Life Without Parole for Aggravated Criminal Sexual Conduct Violates Neither Federal or State Constitutional Prohibitions of Disproportionate Sentencing

State v. Juarez, Minn.S.Ct., 10/2/2013.  A grand jury indicted Mr. Juarez for attempted first degree criminal sexual conduct, second degree criminal sexual conduct, kidnapping, and third degree assault.  Following a court trial, the judge found him guilty of all four counts.  The trial court then found that Mr. Juarez had a qualifying prior sex offense conviction and that his his current conviction for second degree criminal sexual conduct included a “heinous element,” whereupon the court imposed a sentence of life with possibility of parole.  On appeal, Mr. Juarez argued that the life without sentence violated both the federal and state constitutions.  He also argued that the the trial court was wrong to find the “heinous element – moving a victim some two hundred feet into a confined and isolated alleyway.

After his sexual advances toward S.M. were rebuffed inside a bar in Wilmar, Mr. Juarez accosted S.M. outside the bar, dragged her by the arm some two hundred feet across a parking lot and to the back end of a narrow alley between two buildings.  There he assaulted her, attempted to have sex with her, ripped her clothing and grabbed her breasts and genital area.  S.M.’s friends showed up, causing Mr. Juarez to flee.

Justice Dietzen, in a unanimous Opinion, rejected both of Mr. Juarez’s arguments.  The court examined the circumstances of Mr. Juarez’s case in deciding his federal eighth amendment challenge that the sentence was unconstitutionally excessive.  The court concluded that a comparison of the sentence with the gravity of his offense does not support an inference of gross disproportionality.  The court reaches the same conclusion under its analysis of the Minnesota Constitution, which requires a finding that the sentence is either cruel or unusual.  The court concludes that it is neither.

On the second argument – the existence of a “heinous element” -  the court determined that removing S.M. some two hundred feet was not completely incidental to the sexual assault and was thus a proper basis on which to find the heinous element.  The court also rejected the argument that the state was required to reintroduce its evidence in support of the heinous element rather than rely upon its evidence on this factor that came in during the guilt/innocence part of the trial.  The court did emphasize that the trial court had been the fact finder, not a jury; and that the state had filed a memorandum in advance of the sentencing hearing that had put Mr. Juarez on notice of the state’s intent to rely upon trial evidence to prove up the heinous element.