State v. Dressel, No. A08-2130.

• Decision Date: 19 May 2009
• Docket Number: No. A08-2130.
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Appellant, v. Robert Paul DRESSEL, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Court of Appeals

765 N.W.2d 419

STATE of Minnesota, Appellant, v. Robert Paul DRESSEL, Respondent.

No. A08-2130.

Court of Appeals of Minnesota.

May 19, 2009.

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Patrick J. Ciliberto, Scott County Attorney, Todd P. Zettler, Special Assistant County Attorney, Shakopee, for appellant.

Daniel L. Gerdts, Brink & Gerdts, P.A., Minneapolis, for respondent.

Considered and decided by ROSS, Presiding Judge; TOUSSAINT, Chief Judge; and JOHNSON, Judge.

OPINION

JOHNSON, Judge.

Robert Paul Dressel, Jr., is charged with several offenses arising from an incident involving his three-year-old daughter. The district court granted Dressel's motion to suppress statements he made to law enforcement officers after taking a polygraph examination, and the state has challenged the district court's ruling in this pre-trial appeal. We conclude that the district court erred by suppressing Dressel's post-polygraph statements on the ground that the statements were made in connection with a polygraph examination. Therefore, we reverse and remand.

FACTS

On May 1, 2008, Dressel brought his three-year-old daughter to the emergency room at St. Francis Hospital. The emergency room doctor reported that the girl's vaginal opening was torn through to her anal opening and that her labia were bruised. Because of the severity of her injuries, the girl was transferred to Children's Hospital in St. Paul, where an emergency room doctor requested that the Midwest Children's Resource Center (MCRC) evaluate her for possible sexual abuse. In an examination report, one of the MCRC doctors equated the girl's injuries to the type of injuries often experienced by a woman in childbirth. Surgeons at Children's Hospital later performed surgery to repair the injuries.

On May 2, 2008, Shakopee Police Detective Bridget Rettke conducted an investigation into the girl's injuries. Detective Rettke traveled to Children's Hospital, where she met with Dressel, his wife, and a child protection worker. Although the girl was in Dressel's care before he brought her to the hospital, Dressel could not explain to Detective Rettke how the girl's vaginal opening was torn. He stated that he noticed her injury while wiping her buttocks but that he had not been upset or frustrated with her and that he was "not rough with her." When asked whether he placed his finger in the girl's vaginal area, he answered, "I don't think so." Detective Rettke later visited Dressel at his home and asked him to come to the police station for a polygraph examination. Dressel agreed to do so a few days later.

On May 6, 2008, Dressel, his wife, and their daughter visited the Shakopee police station for the polygraph examination, which was administered by Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Special Agent Michael Wold. Before the examination began, Agent Wold explained the process to Dressel and told him that he was not required to take the examination. Agent Wold went over a consent form, which stated that Dressel was taking the polygraph examination "voluntarily, without duress, coercion, threats, or promises." Agent Wold also told Dressel that he was free to leave at any time during or after the examination and that he would not be arrested that day. Dressel signed the consent form and submitted to the examination. During the examination, Dressel stated, consistent with his statements at the hospital, that he did not insert his finger or anything else into the girl's vagina. After the examination, Dressel waited in the lobby while Agent Wold scored the examination and discussed the results with Detective Rettke.

Agent Wold and Detective Rettke then met with Dressel in a conference room to review with him the results of the examination. Agent Wold began the meeting by reiterating that Dressel was free to leave. Detective Rettke showed Dressel that the door was unlocked and reiterated that he would not be arrested that day under any circumstances. Dressel later testified that neither Agent Wold nor Detective Rettke did anything that he viewed as coercive but that he felt trapped in the conference room and that he was not allowed to leave. Agent Wold then told Dressel that he had failed the polygraph examination in a "pretty significant" way. Agent Wold told Dressel that he believed that Dressel had caused his daughter's injuries.

Dressel at first denied hurting the girl but eventually provided information indicating that he did cause the girl's injuries. He explained that he was in the kitchen of his home when his daughter called for help from an upstairs bathroom. Dressel stated that when he arrived upstairs, he found her standing in front of the toilet without pants and underwear and with her buttocks covered in diarrhea. Dressel told Agent Wold and Detective Rettke that this made him "very angry" and that he "just snapped." Dressel stated that he used a moist paper cloth to wipe her bottom and that he did so "very forcefully." Dressel stated that he "jabbed" the girl in her vagina with his fingers wrapped in the paper cloth, putting as many as four fingers into her vagina in a manner that he described as "very rough" and "very rapidly and very hard." Dressel stated that he felt the skin give way and saw that the paper cloth was covered in blood, at which point he stopped wiping her and wrapped her in a towel. When asked whether he had used any object on the girl, he stated, "It was just my fingers." The post-polygraph interview lasted approximately one-and-one-half hours. Afterward, Detective Rettke gave Dressel a ride to his home.

On May 13, 2008, the state charged Dressel with four felonies: criminal sexual conduct in the first degree, in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.342, subd. 1(a) (2006); criminal sexual conduct in the second degree, in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.343, subd. 1(h)(ii) (2006); malicious punishment of a child, in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.377, subd. 5 (2006); and assault in the third degree, in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.223, subd. 1 (2006).

In October 2008, Dressel moved to suppress both his oral statements to Detective Rettke at Children's Hospital and his oral statements to Agent Wold and Detective Rettke at the Shakopee police station. Dressel argued that both statements were not voluntary and were obtained without a Miranda warning. The district court conducted an omnibus hearing at which it received testimony from Agent Wold, Detective Rettke, and Dressel. The district court also admitted into evidence audiorecordings of Dressel's statements at Children's Hospital and at the Shakopee police station and a videorecording of the polygraph examination.

In an order filed December 5, 2008, the district court denied Dressel's motion to suppress the statements he provided at Children's Hospital because he was not in custody and because the statements were "clearly voluntary." The district court, however, granted Dressel's motion to suppress the statements he provided at the police station because, among other reasons, they were "an extension of the polygraph examination" and, therefore, inadmissible. The state appeals the suppression of the statements provided by Dressel at the police station.

ISSUES

I. Would suppression of Dressel's post-polygraph statements have a critical impact on the state's prosecution of the offenses with which he is charged?

II. Are the statements made by Dressel at the Shakopee police station inadmissible on the ground that they were made following a polygraph examination?

ANALYSIS

The state argues that the district court erred by granting Dressel's motion to suppress statements he provided to Agent Wold and Detective Rettke in the post-polygraph interview. Before considering the substance of the state's argument, we first must address the threshold issue whether the state may pursue this pretrial appeal.

I.

When the state appeals from a pretrial order, it "must clearly and unequivocally show . . . that the trial court's order will have a critical impact on the state's ability to prosecute the defendant successfully." State v. Scott, 584 N.W.2d 412, 416 (Minn.1998) (quotation omitted). The critical-impact test "is intended to be a demanding standard" and requires the state to show that the ruling "`significantly reduces the likelihood of a successful prosecution.'" State v. Rambahal, 751 N.W.2d 84, 89 (Minn.2008) (quoting State v. McLeod, 705 N.W.2d 776, 784 (Minn. 2005)). The state may satisfy the critical-impact test even if a district court's ruling affects the likelihood of successful prosecution of only some of the charges. State v. Kiminski, 474 N.W.2d 385, 389 (Minn.App. 1991), review denied (Minn. Oct. 11, 1991); see also State v. Ault, 478 N.W.2d 797, 799 (Minn.App.1991) ("a defendant's confession may have a `critical impact' even though the state has other substantial evidence of guilt").

When analyzing critical impact after a district court has granted a motion to suppress evidence,

an appellate court should first examine all the admissible evidence available to the state in order to determine what impact the absence of the suppressed evidence will have. The analysis should not stop there, however. The court should go on to examine the inherent qualities of the suppressed evidence itself, its relevance and probative force, its chronological proximity to the alleged crime, its effect in filling gaps in the evidence viewed as a whole, its quality as a perspective of events different from those otherwise available, its clarity and amount of detail and its origin. Suppressed evidence particularly unique in nature and quality is more likely to meet the critical impact test.

In re Welfare of L.E.P., 594 N.W.2d 163, 168 (Minn.1999) (citations omitted).

The state argues that the district court's suppression of Dressel's post-polygraph statements would have a critical impact on the state's case because the post-polygraph statements make clear that Dressel intended to injure the girl, in contrast to the...