State V. T.H. (Dakota County 2016)

T.H. was charged with harassing phone calls to a person after their friendship had gone sour. The person threatened to continue contacting T.H.’s spouse, so T.H. left a number of harassing voicemails and later admitted that to law enforcement. T.H. is a licensed professional (doctors, dentists, lawyers, chiropractors, accountants, nurses, etc.) who cannot have any sort of harassment on record, or it puts the professional license at issue. The prosecution offered that T.H. can plea to the charge with no jail. We rejected that offer and also rejected an offer to plea to a stay of adjudication. Ultimately we obtained a “continuance for dismissal” so that it will not go on T.H.’s record. Even though the evidence was strong against T.H., we were able to get a creative resolution that protects T.H.’s record.