State v. Kasper, C3-86-1415
| Decision Date | 31 July 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. C3-86-1415,C3-86-1415 |
| Citation | 409 N.W.2d 846 |
| Parties | STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Brian James KASPER, Appellant. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
Trial court did not err in basing decision to admit other-crime evidence on offer of proof made by prosecutor.
C. Paul Jones, State Public Defender, James M. Burseth, Asst. Public Defender, Minneapolis, for appellant.
Hubert H. Humphrey, III, Atty. Gen., St. Paul, Thomas I. Johnson, Hennepin Co. Atty., Vernon E. Bergstrom, Chief, Appellate Section, Anne E. Peek, Asst. Co. Atty., Minneapolis, for respondent.
Considered and decided by the court en banc without oral argument.
Defendant Brian James Kasper petitioned for review of a decision of the court of appeals affirming his conviction of criminal sexual conduct in the third degree. We granted the petition not for the purpose of granting defendant the relief he requested but for the limited purpose of expressing our disagreement with the court of appeals' conclusion that the trial court abused its discretion in not requiring the victim of the Spreigl offense to testify at the Spreigl hearing.
The facts are recounted in detail in the court of appeals' opinion. State v. Kasper, 405 N.W.2d 540, 541-42 (Minn.App.1987). The victim, a 20-year-old woman, was at a bar in Hennepin County on a Friday night in late October of 1985. A friend broke a promise to give her a ride home. The victim therefore called a taxi. While the victim was waiting outside for the taxi, defendant approached her and offered her a ride home. She refused at first but finally consented after waiting 15 minutes for the taxi. The victim testified that defendant took the wrong route, went onto a dirt road, and raped her. She reported the rape the next day. When arrested, defendant at first denied having had sexual intercourse with the victim. However, possibly because the police found a semen-stained blanket in his car, he admitted at trial that intercourse had occurred, claiming it was consensual.
The Spreigl or other-crime evidence admitted against defendant under Minn.R.Evid. 404(b) related to defendant's June 1985 sexual assault in Anoka County of a 16-year-old girl. Witnesses at trial to this offense included the girl and the police officer who investigated that offense.
The court of appeals affirmed defendant's conviction, concluding first that the evidence of defendant's guilt was sufficient. 405 N.W.2d at 542. The court of appeals ruled secondly that the trial court abused its discretion in not requiring the victim of the Spreigl offense to testify at the Spreigl hearing held pursuant to Rule 11 of the Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure. 405 N.W.2d at 452-53. However, the court also ruled that the error was non-prejudicial because the girl testified at trial consistently with the prosecutor's offer of proof, on which the trial court's decision admitting the evidence was based. 405 N.W.2d at 543-44.
A special concurrence referred to this court's opinion in State v. Wakefield, 278 N.W.2d 307 (Minn.1979), which held that it is error to admit Spreigl evidence relating to a prior offense of which the defendant has been acquitted. 405 N.W.2d at 544-45. The special concurrence agreed with the affirmance of defendant's conviction but argued that Wakefield should be extended to exclude evidence of any Spreigl offense if the defendant was not prosecuted for the other offense because the prosecutor felt at the time that the evidence was too weak. Id.
The court of appeals correctly held that the evidence was sufficient.
The majority also rightly rejected the argument made in the special concurrence that Wakefield should be extended. On a number of occasions we have expressly refused to extend Wakefield to bar evidence of other crimes for which the defendant was not prosecuted or for which the defendant was prosecuted but the prosection dismissed. See State v. Lande, 350 N.W.2d 355, 358 (Minn.1984), and cases cited therein, as well as State v. McAdoo, 330 N.W.2d 104, 106 (Minn.1983). Extending Wakefield to cases such as this could drastically and unjustifiably reduce the allowable use of Spreigl evidence.
We believe, however, that the court of appeals erred in concluding that the trial court abused its discretion in not requiring the victim to testify at the Spreigl hearing. Our cases hold that the trial court has broad discretion in determining whether or not to require the state to call the Spreigl witnesses at the hearing to determine the admissibility of the Spreigl evidence. The leading case on this is State v. Lindahl, 309 N.W.2d 763, 766 (Minn.1981) (...
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State v. Kilgore
...not apply to preliminary determinations. ER 104(a), 1101(c)(1). The Minnesota Supreme Court rejected a similar argument in State v. Kasper, 409 N.W.2d 846 (Minn.1987). There, the defendant had argued that an offer of proof is insufficient and an evidentiary hearing with testimony was requir......
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People v. Davis
...evidence based on an offer of proof without an evidentiary hearing), aff'd, 147 Wash.2d 288, 53 P.3d 974 (2002); State v. Kasper, 409 N.W.2d 846, 847-48 (Minn.1987) (the trial court can rely upon the People's offer of proof because the prosecutor has an ethical duty to give an accurate offe......
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Santiago v. State
...decision. We review a court's rulings on the sufficiency of offers of proof under an abuse of discretion standard. See State v. Kasper, 409 N.W.2d 846, 847-48 (Minn.1987). There are two principal ways to make an offer of proof. First, an attorney can tell the court what the proposed testimo......
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State v. Johnson, C4-96-1716
...to bar Spreigl evidence of other crimes which either were prosecuted and dismissed, or were not prosecuted at all. State v. Kasper, 409 N.W.2d 846, 847 (Minn.1987); see, e.g., State v. Moorman, 505 N.W.2d 593, 602 (Minn.1993) (holding that four Spreigl incidents were proven by clear and con......