Any Criminal Vehicular Operation Conviction Can Be Used to Enhance a DWI to a Felony Regardless of Statutory Language

State v. Boecker, Minn.S.Ct., 4/26/2017.  Sometimes the "plain language" of a statute just doesn't get you where you want to go:

Worn out phrases and longing gazes

Won't get you where you want to go, no.

Here's how Justice Chutich describes what's before them in this appeal from the court of appeals:

Appellant Ralph Joseph Boecker pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree driving while impaired (DWI) after the district court found that his 1998 conviction for criminal vehicular operation enhanced his 2015 DWI charge. See Minn. Stat. § 169A.24, subd. 1(3) (2016); Minn. Stat. § 609.21, subd. 2a (1996). Boecker argues that he is entitled to withdraw this plea because his 1998 conviction is not included in the list of predicate felonies in section 169A.24, which enhance a DWI charge to first-degree DWI. The sole issue here is whether a criminal vehicular operation conviction from 1998, a year not specifically listed in the current version of the first-degree DWI statute, can be used to enhance a DWI charge to a first-degree offense. We hold that it can, and we affirm the decision of the court of appeals. 

This is just too, too much for the originalist/literalist on the court, Justice Stras to bear:

The question in this case is whether a 1998 criminal-vehicular-operation conviction is a predicate offense that can transform appellant Ralph Boecker’s driving-while-impaired (“DWI”) charge into a first-degree offense. Resolving this question, like the one presented in Mims, turns on the plain and unambiguous language of a criminal statute—here, Minn. Stat. § 169A.24, subd. 1(3) (2016)—not on what behavior we think the Legislature may have believed it was criminalizing. See Mims, 2 N.W. at 492-93. The court’s answer to the question would allow an unlisted offense to enhance Boecker’s current crime, converting it from fourth-degree DWI, a misdemeanor with a maximum sentence of 90 days in jail, into first-degree DWI, a felony offense carrying a minimum sentence of 3 years in prison. Compare Minn. Stat. § 169A.276, subd. 1(a) (2016), with Minn. Stat. § 169A.27, subd. 2 (2016); Minn. Stat. § 609.03 (2016). My answer is different. I would conclude that the plain and unambiguous language of section 169A.24, subdivision 1(3), establishes that Boecker’s 1998 criminal-vehicular-operation conviction, which is nowhere to be found in the first-degree DWI statute, does not enhance Boecker’s current DWI offense.

Justice Hudson joined Justice Stras's dissent.