Simultaneous Sentencing on Two CSC Pleas Does Trigger Lifetime Conditional Release

State v. Nodes, Minn.S.Ct., 5/6/2015.  During a single plea hearing Mr. Nodes pled guilty to two counts of criminal sexual conduct which arose from separate behavioral incidents with separate victims.  The court deferred acceptance of the guilty pleas and ordered a presentence investigation.  At sentencing, the court accepted the two guilty pleas and then sequentially adjudicated Mr. Nodes guilty of each offense.  The question then came up whether Mr. Nodes was required to serve a conditional release term of ten years or of life.  When a court commits an offender who has a “previous or prior sex offense conviction” to prison for another criminal sexual conduct conviction the conditional release term is for life.

Both the trial court and the court of appeals said that when the court imposed the second sentence Mr. Nodes did not have a “previous or prior sex offense conviction.”  That is, there was offense, offense, followed by conviction, conviction. 

Justice Lillehaug, for the entire court, disagrees, and says that Mr. Nodes is subject to lifetime conditional release.  A “conviction” includes a guilty plea that has been accepted and recorded by the court.  There was no dispute that the trial court accepted Mr. Nodes’ guilty pleas, so the question became just when it had been “recorded by the court.”  Although the court has said different things about when a conviction is “recorded” most recently it’s said that the recording occurs when the court accepts the plea and adjudicates guilt.  So, as soon as the trial court accepted Mr. Nodes’ plea to the first count and then adjudicated guilt he was “convicted.”

See where this is going?  As soon as the trial court accepted the plea to the first count and adjudicated guilt on that count that conviction was no longer a present offense but was a past conviction.  That first conviction became a “prior sex offense conviction.  After the court then took a breach before adjudicating guilt on the second count, what had just become a “prior sex offense conviction” triggered the lifetime conditional release term.