State v. Galvan-Contreras

980 N.W.2d 578

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent,

v.Edgar GALVAN-CONTRERAS, Appellant.

A20-0366

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Filed: October 12, 2022

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, Saint Paul, Minnesota; and Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Brittany D. Lawonn, Assistant County Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for respondent.

Bruce D. Nestor, De León, Nestor & Torres, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for appellant.

OPINION

GILDEA, Chief Justice.

This case asks us to interpret Minn. Stat. § 609.746, subd. 1(e)(2) (2018). The statute makes it a crime to secretly install or use a device to record or photograph a person in a place "where a reasonable person would have an expectation of privacy and has exposed or is likely to expose their intimate parts." Id. , subd. 1(d)(1) (2018). If the defendant secretly records "a minor under the age of 18, knowing or having reason to know that the minor is present," the offense is enhanced from a gross misdemeanor to a felony. Id. , subd. 1(e)(2).

The State charged appellant Edgar Galvan-Contreras with a felony violation of section 609.746, subd. 1(e)(2), based on allegations that he used his cell phone to secretly record 15-year-old E.B. in a public bathroom stall at a fitness center. Galvan-Contreras filed a pretrial motion to dismiss the charge for lack of probable cause, arguing the State failed to allege that he knew or had reason to know E.B. was a minor under the age of 18 when he committed the offense. The State conceded it could not prove Galvan-Contreras knew or had reason to know E.B. was under the age of 18. But the State argued it was required to prove only that Galvan-Contreras had reason to know a person was present in the recorded location. Persuaded by the State's argument, the district court found that the statute requires the State to prove the defendant's knowledge of the presence of a person, not the age of the person present, and therefore denied the motion to dismiss the felony charge.

Acting in accordance with Minn. R. Crim. P. 26.01, subd. 4, Galvan-Contreras stipulated to the State's case in order to appeal the district court's dispositive pretrial ruling on the motion to dismiss. As part of the stipulated record, the State conceded it could not prove that Galvan-Contreras knew E.B. was a minor under the age of 18 when he committed the offense. The district court found Galvan-Contreras guilty of the felony offense.

In a precedential opinion, the court of appeals agreed with the district court's reading of Minn. Stat. § 609.746, subd. 1(e)(2) and concluded that the language of the statute does not require the defendant to have knowledge of the victim's age when the offense is committed. Therefore, the court of appeals affirmed the district court's pretrial ruling. State v. Galvan-Contreras , 953 N.W.2d 529, 533 (Minn. App. 2021). We granted further review.

Because we conclude that the plain language of section 609.746, subdivision 1(e)(2), requires the State to prove that Galvan-Contreras committed the offense while knowing or having reason to know a person under the age of 18 was present, the district court's pretrial ruling was erroneous. Accordingly, we reverse.

FACTS

On September 20, 2018, a 15-year-old boy, E.B., was at a fitness center in Bloomington. E.B. was in the locker room using a bathroom stall when he heard a noise and turned to his right. From between a gap in the bathroom stalls, E.B. observed a cell phone camera directed at him. E.B. immediately went to the fitness center lobby where he told his mother and a fitness center employee about the incident. The fitness center employee went to investigate and found an adult male, later identified as Galvan-Contreras, in the adjacent bathroom stall. The fitness center employee confronted Galvan-Contreras about the cell phone incident. Galvan-Contreras denied any involvement and walked away.

On October 10, 2018, officers from the Bloomington Police Department obtained a search warrant for the cell phone, computer, and other electronic devices of Galvan-Contreras. A forensic examination of the cell phone revealed a saved video recording of a young male pulling up his underwear in a bathroom stall.

On October 17, 2018, Galvan-Contreras went to the Bloomington Police Department for a voluntary interview. Initially, he denied recording E.B. with his cell phone camera in the fitness center bathroom stall. But later during the interview, Galvan-Contreras admitted to placing his cellphone camera between a gap in the bathroom stalls. He also told the officers that "[E.B.] didn't look like a man, you know what I am saying. I noticed right away that he was a kid."

The State charged Galvan-Contreras with violating the interference with privacy statute, Minn. Stat. § 609.746, subd.1(e)(2).¹ The statute makes it a crime to "surreptitiously" install or use a device to photograph or record in a place "where a reasonable person would have an expectation of privacy and has exposed or is likely to expose their intimate parts." Minn. Stat. § 609.746, subd. 1(d)(1). The surreptitious recording or photography must be done "with intent to intrude upon or interfere with the privacy of the occupant." Id. , subd. 1(d)(2). The offense is a gross misdemeanor. Id. , subd. 1(d). But the statute elevates the offense to a felony if the defendant "violates this subdivision against a minor under the age of 18, knowing or having reason to know that the minor is present." Minn. Stat. § 609.746, subd.1(e)(2). The State only charged Galvan-Contreras with the felony offense, not the gross misdemeanor.

Galvan-Contreras filed a pretrial motion to dismiss the charge for lack of probable cause. He argued that the State failed to allege he knew or had reason to know "the person present was a minor." The State conceded it could not prove Galvan-Contreras had reason to know E.B. was a minor. But the State argued that it was required to prove only that Galvan-Contreras had reason to know the "the victim was present."

The district court denied the motion to dismiss the charge against Galvan-Contreras. Observing that the relevant statutory language reads "knowing or having reason to know that the minor is present," as opposed to "knowing or having reason to know that the minor is under the age of 18," the district court concluded that it is the presence of the victim, not the victim's age, that must be known by the defendant at the time he commits the offense. As for the Legislature's use of the definite article "the" in the dependent clause "the minor is present" in the statute, the district court concluded that the article is used to "consistently identify[ ] the victim in accordance with the preceding clause necessitating that the violation occur[s] against a minor under the age of 18." (Emphasis added.)

The parties submitted the case under Minnesota Rule of Criminal Procedure 26.01, subdivision 4, which allows a defendant to stipulate to the State's case to obtain appellate review of a pretrial ruling. In accordance with the rule, the parties agreed that the district court's pretrial ruling on the motion to dismiss was either dispositive of the case or that a trial would be unnecessary if Galvan-Contreras prevailed on appeal. Galvan-Contreras stipulated to the prosecution's evidence, which included police reports, a video recording of the police interviewing Galvan-Contreras, photographs of the bathroom in the fitness center, photographs of Galvan-Contreras in the fitness center lobby, and an audio recording of the police interviewing the victim. The parties also included the following written stipulation:

Defendant agrees that the State can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he knew or should have known a person was present, and that the State can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person who was present was in fact a minor under the age of 18. The State agrees that it lacks sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that at the time of the offense, the Defendant knew or should have known this person was a minor.

The district court found Galvan-Contreras guilty of the charged offense. In its written order, the district court found that the State's evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Galvan-Contreras "knew a person was there in the neighboring stall, and that the [v]ictim was later determined to be a minor."

On appeal, Galvan-Contreras argued that the plain language of section 609.746, subd.1(e)(2), "unambiguously establishes that the offense has a mens rea element requiring that a defendant knows or has reason to know that the victim of his offense is a minor under the age of eighteen." In contrast, the State argued it "did not have to prove that [Galvan-Contreras] had knowledge of the fact that the victim was under the age of 18." The court of appeals affirmed in a precedential opinion, concluding that the plain language of section 609.746, subd. 1(e)(2), "establishes age as a material element but requires knowledge only of the victim's presence, not knowledge of the victim's age."² State v. Galvan-Contreras , 953 N.W.2d 529, 532 (Minn. App. 2021).

We granted Galvan-Contreras's petition for further review.

ANALYSIS

This case requires us to interpret Minn. Stat. § 609.746, subd. 1(e)(2), and then apply the interpretation to this case. We address each question in turn.

I.

First, we must consider whether the knowledge element in Minn. Stat. § 609.746, subd. 1(e)(2), "knowing or having reason to know," attaches to the victim's presence or age. We review issues of statutory interpretation de novo. State v. Thonesavanh , 904 N.W.2d 432, 435 (Minn. 2017). When interpreting a statute, the first step is to determine whether the language of the statute is ambiguous. State v. Degroot , 946 N.W.2d 354, 360 (Minn. 2020). When "the Legislature's intent is clear from the statute's plain and unambiguous language, then we interpret the statute according to its plain meaning without resorting to the canons of statutory construction."...