State v. Beckman
| Decision Date | 27 October 2014 |
| Docket Number | A13-2334 |
| Court | Minnesota Court of Appeals |
| Parties | State of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Donald Ernest Beckman, Appellant. |
This opinion will be unpublished and may not be cited except as provided by Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2012).
Affirmed
St. Louis County District Court
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and
James Andrew Borland, Hibbing City Attorney, Sellman Law Office, Hibbing, Minnesota (for respondent)
Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Sean M. McGuire, Assistant State Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)
Considered and decided by Stauber, Presiding Judge; Hooten, Judge; and Kirk, Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
On appeal from his convictions of misdemeanor criminal damage to property and disorderly conduct, appellant argues that (1) the evidence was insufficient to sustain hisconvictions and (2) the district court erred by sentencing him for two offenses that occurred during a single behavioral incident. We affirm.
On September 10, 2012, appellant Donald Beckman went to the Hibbing Public Utilities (HPU) office to apply to have public utilities hooked up for his newly rented home. When he arrived at the HPU office, appellant, who is disabled and walks with a cane due to a lower-back injury, was informed that he needed to pay a $420 deposit to put the utilities in his name. Appellant then left the office, annoyed because he did not have sufficient funds on hand and because he was not informed beforehand of the deposit requirement.
After appellant left, Joseph Borra, a HPU employee, noticed that the outside door was not automatically closing. The doors are of heavy steel construction with double-pane glass. They are "handicap accessible," having a control arm that is connected to a motor. When the handicap-access button is pressed, the control arm operates an opening mechanism, and then a retraction mechanism when the door is closing. When the arm is not attached, the door will not open when the access button is pressed, requiring the person seeking entry to physically open the door. Once physically opened, the door will not automatically close.
Borra mentioned to a co-worker that, when appellant left the office, he broke the door. Borra then informed his supervisor of the situation. A police report was filed, and appellant was charged with disorderly conduct and criminal damage to property.
At trial, Borra testified that after being told of the required deposit, appellant "became upset with the amount" and began screaming and shouting obscenities. Borra also testified that appellant then left the building, pushing "excessively hard" on the door, causing the mechanism to break. Although Borra acknowledged that the doors "are somewhat hard to open," he testified that when appellant left, "there was a rapid rate of acceleration with the door, much faster than the average person leaving." Borra explained that Borra further testified that he "could visibly see that the hinge mechanism on the top [of the door] was separated." Finally, Borra could not recall having any problems with the door prior to appellant's visit.
Appellant testified that when he went to the HPU office on September 10, he pressed the handicap-access button that was supposed to open the external door. According to appellant, however, the door did not open. Appellant testified that he then pushed the button three or four more times, but it still would not open. Appellant further testified that he then used the handle of the door and physically opened it, which, because of his disability, was a difficult task.
Appellant testified that once inside the office, he talked with Borra, whom he recognized as somebody he knew of from high school. Appellant stated that when he was informed that he needed to pay a $420 deposit, he Appellant claimed that he called the deposit demand "ridiculous," and then walked away from the counter. According to appellant, he then had to push the door open and "prop it open with [his] cane, and then proceed to walk out." Appellant denied trying to break the door and did not "think" that he had damaged the door. And, although he could not testify with any certainty that he did not use a swear word when expressing his displeasure about the $420 deposit, he denied threatening anyone or attempting to pick a fight with anyone.
The jury found appellant guilty of both charged offenses. The district court then imposed concurrent 30-day sentences for both the disorderly conduct and the criminal damage to property offenses and stayed execution of those sentences. The court also imposed $500 fines for both offenses and ordered appellant to pay $269 in restitution for the criminal-damage-to-property offense. This appeal followed.
Appellant challenges his convictions of disorderly conduct and criminal damage to property, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions. When reviewing the sufficiency of evidence to support a conviction, we conduct "a painstaking analysis of the record to determine whether the evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to the conviction," is sufficient to allow jurors to reach a verdict of guilty. State v. Ortega, 813 N.W.2d 86, 100 (Minn. 2012) (quotation omitted). We assume that "the jury believed the state's witnesses and disbelieved any evidence to the contrary." State v. Caldwell, 803 N.W.2d 373, 384 (Minn. 2011) (quotation omitted). This court"will not disturb the verdict if the jury, acting with due regard for the presumption of innocence and the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, could reasonably conclude that the defendant was guilty of the charged offense." Ortega, 813 N.W.2d at 100.
Minnesota law provides that whoever "engages in offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous, or noisy conduct or in offensive, obscene, or abusive language tending reasonably to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others," in a "public or private place . . . knowing, or having reasonable grounds to know that it will, or will tend to, alarm, anger or disturb others or provoke an assault or breach of the peace, is guilty of disorderly conduct." Minn. Stat. § 609.72, subd. 1(3) (2012).
Disorderly conduct charges "must be closely scrutinized." State v. Klimek, 398 N.W.2d 41, 42 (Minn. App. 1986). "Whether particular conduct constitutes disorderly conduct depends on the facts and circumstances of each case." Id. at 43. Disorderly conduct must be conduct that will affect the peace and quiet of persons who may witness it and may be disturbed or driven to resentment by it. State v. Reynolds, 243 Minn. 196, 201, 66 N.W.2d 886, 890 (1954). When reviewing a conviction of disorderly conduct, a reviewing court must consider the defendant's words and conduct as a package. Klimek, 398 N.W.2d at 43.
Appellant argues that the record does "not support the conclusion that [he] engaged in offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous, or noisy conduct, tending to reasonably arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others." We disagree. Words that arevulgar, offensive, or insulting may be criminal if they fall outside the protection afforded to speech by the First Amendment. In re Welfare of S.L.J., 263 N.W.2d 412, 416 (Minn. 1978); see also In re Welfare of M.A.H., 572 N.W.2d 752, 759-60 (Minn. App. 1997) (). Although "the disorderly conduct statute prohibits only 'fighting words' as applied to speech content, the disorderly shouting of otherwise protected speech or engaging in other 'boisterous or noisy conduct' may still trigger punishment under the statute without offending the First Amendment." In re Welfare of T.L.S., 713 N.W.2d 877, 881 (Minn. App. 2006). Under those conditions, "it is not speech itself that triggers punishment; the statute may be applied to punish the manner of delivery of speech when the disorderly nature of the speech does not depend on its content." Id. Therefore, appellant's conviction may be upheld if his conduct was "offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous, or noisy" and if he knew or had reason to know that his conduct would "tend to alarm, anger or disturb others." Minn. Stat. § 609.72, subd. 1(3).
Borra testified that, after being told of the required deposit, appellant "became upset with the amount" and began screaming and shouting obscenities. He also testified that when appellant left the building, he pushed "excessively hard" against the door. And, according to Borra, "everyone" in the office was "concern[ed]" and "took aware of what was going on" during appellant's outburst. If believed, Borra's testimony establishes that appellant knowingly engaged in abusive, boisterous, or noisy conduct that disturbed the people in the office. See Minn. Stat. § 609.72, subd. 1(3) (). The jury heard the evidence presented at trial and believed Borra's testimony, and we defer to the jury's determination of facts, assuming it believed the state's witnesses and rejected contrary evidence. See State v. McDonald, 394 N.W.2d 572, 576 (Minn. App. 1986) (), review denied (Minn. Nov. 26,...
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