State v. Pickett

343 N.W.2d 670, 1984 Minn. App. LEXIS 2992
CourtCourt of Appeals of Minnesota
DecidedJanuary 25, 1984
DocketC7-83-1676
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 343 N.W.2d 670 (State v. Pickett) 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. Pickett, 343 N.W.2d 670, 1984 Minn. App. LEXIS 2992 (Mich. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

OPINION

SEDGWICK, Judge.

This is an appeal by a criminal defendant pursuant to Minn.Stat. § 244.11 (1982), from the trial court’s refusal to depart dispositionally from the presumptive sentence and from the trial court’s calculation of the sentence duration.

Pursuant to a plea negotiation, defendant pleaded guilty to five charges of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree, Minn. Stat. § 609.342(c) (1982). On July 26, 1983, a sentencing hearing was held. Defendant’s counsel, defendant’s father and defendant offered remarks. The court also had written recommendations from the court-appointed psychologist and defendant’s licensed consulting psychologist. After adjudging defendant guilty of all five charges, the court imposed consecutive sentences of 43 months, 54 months, 65 months, 76 months, and 95 months respectively. Consolidated, the sentence imposed is 333 months. We affirm.

FACTS

During 1982 and early 1983, Brooklyn Park, Brooklyn Center and New Hope suffered a series of rapes. The rapes were occurring during the early morning hours and in the garage area of apartment buildings. The victims reported that the rapist was wearing a dark ski mask with red trim around the openings and that he had threatened to hurt or kill them if they did not submit to him. The victims’ general description of the rapist also matched, as did the zig-zag footprint police found in the snow at the scene of some of the rapes.

Because of the consistent pattern of the rapist’s method of operation, the police departments of the three communities coordinated the investigation. Surveillance of apartment lots and garages during the late night and early morning hours was initiated. On February 9, 1983, a car cruising an apartment parking lot was stopped by a Brooklyn Park police officer. The driver of the car was the defendant, Charles Pickett. Mr. Pickett matched the general description provided by the victims. The tennis shoes he wore also matched the zig-zag patterned footprints found at some of the rape scenes.

*672 Based on the stop and the information gathered therefrom, the police obtained an order permitting placement of an electronic tracking device on defendant’s car. The defendant was seen following women to apartment complexes and their garage stalls before driving away. On March 9, 1983, the defendant observed the police placing a tracking device on the car he was then using. Having been discovered, the police arrested the defendant.

After being advised of his rights and the surveillance he had been under, defendant admitted committing ten rapes. The defendant went through the various rapes and without any specific information from the police officers, provided details that only the rapist would have known. Besides the address and approximate date of each rape, the defendant remembered: that a particular victim was wearing her Dairy Queen uniform; that another requested that he open the hatchback of her car because she suffered from claustrophobia; that he made a third remove her tampon before he raped her; that he made another remove her cowboy boots before he raped her; that two more victims each had a small child with them when he raped them and one had clutched her baby during the rape. The defendant also informed the police of the whereabouts of the jacket, ski mask, and tennis shoes he had worn during most of the rapes.

On March 11, 1983, three charges of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree, Minn.Stat. § 609.342(c) (1982), were filed against defendant. Two additional charges were filed on March 15, 1983. Defendant was arraigned on April 20, 1983, and pled not guilty. Thereafter, defendant moved to suppress certain evidence, including his confession, and to dismiss the charges for lack of probable cause. The motion was denied on June 17, 1983.

On June 22, 1983, a plea negotiation was entered into. In exchange for defendant’s plea of guilty to the five rape charges, the state agreed not to charge defendant with the other five rapes and to refrain from commenting at defendant’s sentencing hearing. After examination of the defendant by the parties and the court, the court accepted defendant’s guilty plea and sentenced him to an executed sentence of 333 months.

ISSUES

1. Whether the trial court’s refusal to depart dispositionally from the presumptive sentence of the Guidelines constitutes an abuse of discretion?

2. Whether increasing defendant’s criminal history score for each conviction being sentenced and simultaneously ordering the sentences to run consecutively is inconsistent with the requirements of the Guidelines?

ANALYSIS

On June 22, 1983, appellant pleaded guilty to five charges of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree, Minn.Stat. § 609.342(c) (1982). On July 26, 1983, he was sentenced to the custody of the Commissioner of Corrections at the State Prison at Stillwater on all five convictions.

Criminal sexual conduct in the first degree rates a severity level VIII on the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Grid. The presumed disposition for conviction of a severity level VIII crime, regardless of the defendant’s criminal history score, is prison. Appellant acknowledges this dispo-sitional presumption of the Guidelines, but seeks a departure from the Guidelines based on his amenability to treatment.

Minnesota has recognized amenability to probation as a ground for dispositional departure. State v. Bentley, 329 N.W.2d 39, 40 (Minn.1983); State v. Wright, 310 N.W.2d 461, 462 (Minn.1981). In other cases, our court has stated that “a defendant’s particular amenability to individualized treatment in a probationary setting will justify departure in the form of a stay of imposition or execution of a presumptively executed sentence.” State v. Hennessy, 328 N.W.2d 442, 443 (Minn.1983); State v. Clemmer, 328 N.W.2d 739, 740 (Minn.1983).

*673 Among the factors to be considered in determining the defendant’s amenability to probation or treatment in a probationary setting are: his age, his prior record, his remorse, his cooperation, his attitude while in court, and the support of friends and family. State v. Clemmer, supra. The defendant in this case is 25 years old, has no prior criminal record, and over 50 letters from family and friends were submitted on his behalf. Additionally, his psychologist recommended the defendant be given every consideration for psychological or psychiatric treatment.

Aware of all of these facts, the trial judge sentenced defendant to prison time for all five convictions. As our Supreme Court reiterated in State of Minnesota v. Back, 341 N.W.2d 273 (Minn.1983):

⅜ * * ordinarily we will not interfere with a sentence that falls within the presumptive sentence range even if there are grounds that would justify departure. See, e.g., State v. Abeyta,

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Related

State v. James
827 P.2d 1057 (Court of Appeals of Washington, 1992)
State v. Pickett
375 N.W.2d 105 (Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 1985)
State v. Southard
360 N.W.2d 376 (Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 1985)
State v. Pickett
358 N.W.2d 38 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1984)
State v. Roesch
349 N.W.2d 348 (Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 1984)
State v. Andren
347 N.W.2d 846 (Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 1984)
State v. Wallner
346 N.W.2d 386 (Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 1984)

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Bluebook (online)
343 N.W.2d 670, 1984 Minn. App. LEXIS 2992, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-pickett-minnctapp-1984.