In the Matter of the Civil Commitment of: Bruce Ray Fairbanks.

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by
Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A24-1362

In the Matter of the Civil Commitment of: Bruce Ray Fairbanks.

Filed February 10, 2025
Affirmed; motion denied
Ross, Judge

Koochiching County District Court
File No. 36-PR-23-192

Joshua P. Nuckols, Joshua Nuckols Law, Pine City, Minnesota (for appellant Bruce Ray
Fairbanks)

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, James Austad, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul,
Minnesota; and

Jeffrey S. Naglosky, Koochiching County Attorney, International Falls, Minnesota (for
respondent Koochiching County Attorney)

Considered and decided by Ross, Presiding Judge; Harris, Judge; and Jesson,
Judge.∗
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
ROSS, Judge
Bruce Fairbanks has engaged in sexual misconduct for more than three decades.
Before he was imprisoned in 1997, he used a knife to puncture and collapse the lung of a
girl who refused his advances, and he raped a store attendant. Incarcerated, he knocked out

∗ Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to
Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.
2
and tried to sexually assault a woman, exposed his genitals to at least a dozen female guards
usually while masturbating, and stalked and sexually harassed a different female guard.
Fairbanks now appeals from his civil commitment as a sexual ly dangerous person and
sexual psychopathic personality, arguing, among other things, that the district court’s
commitment order failed to show that he engaged in a course of sexual misconduct.
Because clear and convincing evidence and adequate findings support Fairbanks’s
commitment, we affirm.
FACTS
Bruce Fairbanks was sexually abused as a child and witnessed substantial domestic
violence between his parents. He dropped out of school and was frequently involved in the
juvenile justice system.
Fairbanks engaged in various serious crimes as an adult. In 1988 he broke into a
woman’s home, entered her bedroom, grabbed her throat, and repeatedly stabbed her with
a screwdriver. During his escape, Fairbanks stabbed the woman’s daughter in the head.
In 1992 on supervised release after the 1988 assault, he approached a girl who was
walking alone and asked if she wanted a drink. After she rejected Fairbanks and told him
that she was carrying pepper spray, he told her, “Mace me then.” The girl sprayed Fairbanks
in the face, and he became irate and began stabbing the ground. Fairbanks nevertheless
urged his companions to ask the girl out for him. Her sister tried to protect her by telling
Fairbanks that “she’s just a young girl” and ushering her into their house. Fairbanks entered
the house and attacked the girl by stabbing her in the chest with a knife, collapsing her
lung. He was convicted of assault resulting in serious bodily harm.
3
In 1997 and again on supervised release from prison, Fairbanks encountered a 21-
year-old woman who was working as the lone late-night clerk at a gas station. Fairbanks
covered his face with a hooded sweatshirt, approached the clerk from behind, and forced
her into the back room. He turned off the light and told the woman to undress, threatening
her with a screwdriver. He forced her out of the building and raped her between snowbanks.
He threateningly warned her not to tell police.
Fairbanks has been imprisoned since his conviction of first-degree criminal sexual
conduct after the 1997 offense. His criminal conduct has continued.
In 2000 and incarcerated at Lino Lakes, Fairbanks crept up behind a female prison
guard and knocked her out with a blow to her head. The assault was partially captured in
video footage from a surveillance camera. Fairbanks dragged the guard’s unconscious body
down a flight of stairs away from camera view. After a minute and a half out of sight, the
guard reappeared in the video footage, bleeding heavily from her head and face and bracing
herself against the wall using one hand while pulling up her pants with the other. Fairbanks
then also entered the frame, adjusting his pants. He menaced the guard with a makeshift
blade and forced her to move with him as a hostage toward a set of locked doors where he
threatened to kill her, attempting to negotiate his escape. Investigators later found blood on
the guard’s panties and on Fairbanks’s underwear. The guard suffered multiple lacerations
to her head and face, facial numbness, nausea, confusion, dizziness, and headaches. Her
injuries permanently disabled her. The state charged Fairbanks with attempted criminal
sexual conduct, kidnapping, and assault, but he was convicted only of kidnapping and
assault.
4
During Fairbanks’s incarceration at various prisons for more than two decades, he
has been often disciplined because of his sexual conduct directed toward female guards.
On at least twelve different occasions, prison authorities have cited Fairbanks for exposing
his penis to different female guards or masturbating in their view. One of these
exhibitionisms occurred in February 2023, after he was notified that the state was seeking
to have him civilly committed for his sexual conduct.
Prison officials have also documented Fairbanks’s inappropriate comments to and
about female guards. In one of these incidents, Fairbanks sent a female guard a message
asking, “Do you agree that we are in love with each other? Considering we have been
looking into each other’s eyes for several months now?” One line erased from the message
asked, “Is the love mutual, and are you pregnant?” The female guard became fearful of
working in the same unit as Fairbanks because of his apparent fixation and his following
her. Fairbanks later sent a message to the same guard after he was moved to a different
prison:
May you please apologize to me for flirting with me and
exhibiting your intimate parts to me by wearing your uniform
pants skin tight. You were the only female officer . . . who
always made direct eye contact in a flirtatious manner towards
me . . . . You were also the only female officer who always
wore her uniform pants skin tight to the point your intimate
parts and your underwear lines were displayed in a unit with
about 280 male offenders and around me. Please respond
within 5-working days.

Koochiching County petitioned the district court to order Fairbanks committed as a
sexually dangerous person (SDP) and a sexual psychopathic personality (SPP), citing an
independent review of Fairbanks’s record by Dr. Elizabeth Barbo. The district court
5
conducted a civil-commitment bench trial. Two court-appointed examiners— Drs. Paul
Reitman and Lisa Keller—testified and provided reports. Both testified that Fairbanks met
the criteria for SDP and SPP commitment. Fairbanks refused to testify when the state called
him as a witness.
The district court made extensive findings and concluded that Fairbanks met the
statutory requirements to be committed, crediting the experts’ testimony, their reports, or
the official record, for each of the commitment elements. The district court indeterminately
committed Fairbanks as an SDP and SPP.
Fairbanks appeals.
DECISION
Fairbanks urges us to reverse the district court’s order of his civil commitment.
Fairbanks argues that the district court’s findings lack a sufficient factual basis to conclude
that he engaged in a course of harmful sexual conduct as required for commitment as an
SDP. He argues too that, because he has not engaged in a course of harmful sexual conduct,
the district court could not then conclude that he engaged in a habitual course of sexual
misconduct as required for SPP commitment. And Fairbanks contends that the district court
failed to make sufficiently particularized findings of fact to commit him. The arguments
are wholly unconvincing.
I
We are not persuaded by Fairbanks’s argument that the district court’s findings do
not provide the factual basis necessary to conclude that he is an SDP. An appeal from civil
commitment leads us to examine the district court’s findings of fact for clear error,
6
reviewing the record in the light most favorable to those findings and giving due deference
to the district court as the best judge of witness credibility. In re Civ. Commitment of Spicer,
853 N.W.2d 803, 807 (Minn. App. 2014); In re Civ. Commitment of Crosby, 824 N.W.2d
351, 356 (Minn. App. 2013), rev. denied (Minn. Mar. 27, 2013). And we review de novo
whether the statutory standards for commitment have been met by clear and convincing
evidence. In re Thulin , 660 N.W.2d 140, 144 (Minn. App. 2003). Fairbanks’s quest to
overturn his SDP commitment fails under this standard.
We simply reject Fairbanks’s assertion that the district court failed to show he
engaged in a course of harmful sexual conduct. An SDP commitment requires clear and
convincing evidence that the committee “has engaged in a course of harmful sexual
conduct.” Minn. Stat. §§ 253D.02, subd. 16(a)(1), 253D.07, subd. 3 (2024). “‘Harmful
sexual conduct’ means sexual conduct that creates a substantial likelihood of serious
physical or emotional harm to another.” Minn. Stat. § 253D.02, subd. 8(a) (2024). The
district court found that Drs. Reitman and Keller both credibly opined that Fairbanks had
engaged in a course of harmful sexual conduct. It concluded that Fairbanks’s convicted
offenses in 1992, 1997, and 2000 alone constitute a course of harmful sexual conduct, and
“his sexually motivated assaults, exposures to female corrections officers, and stalking of
at least one correctional officer add to his course of harmful sexual conduct.” The district
court’s rationale is sound.
Fairbanks concedes that his criminal-sexual-conduct conviction in 1997 qualifies as
harmful sexual conduct under the SDP statute but argues that the district court erroneously
relied on this conviction to read sexual motivations into his other criminal convictions. But
7
as we have previously reasoned, the civil-commitment proceeding does not rest on an
“isolated snapshot” of a person. Crosby, 824 N.W.2d at 358. It instead considers whether
a committee’s “relevant sexual history and recent sexual conduct exposes a developing
story that will, if unaltered, likely culminate in harmful sexual conduct.” Id. The district
court may therefore consider sexual motivations of Fairbanks’s other crimes
comprehensively within the context of Fairbanks’s pattern of sexual behavior. The record
supports the district court’s findings that Fairbanks’s attacks on women in 1992 and 2000
were sexually motivated. Regarding Fairbanks’s 1992 assault, the district court found that
Fairbanks retaliated with extreme violence against a young woman who refused his sexual
advances. This finding is supported by the facts of this offense and by Dr. Reitman’s report,
which acknowledges tones of serious sexual aggression in the attack. And regarding
Fairbank’s 2000 attack on the prison guard, the district court’s conclusion that there is no
legitimate, nonsexual reason that Fairbanks’s pants would have been undone is also
supported by the record and the reports of Drs. Reitman and Keller. Both doctors include
this offense as a sex offense. The district court’s findings of sexual motivations for
Fairbanks’s exposure and masturbation incidents are also supported by the record , which
evidences an unbroken storyline of a man who uses violence and intimidation against
women to sexually gratify himself.
Fairbanks takes issue with the district court’s consideration of his attempted
criminal-sexual-conduct charge from 2000 and his other infractions in prison to establish
a course of harmful sexual conduct because they did not result in convictions. But we have
held that “[a]n examination of whether an offender engaged in a course of harmful sexual
8
conduct takes into account both conduct for which the offender was convicted and conduct
that did not result in a conviction.” In re Civ. Commitment of Stone, 711 N.W.2d 831, 837
(Minn. App. 2006), rev. denied (Minn. June 20, 2006). We see no error in the district
court’s inclusion of Fairbanks’s offenses that did not result in criminal-sexual-conduct
convictions when assessing whether Fairbanks engaged in a course of sexual misconduct.
The record supports the finding that those offenses constitute clear and convincing
evidence of harmful sexual conduct under the SDP statute.
We are not persuaded otherwise by Fairbanks’s contention that the district court
failed to properly find that his sexual conduct toward female prison guards was “harmful.”
The statute provides that harmful conduct is that which “creates a substantial likelihood of
serious physical or emotional harm to another.” Minn. Stat. § 253D.02, subd. 8(a). The
district court need not find that Fairbanks’s victims actually suffered serious harm, only
that serious harm is the “substantially likel[y]” result of his behavior. See S tone, 711
N.W.2d at 837. The district court properly relied on Drs. Reitman and Keller in analyzing
the “harm” element, crediting both doctors on their expertise, reports, and testimony about
the harm sexual-assault victims tend to suffer. Dr. Reitman testified that the prison guards
would face emotional harm and Dr. Keller opined that these victims would face serious
emotional harm from contending with Fairbanks’s actions in their workplace. And the
district court aptly recognized the statutory presumption of harm to the victims involved in
Fairbanks’s 1992, 1997, and 2000 convictions. See Minn. Stat. § 253D.02, subd. 8(b)–(c)
(2024). The district court did not erroneously conclude that Fairbanks’s conduct created a
substantial likelihood of serious emotional harm to his victims.
9
Fairbanks’s related arguments need little discussion. The district court had no
statutory duty to analyze each of his prison-exposure and masturbation incidents
individually. And because we generally do not consider arguments not raised before and
decided by the district court, see Thiele v. Stich, 425 N.W.2d 580, 582 (Minn. 1988), we
need not address his contention that the district court errantly relied on his refusal to testify
to draw an adverse inference that his actions were sexually motivated. Before he refused
to testify, Fairbanks acknowledged that the refusal could result in the adverse inference.
And in any event, the inference is unnecessary to support the district court’s finding on that
issue because there is substantial record evidence already supporting the court’s
determination. We turn to the district court’s SPP decision.
II
Fairbanks argues that the district court failed to find that he had engaged in a
habitual course of sexual misconduct under the SPP statute. To support an SPP
commitment, the state must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the committee has
evidenced a “habitual course of misconduct in sexual matters.” Minn. Stat. §§ 253D.02,
subd. 15, 253D.07, subd. 3 (2024). Fairbanks argues specifically that, because the district
court failed to properly conclude that he engaged in a course of harmful sexual conduct
under the SDP statute—an argument we have already rejected—h is conduct could not have
established this similar element in the SPP statute given what he calls its higher “volitional
threshold.” Fairbanks does not adequately explain his assertion that this element of the SPP
statute is a higher standard than the similar element under the SDP statute. The district
court credited the testimony of Drs. Reitman and Keller as well as Dr. Barbo’s pre-petition
10
report when it concluded that the state had satisfied the SPP element. We see no error and,
given the lack of reasoned argument, do not look closer into the district court’s analysis.
III
Fairbanks maintains finally that the district court’s findings were in sufficient and
relied too heavily on restating the experts’ testimony in support of its findings, which
Fairbanks argues were merely conclusory. We have held that a district court order is
insufficient when it does not “permit meaningful appellate review” by “not identify[ing]
the facts that the district court has determined to be true and the facts on which the district
court’s decision is based.” Spicer, 853 N.W.2d at 811. The district court’s order is well
written and thorough, properly detailing its fact findings and the reasons for its decision.
The district court made express findings on particularly salient issues, such as the incidents
that make up Fairbanks’s course of conduct. It did not merely restate claims by prefacing
them with language such as “the petition claims” or “the expert testified.” The district court
engaged in a painstaking independent analysis of a standard sexual-recidivism assessment
by evaluating each of the ten criteria to reconcile the experts’ slightly different results. The
district court disagreed with the experts’ opinions or implications that Fairbanks’s 1988
offense was sexually motivated. It carefully distinguished the weight it gave to the experts’
opinions: “Dr. Reitman’s most salient opinions as to the facts this Court must find to
support commitment as SDP and SPP were persuasive and further, were supported by the
overwhelming totality of the evidence in this case” and “Dr. Keller[’s testimony] was
extremely credible and presented in a matter- of-fact way. The Court found her testimony
insightful and helpful . . . .” And for each statutory element, the district court assigned
11
specific credibility to the experts’ analyses. It also thoroughly applied the Linehan factors
and adequately weighed the related evidence. See In re Linehan, 518 N.W.2d 609, 614
(Minn. 1994). The district court’s order reflects a thorough, independent analysis of the
record, risk-assessment tools, and legal authority, and it provides us an ample basis for
review.
We add that we received a motion to strike a citation of supplemental authority
while this case has been pending in this court and that we took the motion under
advisement. But the motion seeks to strike correspondence that was never filed in this
court. We therefore deny the motion as unnecessary.
Affirmed; motion denied.