State v. Ihnot

• Decision Date: 26 March 1998
• Docket Number: No. C9-96-819,C9-96-819
• Citation: 575 N.W.2d 581
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, petitioner, Appellant, v. Richard Allen IHNOT, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 581

575 N.W.2d 581

STATE of Minnesota, petitioner, Appellant, v. Richard Allen IHNOT, Respondent.

No. C9-96-819.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

March 26, 1998.

Syllabus by the Court

A prior conviction, offered for impeachment purposes, is not stale within the meaning of Minn. R. Evid. 609(b), if the conviction or the release from confinement imposed for that conviction occurred within 10 years of the date of the currently charged offense.

Hubert H. Humphrey III, Atty. Gen., Robert M.A. Johnson, Anoka county Atty. by Marcy S. Crain, Asst. County Atty., for appellant.

John M. Stuart, State Public Defender by Mark F. Anderson, Asst. State Public Defender, for respondent.

Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc.

OPINION

GARDEBRING, Justice.

This case arises from the conviction of Richard Allen Ihnot, who was found guilty by a jury of four counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, Minn.Stat. § 609.342, subds. 1(a) and (g) (1996). Prior to trial, the state filed a motion in limine seeking to admit three of Ihnot's prior felony convictions as impeachment evidence, if Ihnot chose to testify at trial. The felony conviction at issue here is a 1984 conviction for third-degree criminal sexual conduct, for which Ihnot was sentenced to 6 months in jail and also received an 18 month stayed prison term and 6 years of probation. ¹ The conviction was based upon sexual contact, including acts of sexual penetration, with a 14-year-old girl.

Defense counsel argued that the prior criminal sexual conduct conviction should not be admitted for impeachment purposes because the similarity to the crime charged made the risk of undue prejudice great. He argued further that, because of the risk of prejudice, the admission of the prior criminal sexual conduct conviction effectively prevented Ihnot from testifying in his own defense.

The trial court concluded that the prior criminal sexual conduct conviction was admissible for impeachment purposes, noting that: (1) there were differences between the past conviction and the current charge, notably, that the prior conviction was for criminal sexual conduct in the third-degree and the current charge was for criminal sexual conduct in the first-degree, and that the victims were of different ages, one being between 5 to 7 years of age at the time of the offense and the other being 14; (2) the conviction was not stale within the meaning of Minn. R. Evid. 609, because the current crime was within 10 years of Ihnot's release from probation on the previous crime; (3) credibility was a central issue in the case; and (4) the probative value of admitting the conviction outweighed the prejudice. Ihnot did not testify at the jury trial and therefore, the jury did not hear the impeachment evidence regarding the prior conviction.

The court of appeals reversed, holding that the trial court abused its discretion by ruling that Ihnot's prior criminal sexual conduct conviction would be admissible for impeachment purposes if he testified at trial. Specifically, the court of appeals held that the trial court erred in concluding that release from probation is the appropriate date from which to begin counting the 10-year period and that the trial court also failed to make a finding that the probative value of admitting the evidence substantially outweighed its prejudicial effect, a finding necessary under Minn. R. Evid. 609(b) if the trial court allows impeachment with a conviction that is more than 10 years old. Further, the court of appeals held that Ihnot was deprived of the right to testify in his own defense due to the threat of the use of the impeachment evidence, which is a right protected by both the United States and Minnesota Constitutions. We reverse.

The victim in this case was a young girl, between the ages of 5 and 7 years old at the time of the sexual abuse. The victim and her mother lived with Ihnot, the mother's boyfriend, at several different locations from 1993-1995. At trial, the victim, who was by that time 8 years old, testified that Ihnot first began abusing her when she was in kindergarten, some time in 1993, and continued to abuse her over a period of several years. She testified to several acts of molestation, including penetration, that occurred throughout this period and she linked the incidents to the various locations where she had lived with Ihnot and her mother.

In addition to the testimony of the victim, the prosecution presented testimony at trial from the victim's father and stepmother, who were the first adults to become aware of the sexual abuse; an investigator who first interviewed the child after the allegations of abuse; and a pediatric nurse practitioner and expert in the field of child physical and sexual abuse, who also conducted an interview and physical examination of the child. However, the crux of the prosecution's case depended upon the testimony of the child victim as to the specific facts and incidents of alleged abuse. Because the physical evidence was inconclusive as to whether or not the child had in fact been sexually abused, the case hinged upon the jury's determination of credibility. Ihnot did not testify in his defense and the defense presented no other evidence at trial.

Minn. R. Evid. 609, which governs impeachment by evidence of a prior criminal conviction, states in part:

(a) General rule. For the purpose of attacking the credibility of a witness, evidence that the witness has been convicted of a crime shall be admitted only if the crime (1) was punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year under the law under which the witness was convicted, and the court determines that the probative value of admitting this evidence outweighs its prejudicial effect, or (2) involved dishonesty or false statement, regardless of the punishment.

(b) Time limit. Evidence of a conviction under this rule is not admissible if a period of more than ten years has elapsed since the date of the conviction or of the release of the witness from the confinement imposed for that conviction, whichever is the later date, unless the court determines, in the interests of justice, that the probative value of the conviction supported by specific facts and circumstances substantially outweighs its prejudicial effect.

This court's review of a trial court's ruling under this provision is governed by our previous determination that "[e]videntiary * * * rulings generally rest within the trial court's discretion and will not be reversed absent a clear abuse of discretion." State v. Grayson, 546 N.W.2d 731, 736 (Minn.1996) (citation omitted).

This case gives rise to three issues: (1) Is the 1984 criminal sexual conduct conviction stale for impeachment purposes?; (2) Does the probative value of admitting the conviction outweigh or substantially outweigh its prejudicial effect?; and (3) Does admission of the impeachment evidence infringe upon Ihnot's right to testify in his own defense?

Initially, we must decide what event marks the end of the 10-year period, since that determination will dictate whether the trial court's ruling is considered under Minn. R. Evid. 609(a) or under Minn. R. Evid. 609(b), which arguably embodies a more stringent standard for admissibility. ² There are three options reflected in cases from other jurisdictions. Some courts mark the end date as the date the trial begins. Ihnot's trial began on January 23, 1996. Other courts have held that the date the witness testifies is the appropriate end of the 10-year window. In this case, Ihnot did not testify, but had he testified, presumably it would have been during January 23-26, 1996, the period of the trial. A third option is the date of the charged offense. Here, the evidence suggests that the offenses occurred over a period of years, but began some time in 1993 and ended some time in 1995. See United States v. Thompson, 806 F.2d 1332, 1339 (7th Cir.1986) (finding that conviction was not stale for impeachment purposes based upon the date that the defendant's trial began); United States v. Cathey, 591 F.2d 268, 274 (5th Cir.1979) (finding that conviction was stale for impeachment purposes based upon the date that the defendant was called to testify at trial); United States v. Foley, 683 F.2d 273, 277 (8th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1043, 103 S.Ct. 463, 74 L.Ed.2d 613 (1982) (finding that a conviction was stale for impeachment purposes because the defendant committed the current offense 10 years and 10 months prior to his release from confinement for the conviction sought to be introduced, however conviction properly admitted for impeachment purposes because probative value outweighed prejudicial effects).

Ihnot argues that, since the issue is the credibility of the defendant, the end date should be the date of testimony, i.e., the date on which credibility will be judged. Relying on an Eighth Circuit opinion and a dissent in a Fifth Circuit opinion, the state argues that the date of the charged offense is the appropriate end point for the 10-year period. See Foley, 683 F.2d at 277; Cathey, 591 F.2d at 277 n. 2 (Fay, J., dissenting).

While none of the alternative approaches is ideal, we share the concerns expressed by Professors Wright and Gold: "[t]he problems with [using the trial date] are that a trial date can be manipulated through dilatory tactics to permit the ten years to run and, more importantly, bestowing this significance on the date of trial is purely arbitrary and has no support in policy." 28 Charles Alan Wright & Victor James Gold, Federal Practice and Procedure: Evidence § 6136 (1993). We believe that using the date of the witness's testimony as the end date shares these same infirmities; that is, since it is linked to the time of trial, it is subject to manipulation and it is also unsupported by any policy justification. Furthermore, "[i]f prior convictions lose their probative value for impeachment purposes because of ten years of 'good...