State v. Chaklos
| Decision Date | 10 February 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. C0-93-2542,C0-93-2542 |
| Citation | 528 N.W.2d 225 |
| Parties | STATE of Minnesota, petitioner, Appellant, v. Mark Richard CHAKLOS, Respondent. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
Defendant committed the offense of criminal vehicular operation resulting in substantial bodily harm in a particularly serious way and therefore grounds for a durational departure or one with respect to consecutive service existed.
Hubert H. Humphrey, III, Atty. Gen., St. Paul, and James Terwedo, Scott County Atty., Thomas J. Harbinson, First Asst. County Atty., Susan K. McNellis, Asst. County Atty., Shakopee, for appellant.
John M. Stuart, State Public Defender, Lawrence Hammerling, Deputy State Public Defender, Minneapolis, and Stephen W. Walburg, Jaspers, Moriarity & Walburg, Shakopee, for respondent.
Considered and decided by the court en banc without oral argument.
This is a sentencing appeal. Defendant, Mark Richard Chaklos, while having a blood alcohol concentration of .10 or more, drove his car into the rear of another car on a state highway, injuring the driver, Monica Dahl, and killing the passenger, Rhonda Lee Holker, a 32-year-old woman who was the mother of a 9-year-old girl. A jury found the defendant guilty of criminal vehicular homicide and criminal vehicular operation resulting in substantial bodily harm. He was sentenced by the trial court to consecutive executed prison terms of 21 months and 12 months, or an aggregate term of 33 months in prison. Believing that the execution of the term of 12 months constituted a dispositional departure, the trial court gave reasons therefor. The court of appeals concluded that the dispositional departure was unjustified and ordered the trial court on remand to resentence defendant to a stayed consecutive term for the less serious of the two offenses. State v. Chaklos, 522 N.W.2d 361 (Minn.App.1994). We reverse the decision of the court of appeals and reinstate the sentence imposed by the trial court.
In the early evening of February 16, 1992, the two victims, Dahl and Holker, were proceeding east on Highway 42, a well-traveled road, near Prior Lake in a Geo Metro, which is a small car. Dahl, the driver, pulled off the road at the approach of a westbound ambulance with lights flashing. After the ambulance had driven by her car, Dahl pulled back onto the eastbound lane. She then saw headlights coming up behind her "pretty fast." She accelerated but was unable to accelerate sufficiently to avoid being rear-ended by the car, which was driven by defendant. Defendant's car, a Saab, which he was driving without insurance, smashed into the rear of Dahl's car, pushing it off the road into a utility pole.
Holker died from a broken neck. Dahl was hospitalized. Stitches were needed to repair cuts on her face and arms. A plastic surgeon had to be called to the hospital to repair her ear. Dahl received physical therapy for several weeks after the accident because of an injury to her back. She also apparently has suffered some depression as a result of the accident.
Defendant, age 26, lied to the investigating officer, claiming that another car had passed him and hit the Dahl car and that he had merely hit the other car after the accident. Defendant said that the other car had fled the scene. He also claimed that he had consumed only "two beers." Analysis of a blood sample taken from defendant with his permission, however, revealed that his blood alcohol concentration was .25, which is very high.
An accident reconstruction expert established that it was defendant's car that had hit the Dahl car and that his car had not left any skid or brake marks before making impact.
A complaint was filed against defendant on April 4, 1992, charging him with three counts of criminal vehicular homicide under three different subsections (2, 3 and 4) of section 609.21, subdivision 1, for the killing of Holker, and three counts of criminal vehicular operation resulting in substantial bodily harm under three different subsections (2, 3 and 4) of section 609.21, subdivision 2a for injuring Dahl.
On April 12, 1992, about 2 months after the accident, defendant was arrested in Burnsville for driving while intoxicated. His blood alcohol concentration at that time was .16.
After this arrest he entered a treatment program, which apparently he successfully completed.
The case did not come on for trial until July 1993, a year and a half after the incident. The jury acquitted defendant of the two counts based on subsections (2) of sections 609.21, subdivision 1 and 609.21, subdivision 2a. These were counts requiring proof of negligent driving while under the influence of alcohol. The jury found him guilty of the other counts, counts requiring proof that his driving caused the death or injury while he had a blood alcohol concentration of .10 or more or while he had a blood alcohol concentration of .10 or more within 2 hours after the accident. The jury also found him guilty of two lesser-included offenses submitted, namely, two counts of driving while under the influence of alcohol.
As we said at the outset, the trial court imposed consecutive executed prison terms of 21 months and 12 months, or an aggregate term of 33 months in prison. The court of appeals ruled that the trial court erred in executing the sentence for the less serious of the two offenses.
We agree that the presumptive sentence for the offense of criminal vehicular homicide, section 609.21, subdivision 1(3), is an executed prison term of 21 months. 1
We also agree that the trial court was free to use consecutive sentencing without having to give any reasons. Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines II.F.2. allows "permissive" use of consecutive sentencing "[w]hen the offender is convicted of multiple current felony convictions for crimes against different persons, and when the sentence for the most severe current conviction is executed according to the guidelines."
The trial court assumed and the state conceded that the presumptive sentence to be used in the consecutive sentence of defendant for the less serious offense of criminal vehicular operation resulting in substantial bodily harm is a stayed sentence of 12 months. The argument can be made that when consecutive sentencing is authorized by II.F.2., all that is required is that the most serious offense be one that is, according to the guidelines, required to be executed and not stayed. Cf. State v. Lindsey, 314 N.W.2d 823, 825 (Minn.1982) (). Not only does II.F.2. say that consecutive sentencing is permitted if the sentence for the most serious current offense is required to be executed, but II.F. later provides:
For persons given consecutive sentences, the sentence durations for each separate offense sentenced consecutively shall be aggregated into a single presumptive sentence. The presumptive duration for offenses sentenced consecutively is determined by locating the Sentencing Guidelines Grid cell defined by the most severe offense and the offender's criminal history score and by adding to the duration shown therein the duration indicated for every other offense sentenced consecutively at their respective levels of severity but at the zero criminal history column on the Grid.
(emphasis added). The combination of these two provisions in II.F. suggests that the drafters of the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines contemplated that if the most severe current conviction is executed according to the guidelines, then the durations for all of the offenses being sentenced consecutively should be combined into a single duration. Accord State v. Hopkins, 486...
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...downward dispositional departure, a district court may consider both offender- and offense-related factors." Id. ; see State v. Chaklos , 528 N.W.2d 225, 228 (Minn. 1995) (applying offense-related factors); State v. Trog, 323 N.W.2d 28, 31 (Minn. 1982) (applying offender-related factors). A......
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...appropriately considered his attempt to shift blame, under the circumstances, as more than a mere denial of guilt. See State v. Chaklos, 528 N.W.2d 225, 228 (Minn.1995) (affirming aggravated sentence based, in part, on defendant's "conduct of trying to pin the blame for the offense on someo......
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...dispositional departures under the guidelines may be based on either offender- or offense-related aggravating factors. State v. Chaklos, 528 N.W.2d 225, 228 (Minn.1995). Recognizing that the list of aggravating and mitigating factors in Minn. Sent. Guidelines II.D.2 is nonexclusive, we have......
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