State v. Bicknese

• Citation: 285 NW 2d 684
• Decision Date: 16 November 1979
• Docket Number: No. 50516.,50516.
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Lloyd D. BICKNESE, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

285 N.W.2d 684 (1979)

STATE of Minnesota, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Lloyd D. BICKNESE, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 50516.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

November 16, 1979.

Elkins & Youngquist and Steven C. Youngquist, Rochester, for defendant-appellant.

Warren Spannaus, Atty. Gen., Thomas L. Fabel, Deputy Atty. Gen., Richard D. Hodsdon, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., St. Paul, Dewayne P. Mattson, County Atty., and Raymond F. Schmitz, Asst. County Atty., Rochester, for plaintiff-respondent.

Considered and decided by the court en banc without oral argument.

SHERAN, Chief Justice.

This is a prosecution of defendant for criminal sexual conduct in the second degree, Minn.Stat. § 609.343(a) (1978), specifically, for engaging in "sexual contact" with another person where the complainant is under 13 years of age and the actor is more than 36 months older. The district court has certified to this court for pretrial decision pursuant to R. 29.02, subd. 4, R.Crim.P., a question whether Minn.Stat. § 609.341, subd. 11 — which, in defining "sexual contact" as including certain specified nonconsensual touchings, uses the qualifying phrase "if the acts can reasonably be construed as being for the purpose of satisfying the actor's sexual or aggressive impulses" — is unconstitutional and, if so, whether the statute must therefore be struck down as void rather than given a saving interpretation or construction. The district court, while denying the defense motion to dismiss and stating his intent to instruct in the manner ordered in State v. Tibbetts, 281 N.W.2d 499 (Minn.1979), certified the issue as important and doubtful. We affirm the order denying the motion to dismiss and remand for trial.

Recently, in State v. Tibbetts, supra, we reversed the convictions of a defendant for second and fourth degree criminal sexual conduct, which are offenses involving "sexual contact," and granted a new trial on the ground that the instruction of the trial court, which included the previously alluded to qualifying phrase taken from § 609.341, subd. 11, had the effect of obscuring and diluting the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In doing so, we stated as follows:

By instructing the jury that "the touching could reasonably be construed as being for the purpose of satisfying the defendant\'s sexual impulses" the degree of proof was shifted from acts which must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt to acts which could reasonably be construed or interpreted to be for an improper purpose. In ordinary parlance the use of the word "could" means something which is "possible", here suggesting to a jury that it had the right to convict if it found that an improper purpose was only one of several reasonable alternatives. It was tantamount to charging that if this purpose could reasonably be inferred, to reach a verdict of guilty the jury need not exclude other reasonable inferences which might lead to an opposite conclusion. In other

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