State v. Wickstrom Case Brief

State v. Wickstrom

405 N.W.2d 1 | 1987 Minn. App. LEXIS 4323

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Takeaway

In short, this case holds that Minnesota’s criminal-abortion statute then reached a nonconsensual assault that ended a pregnancy, and that severe, sustained violence against an especially vulnerable pregnant victim justified an above-double sentencing departure.

Background

Donald Wickstrom assaulted his former girlfriend, Cynthia Hall, who was eight months pregnant, and his mother, Gayle Gonsoir, after an argument over money. He hit both women, pulled their hair, and repeatedly kicked Hall with hard-toed boots, including kicks to her abdomen. Hall’s three-year-old son witnessed the assault. Although Hall reported abdominal cramps and tried to leave for the hospital, Wickstrom resumed the attack.

At the hospital, Hall initially had normal fetal-heart-rate readings. Later monitoring revealed severe fetal distress, and doctors performed a Cesarean section. The child was delivered without signs of life. Medical testimony supported the conclusion that the assault caused an abruptio placentae, or placental separation. Wickstrom’s expert maintained that earlier continuous monitoring and surgery could have saved the child.

A grand jury indicted Wickstrom for second-degree felony murder, first-degree assault, criminal abortion under Minnesota Statutes section 145.412, subdivision 3, and fifth-degree assault against Gonsoir. The trial court dismissed the murder count because a fetus was not a “human being” under the homicide statutes. It also dismissed the original abortion count after recognizing that much of subdivision 3 had been held unconstitutional, but permitted the State to amend the indictment to charge criminal abortion under subdivision 1.

After a bench trial, the court convicted Wickstrom of first-degree assault, criminal abortion, and fifth-degree assault. It found that he willfully performed an abortion, that his intoxication did not negate the requisite intent, and that any negligence by hospital staff was not a superseding cause of the fetal death. The court imposed a 107.5-month sentence for first-degree assault, a two-and-one-half-times durational departure from the presumptive sentence. Wickstrom appealed the amendment, the abortion conviction, causation, and the departure.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the trial court abused its discretion by allowing the State to amend the indictment from criminal abortion under section 145.412, subdivision 3, to criminal abortion under subdivision 1.

Holding

No. The amendment did not charge an additional or different offense and did not improperly bypass the grand jury.

Reasoning

Minnesota Rule of Criminal Procedure 17.05 permits amendment of an indictment before verdict if the amendment does not add or substitute a different offense and does not prejudice substantial rights. Although prior cases had not squarely addressed a pretrial amendment to an indictment, the court saw no reason to prohibit an amendment before trial when the rule permits one during trial under those conditions.

Both statutory subdivisions made it unlawful to perform an abortion unless specified conditions were satisfied. A violation of any one required condition could establish criminal abortion; the individual conditions were not separate elements creating distinct crimes. In particular, the allegations under both versions established that the abortion was not performed in a hospital or abortion facility.

Subdivision 1 used the word “willfully,” but the original indictment and the grand-jury instructions had also required probable cause that Wickstrom willfully performed an abortion. The grand jury was told that the State did not need to prove Wickstrom specifically intended to end the pregnancy, which was equally true under the amended charge. Thus, the amendment preserved the offense actually considered by the grand jury.】【”】【},{