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It was not immediately clear how the ruling might affect a similar case pending against a Winona pastor, although Winona County Attorney Chuck MacLean said he intends to continue prosecuting the case.
John Bussmann is serving a nearly six-year sentence at the state prison in Moose Lake. The former Roman Catholic priest was convicted in Hennepin County in 2005 of third-degree criminal sexual conduct for his sexual relationships with two women in his congregation.
Bussmann, now 53, maintained that the sex was consensual. But he was tried under a law that makes it a crime for clergy to engage in a sexual relationship with a person receiving private religious or spiritual advice.
The court overturned the conviction because of the admission of evidence regarding religious doctrine caused the entanglement of religion with the verdict.
The judges split evenly — with one justice abstaining — on the question of whether the law against clergy having sex with people who come to them for counseling or spiritual guidance, meaning the law will stand.
“Law professors and law review editors are scrambling to figure out what this means,” said Winona attorney Rich McCluer, who is representing Rev. Donald Budd, who is charged in Winona County District Court with 10 counts of felony criminal sexual conduct for having an improper relationship with a woman he was counseling.
McCluer also challenged the state statute on the grounds that it unnecessarily entangles law with religion, in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
In an e-mail, MacLean called the ruling “an almost unprecedentedly fractured set of opinions.” However, citing a concurring opinion by Justice Paul Anderson, MacLean said the ruling overturned Bussmann’s conviction but found the statute itself constitutional and thus applicable to Budd’s alleged actions.
McCluer speculated that the statute’s constitutionality may ultimately be decided in the federal appeals court system — either in the Bussmann case or possibly Budd’s.
This story contains information from the Associated Press.
