the most general terms: every local or state government record documenting the fact of his arrest, trial and conviction would have been returned, erased or sealed from public view; public officials and employees would have been stopped from divulging these facts. Although we affirm the trial court’s denial of the bulk of C.A.’s requests as stated in his motions, we do not imply that relief may never be properly granted.

Appellant does not now stand convicted of the crime which generated the records he wishes to expunge. Appellant had been charged with consensual sodomy, a gross misdemeanor, and convicted by a jury in December of 1977. In connection with this charge and conviction, appellant was temporarily committed to the Minnesota Security Hospital at St. Peter and to the state correctional facility at Stillwater. In December of 1978, we set aside appellant’s conviction pursuant to a stipulated agreement between the defense and the state to remand the ease to the district court for a new trial. The charges against appellant were subsequently dropped and he was never retried. Appellant had no prior convictions.

Appellant claims that he is entitled to the relief he requests under Minn.Stat. § 299C.11 (1980) as interpreted by this court in In re R. L. F., 256 N.W.2d 803 (Minn.1977). Appellant has not argued before this court that his motions should be based on inherent powers of courts to remedy serious infringements of constitutional rights, in addition to the statutory authorities of section 299C.11, although this argument was made to the trial court. The court’s inherent power to remedy serious infringements of constitutional rights was outlined in In re R. L. F., id. at 808. We do not consider [356]*356this aspect of the court’s inherent power in this appeal.

The statute relied upon by appellant reads in full as follows:

299C.11 PRINTS, FURNISHED TO BUREAU OF SHERIFFS AND CHIEFS OF POLICE.
The sheriff of each county and the chief of police of each city of the first, second, and third classes shall furnish the bureau, upon such form as the superintendent shall prescribe, with such finger and thumb prints, photographs, and other identification data as may be requested or required by the superintendent of the bureau, which may be taken under the provisions of section 299C.10, of persons who shall be convicted of a felony, gross misdemeanor, or who shall be found to have been convicted of a felony or gross misdemeanor, within ten years next preceding their arrest. Upon the determination of all pending criminal actions or proceedings in favor of the arrested person, he shall, upon demand, have all such finger and thumb prints, photographs, and other identification data, and all copies and duplicates thereof, returned to him, provided it is not established that he has been convicted of any felony, either within or without the state, within the period of ten years immediately preceding such determination.

Minn.Stat. § 299C.11 (1980) (emphasis added).

C.A. twice moved the trial court for an order encompassing the following:2

1. “Requiring” the county sheriff “to forthwith return to the defendant all finger and thumb prints, photographs and other identification data, and all copies and duplicates thereof”;

2. “Requiring” the county sheriff “and all his agents from disclosing to anyone the fact that the defendant had been arrested and charged”;

3. “Forbidding” the county attorney’s office, the police department, the state bureau of criminal apprehension (BCA), the clerk of the district court, the Minnesota Security Hospital at St. Peter, the corrections board, and the Minnesota correctional facility at Stillwater “from disclosing to anyone the fact that the defendant had been arrested, charged or brought to trial”;

4. “Requiring that all recordation relating to the arrest, complaint, trial, dismissal and discharge of the defendant be expunged from all official records” of the city, county, state of Minnesota and “all other governmental agencies”;

5. “Requiring” the clerk of the district court to “seal” the court file “relating to the complaint of the defendant”;

6. “Forbidding” the clerk of the district court “and all his agents from disclosing or revealing the contents” of the file “without Court Order”;

7. “Requiring" the clerk of the district court to “remove from all index books open to public examination the caption of this case and the name of the defendant as it relates to this case”;

8. “Requiring” the county sheriff’s office and the bureau of criminal apprehension “to request the Federal Bureau of Investigation to return all the defendant’s records transmitted to the FBI in connection with this case, including finger and thumb prints, photographs and other identification data, and all copies and duplicates thereof; and after the receipt thereof requiring” the county sheriff’s office and the bureau of criminal apprehension “to return all such data to the defendant”;

9. “Requiring” the state security hospital at St. Peter “to return to the defendant its complete file, including all copies thereof, relating to the defendant’s hospitalization” in connection with this case;

10. “Requiring” the state correctional facility at Stillwater “to return to the de[357]*357fendant its complete file, including all copies thereof, relating to the defendant’s incarceration” in connection with this case;

11. “Protecting” the defendant from being adjudged guilty of “perjury or otherwise giving a false statement by reason of his failure” to state the fact of his arrest, complaint or trial “in response to any inquiry made of him for any purpose”;

12. A “prohibition of the further transcription of any testimony in the case, or dissemination to any persons of (a) any of the testimony offered at the trial of this case or pre-trial proceedings, and (b) the identity of all witnesses who testified at all proceedings herein, specifically prohibiting the court reporter or any of his agents from providing transcription of any testimony in this proceeding to any person.”

We. find that the trial court properly concluded that section 299C.11 authorized none of appellant’s requests as he made them other than his first one above, the order requiring the sheriff to return to the defendant finger and thumb prints, photographs, other identification data and all copies.3 The trial court also properly concluded that appellant had not substantiated a serious infringement of constitutional rights justifying the exercise of the court’s inherent powers to remedy such infringements.

Our judgment is that the trial court should in all respects be affirmed, given the record of this case and the manner in which appellant formulated his motions. Nevertheless, it is within the power of the courts to grant broader relief than was had here. For future guidance, we give this explanation of our denial of the major portions of appellant’s motions.

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Bluebook (online)
304 N.W.2d 353, 1981 Minn. LEXIS 1257, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-c-a-minn-1981.