State v. Ortega-Rodriguez, 120518 MNSC, A17-0450
| Opinion Judge | THISSEN, JUSTICE. |
| Party Name | State of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Juan Manuel Ortega-Rodriguez, ppellant. |
| Attorney | Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Saint Paul, Minnesota; and John J. Choi, Ramsey County Attorney, Adam E. Petras, Assistant County Attorney, Saint Paul, Minnesota, for respondent. Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Saint Paul, Minnesota, for appellant. |
| Case Date | December 05, 2018 |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Court of Appeals Office of Appellate Courts
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Saint Paul, Minnesota; and John J. Choi, Ramsey County Attorney, Adam E. Petras, Assistant County Attorney, Saint Paul, Minnesota, for respondent.
Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Saint Paul, Minnesota, for appellant.
SYLLABUS
The plain language of Minn. Stat. § 609.342, subd. 1(h) (2018), requires proof of "sexual penetration."
Reversed.
OPINION
THISSEN, JUSTICE.
In this case, we are asked to determine whether Minn. Stat. § 609.342, subd. 1(h) (2018), requires the State to prove that "sexual penetration" occurred. The court of appeals held that the statute does not require such proof. Because we conclude that the plain language of the statute requires proof of "sexual penetration," we reverse the decision of the court of appeals and remand to the district court for further proceedings.
FACTS
The relevant facts are as follows. Starting in September 2015, appellant Juan Manuel Ortega-Rodriguez began sexually abusing 10-year-old G.M. by touching her inappropriately. Ortega-Rodriguez was a father figure to G.M. The abuse continued for several months. During the first few days of January 2016, the nature of the abuse changed. Ortega-Rodriguez began engaging in genital-to-genital contact with G.M a couple of times per day. The genital-to-genital contact continued for eight or nine days. On January 11, G.M reported Ortega-Rodriguez's behavior. It is undisputed that Ortega-Rodriguez never sexually penetrated G.M.
The State charged Ortega-Rodriguez with first-degree criminal sexual conduct under subdivision 1(h)(iii) of Minnesota Statutes § 609.342 for his January 2016 conduct. Subdivision 1(h) provides:
Subdivision 1. Crime defined. A person who engages in sexual penetration with another person, or in sexual contact with a person under 13 years of age as defined in section 609.341, subdivision 11, paragraph (c), is guilty of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree if any of the following circumstances exists: . . .
(h) the actor has a significant relationship to the complainant, the complainant was under 16 years of age at the time of the sexual penetration, and:
(i) the actor or an accomplice used force or coercion to accomplish the penetration;
(ii) the complainant suffered personal injury; or
(iii) the sexual abuse involved multiple acts committed over an extended period of time.
Neither mistake as to the complainant's age nor consent to the act by the complainant is a defense.
Minn. Stat. § 609.342, subd. 1(h).[1]
The State also charged Ortega-Rodriguez with second-degree criminal sexual conduct under Minn. Stat. § 609.343 (2018), for the abuse that began in the fall of 2015 and lasted through January 2016. After a bench trial, Ortega-Rodriguez was convicted on both counts. The court sentenced Ortega-Rodriguez to 144 months in prison for the first-degree criminal sexual conduct offense.
On appeal, Ortega-Rodriguez challenged only his first-degree criminal sexual conduct conviction. He argued that the State presented insufficient evidence to support the conviction because the statute requires proof of "sexual penetration" and the State conceded that it did not prove sexual penetration.2
The court of appeals affirmed. It rejected Ortega-Rodriguez's argument that Minn. Stat. § 609.342, subd. 1(h)(iii), requires proof of penetration, reasoning that the "overarching language in subdivision 1 applies to paragraphs (a) through (h) and includes '[bare genital-to-genital] contact with a person under 13.'" State v. Ortega-Rodriguez, No. A17-0450, 2017 WL 6567914, at *2 (Minn.App. Dec. 26, 2017) (quoting Minn. Stat. § 609.342). The court also reasoned: [I]nterpreting [subdivision 1(h)] to require sexual penetration would lead to absurd results because a person could be found guilty of first-degree criminal sexual contact if he engaged in one instance of [bare genital-to-genital] contact with a person under 13 years of age [under subdivision 1(a)] . . . but not guilty if he engaged in multiple instances of [bare genital-to-genital] contact with a person under 13 years of age and had a significant relationship to the victim.
Id. (internal citations omitted). We granted Ortega-Rodriguez's petition for review.
ANALYSIS
The question presented is whether Minn. Stat. § 609.342, subd. 1(h), requires the State to prove that Ortega-Rodriguez engaged in "sexual penetration." That is a question of statutory interpretation that we review de novo. State v. Colvin, 645 N.W.2d 449, 452 (Minn. 2002). Our goal in interpreting a statute is to ascertain the intent of the Legislature. State v. Henderson, 907 N.W.2d 623, 625 (Minn. 2018) (citing State v. Struzyk, 869 N.W.2d 280, 284 (Minn. 2015)); see also Minn. Stat. § 645.16 (2018). When the language of a statute is unambiguous, we apply its plain meaning. Henderson, 907 N.W.2d at 625. A statute is ambiguous only when it is susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation. Id.
Subdivision 1(h) expressly uses the words "sexual penetration" in defining the crime. Reading the words "sexual penetration" out of subdivision 1(h) or (as the State would have it) adding the phrase "[bare genital-to-genital] contact with a person under 13 years of age" to that subdivision is beyond our authority. State v. Hensel, 901 N.W.2d 166, 178 (Minn. 2017) ("[W]e have long held that it is impermissible to add words or phrases to an unambiguous statute." (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted)); Allan v. R.D. Offutt Co., 869 N.W.2d 31, 33 (Minn. 2015) ("[W]e give effect to all of [the statute's] provisions; no word, phrase, or sentence should be deemed superfluous, void, or insignificant." (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted)).3 The power to add the words "sexual contact with a person under 13 years of age" rests in the hands of the Legislature.
Adopting the court of appeals' reasoning, the State contends that another reasonable interpretation of the language of Minn. Stat. § 609.342, subd. 1(h), exists. The...
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