State v. GormanState v. Gorman
- Reporters:
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- Before:
- Gardebring
OPINION
GARDEBRING, Justice.
Appellant, Michael Timothy Gorman, seeks review of his sentence for conviction of second degree felony murder and first degree manslaughter arising out of a barroom fight.
On October 15,1993, appellant was present in a St. Paul bar. At some point during the evening, appellant misplaced his wallet containing some $1,800 in cash. To recover the wallet, he announced his intention to search every patron in the bar and, assisted by three friends, began to do so. Witnesses testified at trial that the victim, who was in the bar that evening playing pool, had no objection to being searched. Appellant searched the victim and then, without apparent provocation, punched him in the mouth. The victim fell backwards to the floor, hitting his head on the bar’s concrete floor. Appellant knelt over the victim, holding his shirtfront in one hand, with his other hand cocked back as if to deliver another blow. The victim began to make gurgling noises. One of the patrons shouted to appellant to leave the victim alone, that he was out, and that she was telephoning the police. At this point, appellant and his three friends left the bar.
Bar patrons attending to the unconscious victim testified that he was having trouble breathing, continued to make gurgling sounds, and did not respond to their attempts to revive him. Paramedics took him to St. Paul Ramsey Hospital where emergency room personnel diagnosed him as comatose. He remained comatose until he died on October 17th. The medical examiner testified at trial that the victim sustained a fractured skull and “contra coup” injury, indicating that the brain bounced from the impact with the concrete floor, smashed against the opposite side of the skull, and returned to crash into the impact site, thereby leaving a bruise on both the front and back of the brain.
In this case we consider the reach of the career offender statute, which provides:
[wjhenever a person is convicted of a felony, and the judge is imposing an executed sentence based on a sentencing guidelines presumptive imprisonment sentence, the judge may impose an aggravated durational departure from the presumptive sentence up to the statutory maximum sentence if the judge finds and specifies on the record that the offender has more than four prior felony convictions and that the present offense is a felony that was committed as part of a pattern of criminal conduct.
1) the crime for which sentence is imposed must be a felony;
2) the defendant must possess at least five prior felony convictions; and
3) the crime must have been committed as part of a pattern of criminal conduct.
Appellant argues that, while he admittedly has an extensive criminal history, he does not come within the purview of the career offender statute. Appellant’s criminal record includes two felony convictions for third degree burglary,
Appellant first asserts that he does not have the requisite number of felonies to qualify as a career offender because one of
However, appellant makes two more substantive arguments that he does not come within the career offender statute. He argues first, that the career offender statute was intended to apply only to individuals who earn a substantial portion of their income from a pattern of criminal property offenses and, second, that his conduct is not within the meaning of “a pattern of criminal conduct.”
Our analysis begins with the language of the statute. Appellant’s insistence that the statute reaches only those criminals whose conviction records reveal how they earn their income (e.g., the professional burglar) is misplaced, when considered in light of the plain language of the statute. The canons of construction provide that
[w]hen the words of a law in their application to an existing situation are clear and free from all ambiguity, the letter of the law shall not be disregarded under the pretext of pursuing the spirit.
The career offender statute, on its face, includes no requirement that the sentencing court reach any conclusion as to the defendant’s sources of income. However, even were we to look to legislative history on this issue, we would reject appellant’s argument because the legislature, in 1992, specifically repealed the type of requirement he would have us read into the statute. Prior to 1992, the statute contained language specifying that the offense at issue be part of a pattern of criminal conduct “from which a substantial portion of the offender’s income was derived.” Minn Stat.
Thus, in this case, we are left with the key issue of the meaning of the term “pattern of criminal conduct.” Appellant argues that the present offense was “utterly unrelated” to his prior felony convictions, noting in particular that his present conviction is for second degree unintentional murder and that it is impossible to establish a “pattern” of unintentional conduct.
The interpretation of the word “pattern” in the career offender statute is a matter of first impression for this court.
2
This is not, however, the first time this court or other courts have wrestled with a definition of the word “pattern.” These prior efforts may guide our interpretation of the present statute.
See Minnesota Wood Specialties v. Mattson,
274 N.W.2d 116, 119 (Minn.1978) (terms that have been judicially
In
State v. Robinson,
539 N.W.2d 231 (Minn.1995), this court held that a pattern was “a regular, mainly unvarying way of acting or doing.”
Id.
at 237;
see also State v. Grube,
531 N.W.2d 484 (Minn.1995). At the federal level, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals considered a sentencing guideline derived from a federal statute similar to Minnesota’s career offender statute.
United States v. Oliver,
908 F.2d 260, 265-66 (1990);
see
U.S.S.G. 4B1.3,
Further, our approach to the admission of prior “bad act” evidence under
“Pattern” has also been statutorily defined. The Minnesota legislature has defined the term “pattern of criminal activity” in the context of the state Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute to mean acts “related to one another through a common scheme or plan or shared criminal purpose.”
We believe that these definitions all speak to a common understanding of the word “pattern.” A pattern is the organizing principle or relationship binding certain things, in this case incidents of criminal conduct, together. Such a “pattern of criminal conduct” may be demonstrated by proof of criminal conduct similar, but not identical, in motive, purpose, results, participants, victims or other shared characteristics.
There remains, however, the question of which acts of the defendant should be examined for the presence of the necessary “pattern.” Appellant argues that it can only be found in the defendant’s prior felonies. The state counters that the statute mentions a pattern of criminal, not felony, conduct. Nothing in the statute limits the sentencing court’s consideration to prior felony convictions, nor even to convictions at all. Therefore, based again upon the plain language of the statute, we hold that a “pattern of criminal conduct” may be demonstrated by reference to past felony or gross misdemeanor convictions or by proof, through clear and convincing evidence, of prior, uncharged acts of criminal conduct, where such acts are similar to the present offense in motive, purpose, results, participants, victims or other characteristics.
Applying this newly established rule to the facts of this case, we conclude that a pattern of criminal conduct is clearly established. While appellant argues that the present conviction for unintentional second degree murder bears no similarity to prior felony convictions for burglary and possession of stolen property, the court may, of course, also rely on his past convictions for third degree assault, fourth degree assault and fifth degree assault, along with two convictions for disorderly conduct, which also
Affirmed.
Notes
. The Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines are designed to imbue the practice of sentencing with a measure of consistency and rationality and a respect for the realities of the resources available to corrections officials. When it created the sentencing guidelines system, the legislature also established the Sentencing Guidelines Commission and charged it with the creation of standards to guide sentencing discretion.
. The court of appeals has considered this statute in two recent cases. In State v. Flemino, 529 N.W.2d 501, 503-04 (Minn.App.1995), rev. denied (Minn. May 31, 1995), the court determined that the proof of the “pattern” did not require that the state demonstrate that previous offenses were similar. The court reasoned that the legislature could not have intended that offenders committing dissimilar, but severe offenses would escape sentence enhancement, while those convicted of similar, but more minor offenses would come within the ambit of the statute. The Flemino court also noted that “career suggests a time-frame beyond a temporary activity or pastime” and thus that “the statute simply targets offenders whose primary occupation is committing crimes or whose lifestyle is one of criminality.” In State v. Hendrickson, 528 N.W.2d 263, 267-68 (Minn.App.1995), rev. denied (Minn. Apr. 27, 1995), the court of appeals ruled that a defendant’s prior convictions for felony theft and fraud comprised a “pattern of criminal conduct,” but did not attempt to define the terms.
. Appellant also has a conviction for burglary. Even as to the burglary, we have said, “Whenever [a defendant] commits a burglary it is reasonably foreseeable that [he or she] might encounter some person or that the burglary might be interrupted by the police or someone else,” State v. Filippi, 335 N.W.2d 739, 742 (Minn. 1983), thus running the risk of personal violence, even where none actually occurs.
. Because we conclude that appellant was properly sentenced under the career offender statute, we do not consider whether aggravating circumstances were present to otherwise justify the departure.