State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2018).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A19-0359

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Jamahl Lorenzo Climmons,
Appellant.

Filed February 3, 2020
Affirmed
Bratvold, Judge

Dakota County District Court
File No. 19HA-CR-17-1265

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

James C. Backstrom, Dakota County Attorney, Heather Pipenhagen, Assistant County
Attorney, Hastings, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Sara J. Euteneuer, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Cleary, Chief Judge; Worke, Judge; and Bratvold,
Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
BRATVOLD, Judge
Appellant challenges his sentence, arguing the district court abused its discretion
when it denied his motion for a downward dispositional departure and imposed an executed
2
sentence within the recommended guidelines. Appellant pleaded guilty to and was
convicted of one count of dissemination of pornographic works involving minors and five
counts of possession of pornographic works involving minors. We affirm.
FACTS
Appellant Jamahl Lorenzo Climmons lived with his father in S outh St. Paul in
September 2016. Law enforcement executed a search warrant at his home and seized
multiple electronic devices used by 18- year-old Climmons. Climmons later admitted that
his electronic devices contained child pornography and that he had used the electronic
devices to disseminate child pornography through a peer-to-peer file-sharing program.
In March 2017, the state charged Climmons by complaint with dissemination of
pornographic work s involving minors under Minn. S tat. § 617.247, subd. 3(a) (2014)
(count one) and possession of pornographic works involving minors under Minn. Stat.
§ 617.247, subd. 4(a) (2014) (counts two-ten). 1 The district court released Climmons
without bail and imposed conditions. For example, Climmons was to have no contact with
persons under 18 years old without approval, keep the court informed of his current
address, have no access to or use of the internet without approval, and have no use of
electronic devices that have internet access.
On September 13, 2018, the district court issued an arrest warrant alleging that
Climmons had violated the conditions of his release because he used the internet to post

1 About one month later, the state filed an amended complaint that changed the offense
dates for counts two through ten, but otherwise alleged the same criminal charges.
3
comments about sexual contact with children and did not report a change in address. 2
Police investigated a “cyber tip” that a “Reddit” user had encouraged a 13-year-old female
to have sexual intercourse with a 30-year-old male.3 Police executed a search warrant for
Reddit that yielded evidence that the username in the cyber tip was associated with
Climmons. The same username made multiple Reddit posts in March, June, and July 2018;
many posts were of a sexual nature and mentioned sexual contact with children. After
Climmons’s arrest, the district court held a bail hearing. Climmons denied the warrant
allegations and the district court asked if he wanted an evidentiary hearing. He declined to
present evidence. 4 The district court set bail , which Climmons did not post, and he
remained in custody.
Ten days later, the parties reached a plea agreement in which Climmons would plead
guilty to one count of dissemination and five counts of possession; the parties agreed to

2 In its brief to this court, the state notes that Climmons changed his address when he
“moved to Crystal and [lived] with his father’s girlfriend and the girlfriend’s children,
which was a violation of his conditions of release.” The state’s warrant application filed in
September 2018 alleged that Climmons’s failure to report his change of address was a
violation of his release conditions. The warrant application did not allege that Climmons
violated the condition to have no contact with minors, nor did the application state that
minors were living at his residence. Yet, at the sentencing hearing, Climmons’s therapist
testified that Climmons told her that children were living at his residence. The district court
did not discuss this issue or make any relevant findings so we do not consider it in our
opinion.

3 Reddit is a social-media website that aggregates content posted by registered members.

4 At the bail hearing, Climmon s asserted that the no-internet release condition was
unconstitutional because it prevented him from having internet access without approval;
he repeated this argument at sentencing. The district court rejected the constitutional
challenge, and Climmons does not raise this issue on appeal.
4
cap his sentence at 60 months with a five- year conditional-release period, and to allow
the defense to move for a sentencing departure. Climmons pleaded guilty to count one
(dissemination) and counts four, six, seven, eight, and ten (possession); the state dismissed
counts two, three, five, and nine. In his sworn testimony, Climmons agreed that he
transmitted child pornography to someone else through a file-sharing program in August
2016. Climmons also agreed that he knowingly possessed child pornography on his
electronic devices while living at his father’s home in July, August, and September 2016,
and that the pornographic images for each possession count depicted different child
victims. The district court accepted Climmons’s plea and found him guilty on counts one,
four, six, seven, eight and ten.
Before the sentencing hearing, Climmons participated in a court-ordered
psychosexual evaluation and completed a court-ordered targeted presentence investigation.
The district court received reports from both to use at sentencing. The guidelines sentence
was a presumptive prison commitment on the dissemination conviction with a range of
51 to 72 months. 5 Climmons moved for a downward dispositional departure, asking the
district court to stay all sentences and require him to participate in outpatient treatment.
At the sentencing hearing, Climmons called three witnesses, including himself. His
therapist testified that Climmons attended therapy starting in November 2017, about two
to three times a month for ten months. The therapist testified that Climmons had been

5 Before pleading guilty, Climmons participated in a preplea investigation report. The
preplea sentencing worksheet stated Climmons’s criminal-history score was zero before he
was convicted of the March 2017 charges.
5
diagnosed with Asperger’s, anxiety, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
The therapist agreed that Climmons did not require a residential inpatient sex-offender
treatment program and stated that he is amenable to treatment in a supervised living
situation with a high-intensity outpatient setting.
The psychotherapist testified that she had diagnosed Climmons with
autism-spectrum disorder, pedophilic disorder, and traits of antisocial personality disorder,
and that he had a pr ior ADHD diagnosis. She also testified that Climmons had disclosed
that he was sexually abused as a child. The psychotherapist testified that Climmons did not
use alcohol or drugs, he had dated a same-age female and had not had sexual intercourse.
The psychotherapist testified about her report, which stated that Climmons is “highly
conflicted about his sexual interests and desires and, as such, likely f eels remorseful and
ashamed.” She testified that Climmons “showed no remorse for the individuals that he
viewed in the pornography.”
The psychotherapist also testified that Climmons admitted “he was not following
all probation guidelines during the time that [she] was interviewing him.” The
psychotherapist concluded that Climmons “likely would be prone to be outwardly
compliant to please others, but he may not actually be internally compliant.” The
psychotherapist recommended that Climmons be placed “in a setting where there’s
accountability and monitoring” because he needs “intensive treatment”; Climmons “does
need to be in a supervised living situation, but it does not have to be residential treatment.”
Lastly, Climmons testified that he lived with his father, was single, had a job before
being taken into custody, had a driver’s license, and denied using alcohol or illegal drugs.
6
During cross-examination, Climmons admitted that he made comments of a sexual nature
on Reddit in March of 2018. In response to a nother user’s post that stated she had been
raped by her uncle when she was eight years old, Climmons admitted that he wrote
this response: “I know I’m going to get a lot of flak for this, but I just want to say this:
nice.” Climmons also admitted to writing a Reddit post stating that the actresses in
pornography are “18- year-old hags” and he needs to see “something younger .” The state
read victim -impact statements from the parents of children in the pornography images
found on Climmons’s electronic devices.
The district court denied Climmons’s motion for a d ownward dispositional
departure and stated:
I find that there are no substantial or compelling reasons
at this point for me to put you on probation and depart.
Despite what your lawyer has said, it’s not because you
spend money on video games, and it’s certainly not because of
your employment history or because of the victim-impact
statements.
Your own behavior is what has you in this position. You
are not in a place where, when you knew so much was on the
line, that you could conform with, quite frankly, lesser
conditions that would be placed on you when you’re on
probation. You could not do that. And that makes you a danger
not only for yourself but for everybody else, and so it is an
executed sentence. Thank you.
The district court imposed concurrent executed sentences of 60 months on
count one, 51 months on count four, 39 months on count ten, and stayed concurrent
sentences of 25 months on count six, 15 months on count seven, and 20 months on count
eight. Climmons executed the stayed sentences.
This appeal follows.
7
D E C I S I O N
We review sentencing decisions for abuse of discretion. State v. Kangbateh,
868 N.W.2d 10, 14 (Minn. 2015). We “generally will not interfere with a sentencing court’s
decision to impose a term within the presumptive sentence range.” Id. “A district court
must order the presumptive sentence provided in the sentencing guidelines unless the case
involves substantial and compelling circumstances that warrant a downward departure.”
Wells v. State, 839 N.W.2d 775, 778 (Minn. App. 2013) (quotation omitted), review denied
(Minn. Feb. 18, 2014). “A departure is not mandatory, and an appellate court will reverse
a sentencing court’s refusal to depart only in a ‘rare’ case.” State v. Walker, 913 N.W.2d
463, 468 (Minn. App. 2018) (citation omitted).
A downward dispositional departure is a departure from the presumptive
disposition—probation or prison—as recommended in the Minnesota Sentencing
Guidelines. See Minn. Sent. Guidelines 2.D.1.a (2015). In 2015, the sentencing guidelines
enumerated seven non-exclusive mitigating factors that may justify a dispositional
departure if there are “identifiable, substantial, and compelling circumstances to support
a departure.” Minn. Sent. Guidelines 2.D.1 (2015), 2.D.3.a.1-7 (2015) (listing factors). One
factor is whether the offender is “particularly amenable to probation .” See State v. Soto,
855 N.W.2d 303, 308 (Minn. 2014); see also Minn. Sent. Guidelines 2.D.3.a.7. The
sentencing guidelines state that amenability to probation “may, but need not, be supported
by the fact that the offender is particularly amenable to a relevant program of individualized
treatment in a probationary setting.” Minn. Sent. Guidelines 2.D.3.a.7. State v. Trog
identified additional factors that a district court may consider when determining whether a
8
defendant is particularly amenable to individualized treatment in a probationary setting,
such as, “the defendant’s age, his prior record, his remorse, his cooperation, his attitude
while in court, and the support of friends and/or family.”6 323 N.W.2d 28, 31 (Minn. 1982).
Climmons argues that the district court abused its discretion by denying his motion
for a downward dispositional departure, contending that his “particular amenability to
probation provided the compelling and substantial circumstances to justify the departure.”
Climmons addresses the Trog factors, and argues that he is particularly amenable to
probation because of his youth, community support, history of being sexually abused and
mental-health diagnoses, his remorse, and his motivation to change. Climmons also argues
that he is particularly amenable to treatment in a probationary setting because of his regular
attendance at therapy, and because his therapist’s and psychotherapist’s testimony
supported his claim that he “could be successful in an intensive out[] patient treatment
program.” Climmons fails to mention his release-condition violations in his brief to this
court.
The state responds that “[t]here were no[ t] substantial and compelling reasons in
this case to support a dispositional departure” and that Climmons is not “exceptional,

6 Climmons argues that other factors bearing on amenability to probation include a
defendant’s demonstrated motivation to change and his “unamenability to prison coupled
with amenability to probation.” Climmons is correct that these other factors have some
support in our caselaw. See State v. Hennessy, 328 N.W.2d 442, 443 (Minn. 1983)
(discussing motivation to change); State v. Wright, 310 N.W.2d 461, 462 (Minn. 1981)
(discussing unamenability to prison). Regarding the application of these factors to
Climmons’s case, the district court received record evidence on both factors and
nonetheless found that Climmons is a “danger not only for [him]self but for everybody
else.”
9
atypical, much less particularly amenable to probation.” The state argues that, although
Climmons is young, he is particularly unamenable to treatment in a probationary setting
because of his release -condition violations and the therapist’s and psychotherapist’s
opinions that he needs a supervised living environment and intensive treatment with
monitoring.
The district court focused on Climmons’s release-condition violations and decided
not to depart because Climmons failed to obey “lesser conditions” than would be required
by probation. Climmons admitted that he violated his release conditions by using the
internet without approval and posting comments about sexual contact with children. The
release-condition violations occurred while he was in outpatient therapy.
We conclude the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied
Climmons’s departure motion and imposed executed guidelines sentences. Even assuming
that Climmons is correct and that he may be amenable to treatment in a probationary
setting, this does not establish an abuse of discretion. See State v. Olson, 765 N.W.2d 662,
665 (Minn. App. 2009) (holding the district court’s decision to impose presumptive
sentence was not an abuse of discretion even when “[t]here [was] evidence in the record
that appellant was amenable to probation”).
Soto held that a defendant must be “particularly ” amenable to probation to support
a dispositional departure. 855 N.W.2d at 308. And a district court must identify substantial
and compelling circumstances to support any departure from the sentencing guidelines.
Wells, 839 N.W.2d at 778. The district court did not find that Climmons was particularly
amenable to probation, nor did it find substantial and compelling reasons to depart. The
10
district court’s sentencing decision is supported by record evidence and lies within its broad
discretion. Thus, we affirm.
Affirmed.