State v. Jones

659 N.W.2d 748, 2003 Minn. LEXIS 199, 2003 WL 1889823
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedApril 17, 2003
DocketCX-01-1431
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 659 N.W.2d 748 (State v. Jones) 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. Jones, 659 N.W.2d 748, 2003 Minn. LEXIS 199, 2003 WL 1889823 (Mich. 2003).

Opinion

*749 OPINION

GILBERT, Justice.

This case involves review of a court of appeals decision that the addition of a 10- *750 year conditional release term to respondent Jela DeShaun Jones’s 15-year sentence for third-degree criminal sexual conduct violated the constitutional rule announced in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000). Á Le Sueur County jury found Jones guilty of two counts of criminal sexnal conduct in the third degree. The district court sentenced Jones to a 15-year sentence using the patterned and predatory sex offender statute, Minn.Stat. § 609.108, subd. 1 (2002), and then imposed an additional 10-year conditional release term, under subdivision 6 of the same statute. Minn.Stat. § 609.108, subd. 6 (2002). Concluding that imposition of the conditional release term violated the rule set forth in Apprendi, the court of appeals reversed Jones’s sentence and remanded with instructions to reduce the conditional release term. We reverse in part, affirm in part and remand.

Between February and July 2000, Jones had sexual relations with 15-year-old S.G. multiple times. In July 2000, Jones also sexually assaulted S.G.’s 17-year-old sister, A.G. While A.G. was-sleeping, Jones entered her bedroom, laid down, next to her, unbuttoned her pants and inserted his finger into her vagina. Subsequently, Jones was charged with two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct: (1) sexual penetration of a person between 13 and 16 years of age in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.344, subd. 1(b) (2002) (Count I); and (2) sexual penetration of a person he knows to be helpless in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.344, subd. 1(d) (Count II). A jury found Jones guilty of both counts.

At the sentencing hearing, the district court entered judgment of conviction on both counts. Addressing Count I, the court sentenced Jones in accordance with the sentencing guidelines to 28 months and stayed the execution for 15 years. Turning to Count II, the court sentenced Jones to the statutory maximum prison sentence, 15 years for violating Minn.Stat. § 609.344, subd. 1(d) by utilizing the patterned and predatory sex offender statute, Minn.Stat. § 609.108, subd. 1. As the' factual basis to support the enhancement of the sentence, the court found that Jones was a patterned sex offender based on the following findings: (1) Jones’s conduct was motivated by sexual impulses and was part of a predatory sexual pattern; (2) Jones presented a “very clear” danger to society at large and specifically to females under the age of 16; and (3) Jones was not amenable to probation. In addition, pursuant to subdivision 6 of Minn.Stat. ’§ 609.108, the court notified Jones that he was also subject to 10 years of conditional release to begin after the completion of his incarceration.

On appeal to the court of appeals, Jones argued, among other claims, that he was sentenced to more than the statutory maximum sentence in violation of the United States Constitution as interpreted in Ap-prendi The court concluded that the conditional release term, added to the 15-year sentence, violated the constitution and reversed Jones’s sentence. State v. Jones, 647 N.W.2d 540, 548 (Minn.App.2002). The court remanded for resentencing and instructed the district court to “reduce appellant’s conditional release time to less than ten years so that the conditional release time plus the incarceration time do not exceed the statutory maximum of 15 years.” Id. We granted the state’s petition for review and must determine whether Minn.Stat. § 609.108, subd. 6, as applied to Jones, violates the rule of due process announced by the United States Supreme Court in Apprendi.

I.

We review constitutional challenges to statutes de novo. State v. Gross- *751 man, 636 N.W.2d 545, 548 (Minn.2001). Minnesota statutes are presumed to be constitutional and the party challenging a statute on constitutional grounds “must demonstrate, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the statute violates a provision of the constitution.” Id.

Jones asserts that his 10-year conditional release term imposed under Minn. Stat. § 609.108, subd. 6 violates Apprendi. 1 The facts of Apprendi are as follows. On December 22, 1994, Apprendi fired several .22-caliber bullets into the home of an African-American family in Vineland, New Jersey. Apprendi 530 U.S. at 469, 120 S.Ct. 2348. After being indicted for the shooting, he entered into a plea agreement in which he pleaded guilty to second-degree possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose. Id. at 469-70, 120 S.Ct. 2348. Under New Jersey law, the offense carried a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. Id. at 470, 120 S.Ct. 2348. As part of the plea agreement, the state reserved the right to increase the sentence under a separate hate crime statute that authorized the imposition of an “enhanced” sentence when the offense was committed with a biased purpose. Id. The district court found by a preponderance of the evidence that the crime was motivated by racial bias and sentenced Apprendi to a 12-year term of imprisonment using the separate hate crime statute. This sentence was 2 years more than the 10-year statutory maximum sentence for the possession of a firearm offense. Id. at 470-71, 120 S.Ct. 2348.

On appeal, the Supreme Court considered whether due process “requires that a factual determination authorizing an increase in the maximum prison sentence * * * be made by a jury on the basis of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 469, 120 S.Ct. 2348. The Court stated that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial entitle a defendant to “a jury determination that [he] is guilty of every element of the crime with which he is charged, beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 478, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (quoting United States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 510, 115 S.Ct. 2310, 132 L.Ed.2d 444 (1995)). Applying this principle, the Court articulated the following rule: “[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Apprendi 530 U.S. at 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348. Thus, we must determine whether Jones’s 10-year conditional release term was predicated on factual findings made by a judge by a preponderance of the evidence; and whether Jones’s 10-year conditional release term was constitutionally significant in that it exceeded the maximum penalty prescribed by statute.

Jones asserts that the imposition of the 10-year conditional release term was based on post-jury verdict judicial findings made by a preponderance of the evidence standard.

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Bluebook (online)
659 N.W.2d 748, 2003 Minn. LEXIS 199, 2003 WL 1889823, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-jones-minn-2003.