Depraved Minds, Particular People

The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed a “depraved mind” murder conviction of an officer who shot an innocent person while responding to a 9-11 call that the victim made

This case comes to us following the tragic death of Justine Ruszczyk on July 15, 2017. Ruszczyk had called police that night out of concern for a woman she heard screaming behind her home. When Ruszczyk approached the police vehicle that came in response to her call, appellant Mohamed Mohamed Noor fired his service weapon at her from the passenger seat. Noor’s bullet struck Ruszczyk in the abdomen and sadly, she died at the scene.

..The issue before us on appeal is not whether Noor is criminally responsible for Ruszczyk’s death; he is, and his conviction of second-degree manslaughter stands. The issue before us is whether in addition to second-degree manslaughter, Noor can also be convicted of depraved-mind murder. Because conduct that is directed with particularity at the person who is killed cannot evince “a depraved mind, without regard for human life,” Minn. Stat. § 609.195(a), and because the only reasonable inference that can be drawn from the circumstances proved is that Noor directed his single shot with particularity at Ruszczyk, we conclude that he cannot. Accordingly, we reverse Noor’s conviction of depraved-mind murder and remand the case to the district court for Noor to be sentenced on the second-degree manslaughter conviction.

The issue on appeal

According to Noor, our precedent establishes that a depraved mind cannot be evinced when a defendant’s conduct is directed with particularity toward the person who is killed. For ease of reference, we refer to Noor’s argument as the “particular-person exclusion.”  Because the evidence establishes that his conduct was aimed specifically at the victim, Noor argues that the evidence is not sufficient to sustain his conviction of third-degree murder. The State responds that the evidence is sufficient under a line of cases that purportedly refutes the existence of the particular-person exclusion or, at the very least, conflicts with the line of cases cited by Noor. The State also argues that many of Noor’s cases are distinguishable based on their procedural posture and therefore, the particular person exclusion is not as well-established as Noor contends. And finally, if we reject the State’s first two arguments, the State urges us to overrule our precedent and begin our depraved-mind murder jurisprudence anew.

The court

In sum, our precedent confirms that Noor is correct in arguing that a person does not commit depraved-mind murder when the person’s actions are directed at a particular victim. The particular-person exclusion is simply another way of saying that the mental state for depraved-mind murder is one of general malice.

…We reaffirm our precedent today and confirm that the mental state required for depraved-mind murder cannot exist when the defendant’s actions are directed with particularity at the person who is killed.

The court overruled the single precedent that favored the State’s position

Mytych was clearly and manifestly wrong when it was decided, and it remains clearly wrong today. The defendant in that case bought a revolver, called in sick at work, and then flew hundreds of miles under an assumed name before killing the victims. Mytych, 194 N.W.2d at 278. The intended target was the defendant’s former fiancé, who secretly married another woman and later lied about the nature of his relationship with his new wife in order to engage in further sexual relations with the defendant. Id. Although this fact pattern closely resembles that of a first-degree murder case, the district court, perhaps motivated by a desire to avoid an overly harsh result for a sympathetic defendant, acquitted the defendant of the first-degree charge and convicted her of only depraved-mind murder. Id. at 281, 283.

Mytych’s analysis in affirming the conviction of depraved-mind murder is poorly reasoned. The analysis is composed almost entirely of direct quotations from the district court, and the district court’s reasoning, in turn, was heavily dependent on the testimony of a medical expert at trial. Id. at 281–83. The expert testified “that the word ‘depraved’ could mean automatically out of touch with ordinary standards of decency and reality.” Id. at 283. What little analysis exists in Mytych represents a near-absolute deference to that medical expert’s opinion on the legal definition of a “depraved mind.” Id.

The Mytych decision – linked here – tells the story of her romance with Sam Pulford, who married Janet Williams but had told Mytych that the marriage was “platonic” and had sexual relations with her after he had tied the knot

Communication for the next 4 months consisted largely of efforts by defendant to learn when Pulford would see her again. In February 1968 he visited Chicago where he again saw defendant. Telephone conversations continued thereafter between them until March 14, 1968, the date of the homicide and the assault.

Then

Upon arrival at the Twin Cities International Airport, she went to a rest room, loaded the revolver, and took a cab to the St. Paul Bus Depot. From there, she took another cab to the Pulford apartment and rang the bell. Pulford, in bed at the time, opened the door at his wife’s insistence but only after his wife had gone to the bathroom. After letting defendant into his apartment, he walked down a short hallway to get a cigarette and had turned back toward defendant when she shot him in the side. Pulford heard two more shots while lying on the floor. When he arose he found his wife’s body in the bathtub, lifeless as a result of two bullet wounds. Defendant denied any memory of taking the gun from her purse and firing it.

If the law is against you

Finally, the State asks us to abandon our precedent and reinterpret the depraved nmind murder statute from a clean slate. It essentially contends that there is a compelling reason to overturn our cases that rely on the particular-person exclusion. And that reason, the State argues, is that the particular-person exclusion creates a “significant hole” in Minnesota’s graduated statutory homicide scheme.

If there were, in fact, a “hole” in the statute, as the State argues, it would be the job of the Legislature to fill it. But as this case itself proves, there is no hole in Minnesota’s statutory regime. The parties agree that the evidence is sufficient to sustain Noor’s conviction for manslaughter. His death-causing action still results in criminal liability, and therefore there is no “hole” in the statutes in the truest sense of the word.

(Mike Frisch)