State v. Heidelberger

353 N.W.2d 582, 1984 Minn. App. LEXIS 3306
CourtCourt of Appeals of Minnesota
DecidedJuly 10, 1984
DocketCX-83-1753
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 353 N.W.2d 582 (State v. Heidelberger) 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
State v. Heidelberger, 353 N.W.2d 582, 1984 Minn. App. LEXIS 3306 (Mich. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

OPINION

PARKER, Judge.

David C. Heidelberger was convicted before a jury of two counts of intrafamilial sexual abuse, two counts of kidnapping and of incest. All the charges arose from his forcible rape of his 16-year-old sister, as a result of which she became pregnant and underwent an abortion.

Appellant’s defense was that his sister’s charges were a fabrication and that he had an alibi covering the time during which the offense allegedly occurred. He contends that the court’s ruling at an omnibus hearing, refusing to suppress evidence of certain statements he made to a police investigator after he had been formally charged, violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. He also claims that the trial court erred in ruling that the prosecution could introduce, as impeachment evidence should he testify, his two prior convictions of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree; he alleges that the ruling had a “chilling effect” on his right to testify. Appellant further claims that the evidence was insuf *585 ficient to sustain the convictions, that the convictions were duplicatory and that the sentence constituted an impermissible deviation from the Sentencing Guidelines. We affirm in part, vacate in part and modify the sentence.

ISSUES

1(a). Did appellant forfeit his right to appeal the issue of whether his Sixth Amendment right to counsel was violated when he failed to raise the issue of the admissibility of his statements to police at trial?

(b). Did appellant voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently waive his right to counsel when he made statements to police?

2. Did the trial court abuse its discretion in admitting, for impeachment purposes, appellant’s two prior convictions for criminal sexual conduct in the first degree?

3. Was the evidence sufficient, when reviewed in the light most favorable to the State, for the jury to conclude that appellant was guilty of intrafamilial sexual abuse in the third degree, kidnapping and incest?

4. Is incest an included offense of intra-familial sexual abuse in the third degree?

5. Are there substantial and compelling reasons for departing from the mandatory minimum sentence?

FACTS

Appellant David Heidelberger appeals his convictions, after a trial by jury, for intrafamilial sexual abuse in the third degree (Minn.Stat. § 609.3643, subd. 1(1), l(2)(a) (1982)), kidnapping (Minn.Stat. § 609.25, subd. 1(2), 1(3) (1982)), and incest (Minn.Stat. § 609.365 (1982)). He was sentenced to the custody of the Commissioner of Corrections for a term of 108 months.

The charges arose from appellant’s kidnapping and sexual assault of his sister, which occurred on a Sunday in late May 1982 between 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. at the Heidelberger property in rural Anoka County, Minnesota.

The appellant, 41 years old, lived in a trailer house on 1½ acres of land on the back end of a 40-acre tract. His sister, 16 years old, lived with her mother in the main house on the front part of the tract.

On the Friday preceding the kidnapping and sexual assault, the victim, her sister and the sister’s baby son went to appellant’s trailer house to look at toys and clothes appellant had picked up at work. When they arrived, they found him dressed in women’s clothes. Appellant begged them to tie him up and spank him. The victim told her brother that he was “crazy, sick” and the sisters and the baby left.

The following Sunday morning, the victim was lying in her bedroom when she heard someone come into the house. She got up and went to the kitchen to see who it was. When she got to the kitchen, she found appellant with a plastic garbage bag in his pocket. There was no one else in the house at the time; her mother was at church. Appellant appeared nervous. While they talked, appellant asked her for some directions. When she pointed with her hand, appellant put a handcuff on her wrist and then asked her for her other hand. She refused and tried to pull away, whereupon appellant punched her in the stomach with his fist. She gave him her other hand and he handcuffed her hands behind her back.

Appellant took the victim into her bedroom, threw her on the bed, removed the garbage bag from his pocket and started to put her clothes in the bag. He told her he was making it look as if she had run away. Appellant said he was doing this because she had made fun of him a couple of days before. He took off her shorts, put a gag in her mouth, blindfolded her and took her outside to his car. As he was putting the clothes in the car, she attempted to run away but he caught her and punched her in the ribs with his fists. He then put her in the trunk of his car, closed the trunk and drove to his trailer house.

When they arrived at his house, he brought her to a pigpen near his trailer and took off her blindfold. Appellant put the *586 victim in the pen with the pigs and said, “Let them smell you; you deserve to be with the pigs.” She was still handcuffed and gagged. Appellant then took her out of the pigpen and brought her into the trailer house. He put her on the living room floor and threatened her with a knife, saying that she was going to die, that he was going to cut her stomach open and feed her to the pigs, or that he would seal her in a 55-gallon drum. She knew that there were such drums in the junkyard on the property. While making these threats, appellant placed the knife under her chin. She was “scared to death.”

Appellant removed her underwear, pulled her shirt over her head and raped her on the floor while she was still handcuffed. When the sexual intercourse was finished, the victim asked appellant how he could do such a thing to his sister. Appellant cried and said he was sorry and that if she did not tell anyone she could have anything he had. Appellant gave her her clothes, removed the handcuffs and drove her home. The entire incident lasted between 45 minutes and an hour.

After she returned home, the victim took a bath and burned her clothes because “she never wanted to see them again, they made [her] sick, they were dirty from the pigpen, [she] just didn’t want to see them anymore.” She did not tell her mother that day about what had happened because “it would hurt her too much.” She told her sister and a close friend later that day about what appellant had done to her. She showed the friend the marks on her wrists from the handcuffs.

In mid-June the victim suspected she was pregnant as a result of being raped by appellant. Before she had a pregnancy test, she told the friend and her sister about her suspicions. She also told her older sister that she had been raped by appellant and thought she was pregnant. The older sister then told their mother about the suspected pregnancy. When the victim’s mother learned what had happened, she telephoned appellant and said, “your sister told me what you did to her.” Appellant did not respond. Appellant’s mother then told him he needed help. Appellant responded that he was getting help.

The victim’s mother took her to the Nucleus Clinic for a pregnancy test, where on June 14, 1982, it was confirmed that she was pregnant. She reported that she was pregnant as a result of being raped by a 40-year-old friend of the family, who lived next door.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
353 N.W.2d 582, 1984 Minn. App. LEXIS 3306, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-heidelberger-minnctapp-1984.