State v. Smith

• Decision Date: 01 April 1988
• Docket Number: No. C4-88-35,C4-88-35
• Citation: 421 N.W.2d 315
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Michael Edward SMITH, a/k/a Mike Vukovich, a/k/a Mike Smith, a/k/a "Mike," Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 315

421 N.W.2d 315

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Michael Edward SMITH, a/k/a Mike Vukovich, a/k/a Mike Smith a/k/a "Mike," Appellant.

No. C4-88-35.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

April 1, 1988.

Syllabus by the Court

The courts of the State of Minnesota do not have territorial jurisdiction to prosecute an alleged offense where the complaint alleges that all of the acts constituting the offense were committed outside the State of Minnesota.

C. Paul Jones, State Public Defender, Renee Bergeron, St. Paul, for appellant.

Hubert H. Humphrey, III, Atty. Gen., St. Paul, Alan L. Mitchell, St. Louis County Atty., John E. DeSanto, Duluth, for respondent.

Heard, considered and decided by the court en banc.

AMDAHL, Chief Justice.

This case comes before us on a certified question of law under Minn.R.Crim.P. 28.03. The appellant, Michael Edward Smith, was arrested and charged with murder in the second degree in violation of Minn.Stat. Sec. 609.19(1) (1986). The complaint, which was filed in St. Louis County, Minnesota, on October 9, 1987, alleged that Smith had intentionally murdered one Ms. Roxanna Livingston-Voorsanger of Boulder, Colorado. The complaint specifically alleges that all of the acts constituting the crime were committed outside of Minnesota.

On December 14, 1987, Smith made his first appearance before the St. Louis County district court. At that time, Smith made a motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction to prosecute for the crime of murder in Minnesota. On December 24, 1987, a bifurcated omnibus hearing was held on the jurisdiction issue. On December 29, 1987, the trial court denied Smith's motion to dismiss but certified the jurisdictional question as important and doubtful. The question certified is as follows:

Does the State of Minnesota, through St. Louis County, Minnesota, constitutionally have jurisdiction pursuant to Minn.Stat. 609.025 (1986), Minn.Stat. 627.01 (1986) and Minn.R.Crim.P. 24.02, subd. 4, to prosecute the defendant for murder in the second degree, when all available evidence indicates that the fatal blow causing the victim's death, and the death itself, did not occur within the jurisdictional boundaries of the State of Minnesota, but the victim's body was found within this jurisdiction?

Because the complaint itself fails to allege jurisdiction, we answer the certified question in the negative and reverse the trial court.

The "facts" of this case which are pertinent to this appeal are taken from the complaint and from the transcript of the omnibus hearing and other documents on file. ¹

Roxanna Livingston-Voorsanger was last seen alive by her boyfriend at about 11:30 p.m. on Monday, September 28, 1987, in Boulder, Colorado. On October 1, 1987, at about 3:20 p.m., her body was found in a roadside ditch in Duluth, Minnesota. The medical examiner estimated that she had probably been dead for two to three days. Ms. Livingston-Voorsanger was killed by multiple head injuries caused by at least five blows to the head by an unknown instrument. Ms. Livingston-Voorsanger's car was also reported missing. The car was a dark blue 1985 Toyota Tercel station wagon bearing Colorado license plates. The information about the victim and her missing car was carried in a newspaper article on Sunday, October 4, 1987. After seeing the article, Mr. Alfred Rosendin voluntarily called the Duluth police with a statement. In his statement, Rosendin related the following:

Rosendin had traveled from Los Angeles, California, to Lake Minnisuing, Wisconsin, with a load of furniture and supplies to a cabin owned by a lawyer who had hired him to make the trip and to do some repairs at the cabin. The cabin is located about 30 miles from Duluth. While enroute, Rosendin stopped at a truck stop in Fort Morgan, Colorado, between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Tuesday, September 29. Fort Morgan is east of Boulder, Colorado. While pumping gas into his vehicle, a dark blue 1985 Toyota Tercel station wagon with Colorado plates pulled up to the next pump. The defendant was the driver of the Toyota and was alone in the car. Rosendin and the defendant had a conversation, and Rosendin helped pay for the defendant's gas. At the truck stop, Rosendin noticed that the back seat of the Toyota wagon appeared to be down and that the back area of the wagon was piled full with several boxes and an old brown suitcase. ²

Rosendin then went on his way. Later, Rosendin pulled into a truck stop near Lincoln, Nebraska. Rosendin was surprised to again see Smith, who was still driving the Toyota wagon. Rosendin and Smith ate together at the truck stop, with Rosendin helping to pay for Smith's lunch. At that time Smith stated that he had borrowed the Toyota wagon from a girl in Boulder, Colorado. Smith told Rosendin that he had a difficult time talking the girl into letting him use her car.

Rosendin offered to employ Smith at the Lake Minnisuing cabin for two or three days. Smith accepted, and the two men went on together, in separate vehicles. They arrived at the cabin at about 3 p.m. on Wednesday, September 30. At about 11 p.m. that night, Smith left with the Toyota wagon to get acquainted with the area.

On the morning of October 3, 1987, Smith seemed nervous. Smith left about 10:30 a.m., ostensibly to go to a store to purchase a tool for some repair work. He never returned. Rosendin had noticed that when they arrived at the cabin on September 30, the back seat of the Toyota wagon was still down and filled up. However, when Smith left on October 3, Rosendin noticed that the back part of the Toyota wagon had been rearranged, that the back seat was up, and that the car did not seem as full.

On October 9, 1987, the complaint was filed in St. Louis County District Court, charging Smith with Murder in the Second Degree. The complaint, after reciting the "facts," concluded by expressly alleging that Smith "outside the state of Minnesota committed the following described [murder]." Smith was ultimately apprehended on October 13, 1987, in Hartford, Connecticut. He still had possession of the Toyota wagon, which turned out to be the victim's missing car.

Following his arrest, Smith has made at least two significant statements. First, on October 13, 1987, Smith told FBI agents that he and the victim had left Colorado in her Toyota wagon, on their way to New York. Ms. Livingston-Voorsanger decided to go home so Smith said he dropped her off at the Omaha airport and continued on alone with her car. Later, Smith called a DEA agent and told the agent that a friend had offered Smith $10,000 to drive the Toyota wagon from Colorado to the east coast. After leaving with the car, Smith said he discovered the body in it.

At his first appearance, Smith challenged jurisdiction to hear the case. On December 24, 1987, a hearing was held on the jurisdiction question. At the hearing the prosecutor acknowledged that it was not possible to determine where the death occurred or where the blows were struck. The prosecutor, in fact, went so far as to state a number of times that the blows and death did not occur in Minnesota. At oral argument the prosecutor repeated the statement that the crime was committed solely outside of Minnesota.

The trial court denied Smith's motion to dismiss and held that the state has jurisdiction to prosecute. The trial court primarily relied on venue rule 24.02, subd. 4 of the Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure to hold that jurisdiction was proper. However, the court certified the question to us as important and doubtful. We reverse.

Many definitions for jurisdiction exist. In a nutshell, jurisdiction is the power to hear and decide disputes. Black's Law Dictionary, 766 (5th ed. 1979); accord 21 Am.Jur.2d Criminal Law, Sec. 336 (1981). The United States Supreme Court summed it up best when it said that whatever else jurisdiction may mean, it is the "authority to apply the law to the acts of men." Nielsen v. Oregon, 212 U.S. 315, 320, 29 S.Ct. 383, 384, 53 L.Ed. 528 (1909).

The theory of jurisdiction to hear criminal cases has its roots in the common law and has been carried forward in the Constitutions of this state and the United States. From its common law roots, criminal jurisdiction has been premised on the concept of territorialism. Jurisdiction depends on where the crime was committed. See United States v. Bazzell, 187 F.2d 878, 882 (7th Cir.) cert. denied 342 U.S. 849, 72 S.Ct. 73, 96 L.Ed. 641, reh'g denied 342 U.S. 889, 72 S.Ct. 171, 96 L.Ed. 667 (1951). Under the concept of territorialism, jurisdiction can exist only in those places where the crime was committed.

At common law, jurisdiction over the crime could be had only in that place where the crime was complete. It was, and still is, universally accepted that "one State or sovereignty cannot enforce the penal or criminal laws of another, or punish crimes or offences committed in and against another State or sovereignty." State v. Hall, 114 N.C. 909, 911, 19 S.E. 602, 602 (1894).

Rigid territorialism at early common law raised many problems in those cases where different elements of the crime occurred in diverse locations. This was particularly true for a crime such as murder.

The ancient common-law is said to have propounded the very unreasonable principle that, if a person be wounded in one county, and die in another, his murderer could be tried in neither. * * * "It is said by some that the death of one who died in one county of the wound given in another was not indictable at all at common-law, because the offense was not complete in either county, and the jury could only inquire of what happened in their own county."

Ex parte NcNeely, 36 W.Va. 84, 87, 14 S.E. 436, 436-37 (1892); see also Stout v. State, 76 Md. 317, 324-25, 25 A. 299, 300-02 (1892) (thorough discussion of common law roots). However, the common law came to recognize that the murder under such circumstances must be punishable somewhere. Consequently, the theory...