State v. Hentges

• Decision Date: 25 June 2014
• Docket Number: No. A12–0794.,A12–0794.
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Appellant, v. John Mark HENTGES, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

844 N.W.2d 500

STATE of Minnesota, Appellant,

v.John Mark HENTGES, Respondent.

No. A12–0794.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

April 2, 2014.

Review Denied June 25, 2014.

Syllabus by the Court

1. An appellate court has the discretion to dismiss a criminal appeal when the party who brings the appeal is a fugitive.

2. We direct the court of appeals to dismiss the respondent's appeal if he does not surrender to law-enforcement officials within 10 days after the date of filing of this opinion.

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Saint Paul, Minnesota; Brent Christian, Le Sueur County Attorney, Le Center, Minnesota; and Thomas R. Ragatz, Special Assistant Le Sueur County Attorney, Saint Paul, Minnesota, for appellant.

Mark D. Nyvold, Special Assistant State Public Defender, Fridley, Minnesota, for respondent.

OPINION

STRAS, Justice.

Respondent John Mark Hentges filed an appeal of his conviction of felony failure to pay child support with the court of appeals. After filing his notice of appeal, Hentges failed to appear for a hearing on an alleged probation violation, and the district court issued a bench warrant for his arrest. The State moved to dismiss Hentges's appeal under the fugitive-dismissal rule, which permits an appellate court to dismiss a criminal appeal when the party who brings the appeal is a fugitive. The court of appeals declined to dismiss the appeal. We reverse the decision of the court of appeals and direct it to dismiss Hentges's appeal if he does not surrender to law-enforcement officials within 10 days after the date of filing of this opinion.

I.

In July 2009, the State charged Hentges by criminal complaint with felony failure to pay child support based on over $56,000 in past-due child support. SeeMinn.Stat. § 609.375, subd.2a (2012). Following Hentges's arrest, which occurred nearly 1 year after he was charged, the State served Hentges with the criminal complaint. After a trial in February and March 2011, the jury found Hentges guilty of felony failure to pay child support.

The district court scheduled the sentencing hearing for April 5, 2011. Hentges failed to attend the hearing, and the district court issued a bench warrant for his arrest. Law-enforcement officials arrested Hentges approximately 8 months later, in December 2011, and Hentges was placed in county jail. The district court scheduled a second sentencing hearing for January 17, 2012. Despite being in jail, Hentges refused to attend the hearing. The district court made one final attempt to schedule the sentencing hearing on February 7, 2012, and announced that the court would impose a sentence on that date regardless of whether Hentges attended the hearing. Hentges again refused to attend the hearing despite being in jail, and the court convicted him, stayed execution of a 366–day prison sentence, imposed 5 years of supervised probation, and ordered Hentges to serve a portion of the probation in county jail.

Approximately 10 days after Hentges's release from jail in April 2012, the district court issued a warrant for Hentges's arrest based on a violation report prepared by Hentges's probation officer. According to the violation report, Hentges violated the terms of his probation by failing to sign certain forms and to provide a DNA sample. Several weeks later, Hentges filed a timely notice of appeal from his conviction.¹

Approximately 2 months later, law-enforcement officials arrested Hentges on the outstanding warrant. On the day of the arrest, Hentges's probation officer supplemented her earlier violation report with allegations that Hentges had violated the terms of his probation by contacting his ex-wife and children. The court scheduled a hearing on the alleged probation violations for August 21, 2012. Yet again, Hentges missed the hearing, and the district court issued yet another bench warrant for his arrest—a warrant that remains active to this day.

Although Hentges has refused to attend any hearings in the district court after his trial, he has actively pursued his appeal. During the last 3 months of 2012, the State and Hentges filed their respective briefs in the court of appeals, including a pro se supplemental brief submitted by Hentges.

In the court of appeals, the State moved to dismiss Hentges's appeal on the ground that he is a fugitive who has forfeited his right to an appeal. The court of appeals denied the motion because Minnesota has not yet adopted the fugitive-dismissal rule. State v. Hentges, No. A12–0794, Order at 2 (Minn.App. filed Jan., 2013). The State petitioned for review of the court of appeals' decision. While the State's petition was pending before us, the court of appeals held oral argument on the merits of Hentges's appeal. Once we granted the State's petition for further review, however, the court of appeals stayed its proceedings pending our decision in this case.

II.

The court of appeals correctly observed that we have never addressed, much less adopted, the fugitive-dismissal rule. We therefore granted review to determine whether to adopt the fugitive-dismissal rule, and if so, whether the rule applies to the circumstances presented by this case.

A.

The fugitive-dismissal rule, also known as the fugitive-disentitlement doctrine, has deep roots in American law. According to the Supreme Court of the United States, “[i]t has been settled for well over a century that an appellate court may dismiss the appeal of a defendant who is a fugitive from justice during the pendency of his appeal.” Ortega–Rodriguez v. United States, 507 U.S. 234, 239, 113 S.Ct. 1199, 122 L.Ed.2d 581 (1993).

The earliest reported American case applying the fugitive-dismissal rule dates back to 1850, when the Maine Supreme Court “declined to hear the case” of a person who had escaped from custody while the appeal was pending. Anonymous, 31 Me. 592, 592 (1850). Similarly, in an 1858 decision involving a person who had escaped from custody while his appeal was pending, the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia held that it would dismiss the appeal unless the escapee was in custodywithin roughly a year. Sherman v. Commonwealth, 55 Va. (14 Gratt.) 677, 678 (1858); see also Leftwich v. Commonwealth, 61 Va. (20 Gratt.) 716, 723 (1870) (citing Sherman with approval). Approximately 10 years later, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, relying in part on English case law, dismissed the appeal of a fugitive in Commonwealth v. Andrews, 97 Mass. 543, 544 (1867) (citing The Queen v. Caudwell, (1851) 117 Eng. Rep. 1374 (Q.B.)).

The fugitive-dismissal rule became part of federal law in 1876, when the Supreme Court decided Smith v. United States, 94 U.S. 97, 24 L.Ed. 32 (1876). In Smith, the Court ordered the case to be “left off the docket” if the appellant did not “submit himself to the jurisdiction of the court below on or before the first day of our next term.” Id. at 98. The Court explained:

If we affirm the judgment, [the fugitive] is not likely to appear to submit to his sentence. If we reverse it and order a new trial, he will appear or not, as he may consider most for his interest. Under such circumstances, we are not inclined to hear and decide what may prove to be only a moot case.

Id. at 97.²

By the end of the 19th century, the Supreme Court and courts in 19 states or territories had adopted the fugitive-dismissal rule, typically by giving a fugitive some period in which to surrender before dismissing the appeal. ³ Today, some form of the fugitive-dismissal rule is the law in every federal court and in 43 out of 50 states. Three states—Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Texas—provide for the dismissal of a fugitive's appeal in their rules of appellate procedure.⁴ Courts in 40 other states have adopted or endorsed the fugitive-dismissal rule in judicial decisions.⁵

Of the remaining states, the status of the fugitive-dismissal rule is open in Minnesota and 4 others: Hawaii, Michigan, South Dakota, and Vermont. The rule has been rejected in only 2 states, Louisiana and New Mexico, for reasons peculiar to each state. In Louisiana, the Legislature eliminated language in a statute that required the dismissal of a fugitive's appeal, which caused the Louisiana Supreme Court to conclude that the Legislature had abrogated the rule through a statutory amendment. State v. Falcone, 383 So.2d 1243, 1246–47 (La.1980). In New Mexico, the New Mexico Supreme Court held that adoption of the fugitive-dismissal rule would be inconsistent with the New Mexico Constitution, which explicitly “provides that an aggrieved party shall have an absolute right to one appeal.” Mascarenas v. State, 94 N.M. 506, 612 P.2d 1317, 1318 (1980). But see State v. Brown, 116 N.M. 705, 866 P.2d 1172, 1175 (App.1993) (dismissing an appeal notwithstanding Mascarenas “because Defendant's fugitive status caused the administrative purging of the record of his trial, thus preventing the orderly disposition of his case”).

The widespread adoption of the fugitive-dismissal rule is attributable, in part, to its lengthy historical pedigree. Cf. People v. Partee, 125 Ill.2d 24, 125 Ill.Dec. 302, 530 N.E.2d 460, 466 (1988) (“We adhere to the century-old rule that an appellate court has the discretionary power to refuse to hear a fugitive's appeal unless and until the fugitive returns to the jurisdiction.”). In addition to considering the rule's lineage, courts rely on one or more of the following four rationales in adopting the rule: (1)the importance of an enforceable judgment; (2)the existence of waiver or abandonment based on flight; (3)the advancement of the efficient operation of courts by deterring escape; and (4)the avoidance of prejudice to the government. See, e.g., Ortega–Rodriguez, 507 U.S. at 239–42, 113 S.Ct. 1199 (discussing the rationales for the fugitive-dismissal rule); United States v. Awadalla, 357 F.3d 243, 245 (2d Cir.2004) (same).

The first rationale, unenforceability, rests on a concern that, if an appellate court rules against a fugitive, the court's...