State v. Martinson

• Decision Date: 09 December 2003
• Docket Number: No. A03-1079.,A03-1079.
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Appellant, v. Cory Thomas MARTINSON, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Court of Appeals

671 N.W.2d 887

STATE of Minnesota, Appellant, v. Cory Thomas MARTINSON, Respondent.

No. A03-1079.

Court of Appeals of Minnesota.

December 9, 2003.

Mike Hatch, Attorney General, St. Paul; and Janelle Kendall, Stearns County Attorney, Dennis A. Plahn, Assistant Stearns County Attorney, St. Cloud, for appellant.

John M. Stuart, State Public Defender, Minneapolis, MN; and Leonard A. Weiler, Assistant District Public Defender, St. Cloud, MN, for respondent.

Considered and decided by WILLIS, Presiding Judge; TOUSSAINT, Chief Judge; and SHUMAKER, Judge.

OPINION

GORDON W. SHUMAKER, Judge.

Appellant State of Minnesota contends that the district court abused its discretion by departing durationally downward from the sentencing guidelines, arguing that the court failed to make adequate findings of substantial and compelling circumstances to support the departure. Because the record shows that respondent suffered from an extreme mental impairment, the court did not abuse its discretion. We affirm.

FACTS

On November 22, 2000, respondent Cory Thomas Martinson intentionally swerved his car into the path of oncoming traffic and collided with another vehicle. His wife C.A.M., riding as his passenger, was killed instantly.

The state charged Martinson with second-degree murder and criminal vehicular homicide. The district court ordered a rule 20 mental examination. The examiners, a staff psychologist and a staff psychiatrist at the Minnesota Security Hospital, found Martinson competent to stand trial and gave opinions as to his mental status at the time of the collision.

Martinson ultimately waived a jury trial and asserted a mental-illness defense. The court bifurcated the trial, found Martinson guilty of felony second-degree murder and criminal vehicular homicide, and rejected his mental-illness defense. The court acknowledged Martinson's major mental illness but did not believe it was "florid" at the time of the collision.

Despite rejecting Martinson's mental-illness defense, the court found that his "mental condition is a substantial and compelling factor justifying a downward [durational] departure," and sentenced Martinson to an executed term of 75 months instead of the presumptive 150 months.

The record available to the court for sentencing showed that Martinson was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the incident and detailed his past psychiatric history. He began to develop delusional paranoia in the late 1990s, which manifested itself in the belief that his former co-workers at Distinguished Craftsmen, Inc., (DCI) had enlisted the help of "mobsters" to track him down and kill him.

In the summer of 2000, Martinson was exposed to a mixture of bleach and toxic cleaning chemicals while training with his army reserve unit. Initially treated for lung irritation, Martinson was eventually diagnosed with psychotic delusions and was hospitalized. Army records indicate he was convinced the army and the psychiatric hospital personnel were attempting to kill him.

After his release, his paranoia became more extensive. He refused to eat food from New York or New Jersey where the "Italian Mafioso" lived, thought poisonous gas was being sprayed into his apartment, and attempted to patch tiny holes in the wall and ceiling with toothpaste. He told evaluators that he discovered a surveillance camera in his television and that he routinely checked his car for bombs before using it.

By the fall of 2000, Martinson believed that C.A.M. was his only source of protection, that she protected him against assassination, and that she was the only one who could provide food that was not poisoned. However, he eventually "discovered" that C.A.M. worked for the CIA or secret service. This discovery led to the belief that her superiors wanted him dead because they preferred unmarried employees.

In November, C.A.M. began to demand that Martinson seek mental-health treatment. He realized that she would leave him if he refused. The psychological report explained that

[h]e was thus caught between the understanding that if he did not seek treatment, he would lose his wife and his sole protector who kept him from harm at the hands of DCI and the Mafia. On the other hand, if he went into the hospital to accede to her demands, the doctors there would kill him. Finally, if he stayed with her, he recognized that she might have her own motivations to do him harm relative to her role with the Feds.

As Martinson and C.A.M. were driving on the morning of the incident, she told him "we have to have a talk." He later recalled that he "was thinking she was going to let DCI get [him] because she was sick of [him]. [He] didn't know who she was working for. [He] thought it was the Secret Service." Shortly after his wife's comments, he turned his wheel abruptly to the left and swerved into oncoming traffic. C.A.M. died immediately.

At trial, Martinson presented a defense of not guilty by reason of mental illness. The district court found he did not establish that his mental condition at the time of the incident satisfied the M'Naghten standard for a mental-illness defense, and rejected the defense. The district court found that respondent suffers from a major mental illness but rejected respondent's mental-illness defense because his condition was not "florid" at the time of the crimes, and found him guilty. Reciting orally on the record findings as to respondent's mental illness, the court departed durationally from the presumptive guidelines sentence. The district court sentenced Martinson to a downward durational departure of 75 months in prison instead of the presumptive sentence of 150 months. On appeal, the state challenges the district court's departure from the sentencing guidelines, claiming the court erred in failing to properly support the decision on the record.

ISSUES

1. Did the court abuse its discretion in departing downward from the sentencing guidelines?

2. Did the court err by failing to provide written findings to support its departure?

ANALYSIS

I.

a. Substantial and Compelling Circumstances

The state contends that the district court abused its discretion in departing durationally from the presumptive guidelines sentence because there are no substantial and compelling circumstances to support a downward departure. This court reviews a departure from the sentencing guidelines for an abuse of discretion. State v. Schmit, 601 N.W.2d 896, 898 (Minn.1999). The district court has broad discretion to depart if substantial and compelling circumstances exist, and this court generally will not interfere with the exercise of that discretion. State v. Kindem, 313 N.W.2d 6, 7 (Minn.1981). Mental impairment that causes an offender to lack substantial capacity for judgment when the offense was committed will support a downward departure. Minn. Sent. Guidelines II.D.2.a.(3).

Recognizing that the presumptive sentence provided by the sentencing guidelines will not be "appropriate, reasonable, or equitable" in every case, the guidelines commission determined that it was appropriate to allow sentencing courts, on occasion, to depart from the presumptive sentence. Id. cmt. II.D.01. But departures are permitted only when the case involves substantial and compelling circumstances. Id. II.D. The guidelines provide that when "[t]he offender, because of physical or mental impairment, lacked substantial capacity for judgment when the offense was committed," the sentencing court may use that impairment as a mitigating factor to support a downward departure. Id. II. D.2.a.(3).

When an offender has been diagnosed with paranoia and schizophrenia, the offender's mental impairment is extreme enough to constitute a mitigating factor. See State v. Wall, 343 N.W.2d 22, 25 (Minn.1984)

(stating that diagnosis of paranoia and schizophrenia is a mitigating factor and holding that record failed to support upward durational sentencing departure where defendant lacked substantial capacity for judgment when he committed the offense).

In this case, the record contains ample unrebutted evidence to support a finding that Martinson suffered from an extreme mental impairment. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and the psychologist and psychiatrist who evaluated him on the order of the district court further determined that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the incident.

Martinson's condition is well documented in the record. His paranoia manifested itself in irrational fears that his co-workers hired the Mafia to kill him, that he was under surveillance, and that he was in constant danger of being poisoned. The mental evaluation is supported by army records that state he was convinced the army and hospital personnel were trying to kill him. Finally, his fears were directed at the victim, his wife, whom he believed worked for the CIA or Secret Service and might be willing to kill him to please her superiors. The evaluation clearly explains the dilemma Martinson faced in his own mind when he concluded that his wife was about to leave him.

The expert psychological evidence is uncontroverted that, at all relevant times, Martinson suffered from the psychosis of paranoid schizophrenia. His illness frequently manifests itself in delusional paranoia, causing Martinson to perceive threats against his life by co-workers, physicians, and his spouse. His response to the perceived threats is panic and "wholly irrational" behavior. There is nothing in the record to suggest that Martinson's psychosis is a mild or moderate mental impairment. Rather, there is abundant expert evidence that his condition is sufficiently extreme to meet the requirement that his mental impairment be a substantial and compelling circumstance that provides a basis for a downward departure from the sentencing guidelines.

The district...