State v. Robideau

• Citation: 817 N.W.2d 180
• Decision Date: 25 June 2012
• Docket Number: No. A11–2135.,A11–2135.
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Raymond Clyde ROBIDEAU, Appellant.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Minnesota

817 N.W.2d 180

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent,

v.Raymond Clyde ROBIDEAU, Appellant.

No. A11–2135.

Court of Appeals of Minnesota.

June 25, 2012.

Syllabus by the Court

Intentionally leaving the body of a murder victim to be discovered by the minor child of the victim justifies an upward durational departure from the presumptive sentence under the sentencing guidelines.

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, MN, Anthony C. Palumbo, Anoka County Attorney, Robert D. Goodell, Assistant County Attorney, Anoka, MN, for respondent.

David W. Merchant, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Steven P. Russett, Assistant Public Defender, St. Paul, MN, for appellant.

Considered and decided by WRIGHT, Presiding Judge; ROSS, Judge; and MUEHLBERG, Judge.

OPINION

MUEHLBERG, Judge.^*

Appellant challenges the district court's imposition of an upward durational departure from the presumptive sentence based on the finding that appellant intended the minor child of his victim to be the first to find his mother's dead body. Appellant argues that this is an impermissible ground for a departure, that there is an insufficient factual basis for this departure, and that he did not receive sufficient notice of this as a departure basis, specifically as it relates to his waiver of a jury trial on an upward departure. We affirm.

FACTS

Appellant Raymond Robideau lived with his girlfriend, Sharon Chouinard, and Chouinard's 14 year-old son, D.C., in a rented home in East Bethel. Robideau and Chouinard planned to move to a new rental home on February 1, 2008, but on January 23, Chouinard found out that Robideau lost his job and would be unable to help pay for the new home. The two argued on January 24 and 25, and eventually decided to end their relationship. Chouinard planned to move without Robideau.

On the evening of January 25, Robideau and Chouinard argued for several hours at the East Bethel home. Robideau eventually went into the bedroom alone. D.C. came home at about midnight, and found Chouinard in the living room alone, listening to music. The two began watching a movie. At about 12:40 a.m., Robideau exited the bedroom, walked through the living room and into the kitchen. On the way back to the bedroom, Robideau stopped in the living room to get a cigarette off the table and asked what the two were watching. About ten minutes later, D.C. went to bed, and told Chouinard to do the same. Chouinard indicated that she did not want to, and stayed in the living room. When he was downstairs, D.C. heard Chouinard say “Stop it.” D.C. assumed that Robideau was trying to get Chouinard to come to bed, but did not hear anything else that night.

The next day, January 26, at about 11:00 a.m., D.C. woke up, but did not see his mother in the house. He assumed Chouinard had gone out to get packing boxes. At about 11:35 a.m., D.C.'s grandmother, Chouinard's mother, called D.C. and asked him to see if Chouinard was still sleeping. D.C. found that Chouinard's car was still in the driveway, but that Robideau's car was gone. D.C.'s grandmother asked him to wake Chouinard up, and D.C. banged on the locked bedroom door and yelled Chouinard's name. D.C. tried to unlock the bedroom door with a paper clip, but was unable to do so. D.C. then kicked the door from the adjoining bathroom open, and, while still on the phone with his grandmother, found his mother lying on the floor beside her bed. Chouinard was wearing a gray sweatsuit and was partially covered with a comforter. There was a significant amount of blood on the bed and the bedroom floor. D.C. called 911 and then waited outside. It was later determined that Chouinard had three stab wounds in her neck, a deep cut on her right thumb, and bruises on her legs. The medical examiner determined that Chouinard died between midnight and 6:00 a.m. from the stab wounds in her neck.

Sometime between the time that D.C. went to bed and when he awoke, Robideau left the East Bethel home and drove to the home of friends in Princeton. He was later arrested at that home, after apparently attempting suicide and causing an explosion at the home. While in jail after his arrest, Robideau confessed that he killed Chouinard to two different inmates, with whom he was incarcerated while awaiting trial. Notably, he told one of the inmates that he checked on D.C. before leaving the East Bethel house and “started to kill [D.C.],” but decided not to, and drove to the Princeton house instead. At trial, Robideau testified that Chouinard attacked him with a knife, that he grabbed her and fell on top of her, and that he blacked out due to the blood. Robideau testified that he woke up and saw the knife sticking out of Chouinard's neck, but did not call the police or an ambulance. Robideau also testified that he locked the door to the bedroom to keep D.C. from finding the body.

Robideau was charged with first- and second-degree murder. Prior to trial, the prosecution filed a notice of intent to seek an aggravated sentence. This notice listed five possible departure grounds: particular cruelty towards the victim; invasion of the victim's privacy; the presence of the victim's son in the house during the murder; the use of a dangerous weapon in the crime; and particular cruelty towards D.C. “when he locked the bedroom doors behind himself as he left, leaving [D.C.] to find his slain mother.” During the jury trial, Robideau signed a waiver of his right to jury trial on the aggravating factors. Robideau was convicted of second-degree murder, but acquitted of first- degree murder. After the verdict, the state sought an upward departure to the statutory maximum of 480 months on two grounds: particular cruelty towards the victim, and the presence of D.C. during the commission of the crime. At the sentencing hearing, the district court stated that “the facts compel me to conclude that [D.C.] and his presence in the house was contemplated by Mr. Robideau as an aftermath of this homicide.” The district court found that an upward departure was warranted based on particular cruelty towards the victim and D.C.'s presence in the home during the murder. The district court sentenced Robideau to 460 months in prison, a 93–month departure from the highest presumptive sentence.

Robideau appealed his conviction and sentence to this court. State v. Robideau, 783 N.W.2d 390 (Minn.App.2010) (Robideau I ). This court affirmed his conviction against challenges to the impeachment use of his statements made in violation of Miranda and to certain testimony during the trial. Id. at 397–402. This court held that particular cruelty was not a proper aggravating factor in this case, but affirmed the upward departure because D.C. was in the home and therefore “otherwise witnessed” the crime, which constituted proper grounds to depart. Id. at 402–04. The Minnesota Supreme Court granted further review on the sentencing issue, and reversed the decision of this court, holding that D.C. did not witness the crime because his physical senses did not perceive the events as they were occurring. State v. Robideau, 796 N.W.2d 147, 150–52 (Minn.2011) (Robideau II ). In so holding, the supreme court noted that:

The State argues for the first time on appeal that when a child discovers the body of a murdered parent, the crime is significantly more serious than the typical murder, and warrants treatment as a new aggravating factor. A defendant who commits a murder in such a way that the child is intended to be the first to discover the body of a murdered parent may warrant treatment as a new aggravating factor. But that issue was not presented to the district court, and thus is not properly before us. Moreover, the district court did not find that Robideau intended for D.C. to discover his mother's body.

Id. at 152 n. 3. The state petitioned for rehearing on this issue, but the supreme court declined to rehear the case. On remand, the district court heard the state's motion for resentencing, which asked for an upward durational departure because Robideau “committed the murder in such a way that the victim's teenage son was intended to be the first to discover the body of his murdered mother.” The district court again sentenced Robideau to 460 months, finding that Robideau intended that D.C. find his mother's body, and that this circumstance made the crime significantly more serious than other second-degree murder cases. Robideau appeals this sentence.

ISSUES

I. Is the departure reason given by the district court legally permissible and factually supported?

II. Was there sufficient notice of this reason for departure?

ANALYSIS

I. Is the departure reason given by the district court legally permissible and factually supported?

A district court must impose the presumptive guidelines sentence unless there are “identifiable, substantial, and compelling circumstances” to warrant an upward departure from the presumptive sentence. Minn. Sent. Guidelines II.D (2008). Before imposing an upward durational departure, the district court must be satisfied that one or more factual circumstances exist to support a departure that is not embodied in the guilty plea, and must explain “why those circumstances create a substantial and compelling reason to impose a sentence outside the presumptive range.” State v. Rourke, 773 N.W.2d 913, 919 (Minn.2009). “Substantial and compelling circumstances are those showing that the defendant's conduct was significantly more or less serious than that typically involved in the commission of the offense in question.” State v. Edwards, 774 N.W.2d 596, 601 (Minn.2009) (quotation omitted).

“[I]f a district court's reasons for a departure are stated on the record, an appellate court must determine whether the stated reasons justify the departure.” State v. Grampre, 766 N.W.2d 347, 351 (Minn.App.2009), review denied (Minn. Aug. 26, 2009). This court must determine whether the reasons provided are legally permissible and factually supported by the record. See Edwards, 774...