Right to confront accuser propels pedophile's case

WASHINGTON - Stephen Danforth has followed a twisted legal path from disbarred Minnesota attorney to test case for the right to confront an accuser.

From the Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton, Minn., where he is serving a 26-year term for sexually abusing a 6-year-old boy, he will follow a Supreme Court case he launched in his new incarnation as a jailhouse lawyer.

His case, Danforth vs. State of Minnesota, will be heard before the U.S. Supreme Court later this month. But there will be little, if anything, said about the day in July 1995 when he molested the son of a friend at a swimming pool in Richfield.

Instead, the case, like so many that reach the nation's highest court, will turn on intricate rules of criminal procedure, testing the reach of federal court rulings into state courts.

Analysts say the outcome could affect scores of other child sex abuse cases in Minnesota, which, like the largely unsuccessful Scott County sex abuse investigations of the 1980s, often turn on the credibility and reliability of extremely young victims.

Convicted by a Hennepin County jury of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, Danforth, a repeat pedophile whom psychiatrists termed a pattern sex offender, continued to proclaim his innocence.

Representing himself in his 1996 trial, he admitted to a multitude of "petty insanities and strange practices," but not to molesting a child.

During a sentencing appeal in 1998, he complained about "vicious prosecutors who have conspired to stamp out child abuse."

But buried in the reams of court papers he has filed over the years in state and federal courts, there is one legal nugget that has caught the Supreme Court's attention: His contention that, owing to a series of interconnected legal rulings, he never got a chance to cross-examine his accuser.

"That's the bedrock principle," said his state public defender, Benjamin Butler, who will argue Danforth's case Oct. 30. "He says 'I want the right to confront my accuser. That right was violated at my trial.' And nobody has considered whether that's true, because there have been these procedural obstacles in his way."

Videotaped testimony

Danforth's accuser, identified in court papers as J.S., was scheduled to testify at Danforth's original trial. But Judge Richard Solum, now retired, decided after interviewing the boy that he was not competent to testify before a jury. Although the boy had the ability to know and remember what happened, the judge concluded, he was not capable of paying attention long enough to testify meaningfully.

Instead, the boy told his story on videotape.

Danforth challenged the videotaped interview on appeal. The Minnesota Court of Appeals rejected his claim, ruling the statement was sufficiently reliable to be used as evidence against him. Subsequent petitions to the Minnesota Supreme Court and to federal courts were also denied.

Then came a blockbuster U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2004 restricting the use of recorded testimony without the possibility of cross-examination.

Danforth promptly filed a new set of appeals, citing that ruling.

The case eventually worked its way back up to the Minnesota Supreme Court. But the issue the court addressed was not whether Danforth had been denied his Constitutional right to confront his accuser. Rather, it focused on whether the new U.S. Supreme Court decision had come in time to help him.

Danforth lost again. The Minnesota court ruled that the new federal rule on recorded testimony did not apply retroactively to his case, which had become final in the previous decade.

But a critical part of the Minnesota court's opinion was based on the justices' view that, because Danforth's appeal was based on a new federal interpretation of the right to confront an accuser, they were bound by U.S. Supreme Court precedents in deciding how to apply that interpretation. Federal law is pretty clear on this point: The U.S. Supreme Court has already decided in another case that its restriction on recorded statements does not apply to cases that are already final.

Reopening the question

All this, however, gives Danforth another crack at his old case. Now 56, he is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to give state courts the freedom to apply broader retroactive standards in cases such as his.

Some states already do. Some, such as Minnesota, don't. For this reason, state officials around the country are following Danforth's appeal closely.

"It's a case about the reach and contours of new federal rights," said Deputy Hennepin County Attorney Pat Diamond, arguing the case for the state.

The case also features two University of Minnesota Law School graduates: Diamond, from the class of 1986, will face off against Butler, from the class of 2001.

Whoever prevails before the U.S. Supreme Court, it is unlikely that Danforth will go free anytime soon. Even if he wins, Butler said, he would still have to take his case back through the Minnesota court system.

In one of his last appearances before a jury, Danforth, then 45, acknowledged that he had served a previous prison term for child molestation. But he said he had reformed, resolving merely to look at pictures of children for sexual gratification. "I've become a voyeur," he said.

A new trial could be ordered; the victim, J.S., is now 18.

Kevin Diaz • 202-408-2753

Kevin Diaz • kdiaz@startribune.com