Call v. Gomez, s. C6-95-444

• Decision Date: 04 August 1995
• Docket Number: C0-95-486,Nos. C6-95-444,s. C6-95-444
• Citation: 535 N.W.2d 312
• Parties: Gordon B. CALL, Respondent, v. Maria GOMEZ, Commissioner of Human Services, et al., Appellants.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 312

535 N.W.2d 312

Gordon B. CALL, Respondent, v.Maria GOMEZ, Commissioner of Human Services, et al., Appellants.

Nos. C6-95-444, C0-95-486.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Aug. 4, 1995.

Syllabus by the Court

In determining whether to discharge respondent from his psychopathic personality commitment, the Supreme Court Appeal Panel shall apply the statutory discharge criteria for persons committed as mentally ill and dangerous to the public.

Hubert H. Humphrey, III, Atty. Gen., John L. Kirwin, William H. Mondale, Asst. Attys.Gen., St. Paul, and Michael O. FreemanHennepin County Atty., Gayle C. Hendley, Carolyn A. Peterson, Asst. Hennepin County Attys., Minneapolis, for appellant.

Allan R. Poncin, Minneapolis, for respondent.

Heard, considered and decided by the court en banc.

OPINION

KEITH, Chief Justice.

Appellants, Minnesota Commissioner of Human Services and Hennepin County, appeal from an order of a special three-judge Supreme Court Appeal Panel discharging respondent, Gordon Call, from his indeterminate psychopathic personality commitment.Appellants contend that the appeal panel erred by failing to apply the statutory discharge criteria for persons committed as mentally ill and dangerous to the public and by concluding that respondent had to be discharged because appellants failed to prove that respondent continued to evince "an utter lack of control" over his sexual impulses.We reverse and remand.

In February 1993, respondent, Gordon Call, was initially committed as a psychopathic personality to the Minnesota Security Hospital.At that time, Call was serving two concurrent sentences in Minnesota for three separate sexual assaults.In its commitment order, the trial court made the following findings of fact.

Call, now age 48, has a long history of sexually assaultive and predatory behavior.He has admitted to committing at least 36 sexual assaults and other crimes involving boys, girls and adult women.His youngest victim was 6 or 7 years old and his oldest victim was in her mid-twenties.Call admitted to at least 30 rapes between 1978 and 1980.

At age 14, Call was committed to a state school because he had molested a young girl.In 1976 or 1977, on four separate occasions, Call sexually assaulted T.N., an 18-year-old developmentally disabled woman.T.N. was then a live-in baby sitter for Call's girlfriend.Call raped T.N. orally and anally, and on several occasions he threatened to kill her if she reported him to police.After the last assault, T.N. required medical treatment for damage to her rectum and suffered severe emotional distress.T.N. did not report the first three assaults because she feared that Call would follow through on his threat to kill her.

On February 21, 1980, Call offered a ride in his van to D.A., a 16-year-old female.Call eventually tied up D.A.'s hands and legs and took her to a motel, where, for an 11-hour period, he repeatedly raped her, orally, vaginally and anally.During the assault, Call threatened to kill D.A. if she did not cooperate.D.A. eventually escaped and contacted police.On May 28, 1980, Call pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct in Hennepin County District Court for the sexual assault of D.A.He was sentenced to serve an indeterminate sentence not to exceed 20 years.

As a part of his plea bargain for the sexual assault of D.A., another charge of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in Hennepin County was dismissed.That charge involved an assault that occurred on the evening of February 7, 1980, two weeks before the assault of D.A.That evening, Call offered a ride to M.W., a 23-year-old woman who was waiting at a bus stop.During the next 3 to 4 hours, Call assaulted and raped M.W. in his van, at times holding a knife to her throat and threatening to kill her on at least ten separate occasions.He became more sexually aroused as he threatened to kill her.M.W. was able to talk Call out of killing her, and he let her go, threatening to kill her if she reported him.As a result of the assault, M.W. had scratches on her throat from the knife, contracted a sexually transmitted disease, required dental work and was in therapy for several years.

After Call pleaded guilty in Hennepin County to the first-degree sexual assault of D.A., South Dakota filed a detainer on Call on charges of first-degree rape.On September 15, 1979, K.P., a 16-year-old female, was hitchhiking when Call and his half-brother offered her a ride.Call and his half-brother raped K.P. for several hours before leaving her at 2:00 a.m. on an isolated gravel road in the country.On January 26, 1981, Call was convicted in South Dakota for the rape of K.P., and received a sentence of 15 years, to be served concurrently with his Minnesota sentence.

While he was serving his sentence in Minnesota, Call participated in a number of treatment programs, including chemical dependency treatment and sex offender treatment.In April 1985, Call was transferred to the Lino Lakes Correctional Facility to participate in the Transitional Sex Offender Program.He consistently received positive remarks for his participation.In February 1986, Call was granted a parole on his Minnesota sentence.South Dakota, however, denied Call's parole request, and he was permitted to serve the remainder of his South Dakota sentence in Minnesota.In March 1987, Call was transferred to a minimum security cottage at Lino Lakes.Call was allowed to participate in off-grounds duties with a special escort and was allowed to have a full-time off-grounds job under the supervision of civilian employees.He received above-average work evaluations and prison authorities considered his special duties participation to be successful.

Prison officials later discovered, however, that Call had committed several sexual assaults during the time that he was becoming less supervised.In 1984 or 1985, while Call was incarcerated at Lino Lakes, he contacted an adult woman, D.B., through a dating service.Their relationship progressed to what D.B. described as "phone sex."Call eventually told D.B. that he was in prison for statutory rape.At one point, he told D.B. that "[p]retty soon [your daughter] will be about 10 or 11 and she'll be nice and ripe for me because I'll be out of prison by then."On one occasion, D.B. visited Call at Lino Lakes, and he inserted his finger into her vagina, telling her to be quiet or she would get hurt.D.B. later agreed to meet Call to have sex during a supervised leave from Lino Lakes.The encounter, although initially consensual, turned violent when Call forced D.B. to have anal intercourse with him, despite her requests for him to stop.

In 1986, Call started a relationship with D.S., who would bring her 9-year-old daughter, C.S., to Lino Lakes for prison visits.In April 1986, in the visiting room at Lino Lakes, Call reached inside C.S.'s pants and touched her buttocks.On several occasions, Call phoned C.S. and made sexually explicit comments to her.During one escorted visit to the home of D.S., Call made C.S. rub his exposed penis.In August 1988, D.S. picked up Call from his civilian job site and brought him to her home where he sexually assaulted C.S.

In 1988, while on special duties off of the prison grounds, Call developed a relationship with R.B., a 16-year-old female.Call and R.B. continued to correspond after Call's special duty privileges were revoked in August 1988.Call wrote letters to R.B. in which he detailed explicit sexual fantasies involving R.B.Once the relationship was discovered, prison staff ordered Call to cease communication with R.B.

In August 1988, after his sexual misconduct was discovered, Call was transferred to the Minnesota Correctional facility at Stillwater.His Minnesota parole was revoked and he was assigned to serve his sentence until June 23, 1993, the expiration date of his Minnesota sentence.On December 20, 1988, Call pleaded guilty in Hennepin County District Court to second-degree criminal sexual conduct for the assault of C.S.He was sentenced to serve 36 months to run concurrently with his previous Minnesota and South Dakota sentences.

On May 23, 1989, Call was transferred to the Complex One Treatment Unit at the Minnesota Correctional Facility at Oak Parks Heights.Call reportedly made progress in the Complex One treatment program, although staff felt that Call did not internalize treatment concepts.Call also participated in chemical dependency treatment and he acknowledged a long history of substance abuse.

In June 1990, Call entered the sex offender treatment group at Complex One.At one point, he had a conflict with his female case manager.Call told her that if he were in the community, she was the kind of woman that he would choose to rape.Call had other difficulties with the success of his treatment and he was eventually terminated from the Complex One program in July 1991, after he arranged to meet another inmate in the bathroom for a kiss.

In February 1992, Call was transferred to the Transitional Sex Offender program at Lino Lakes.When Call first entered the program, he was still angry with his case manager.Call admitted to staff that he fantasized about anally raping his case manager, holding her head and slapping her.

Eventually, the Director of Mental Health Services at the Minnesota Correctional Facility at Oak Park Heights filed a petition for commitment.After a four-day hearing in August and October 1992, Call was committed as a psychopathic personality on February 3, 1993.On June 15, 1993, the Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed the commitment in an unpublished opinion.C9-93-501, 1993 WL 207824(Minn.App.June 15, 1993).While appeal of the initial commitment was pending in this court, the district court held the statutorily required 60-day review hearing and concluded in a November 29, 1993 order that Call was in need of further treatment and that he should be committed as a psychopathic...