EN
BANC CALENDAR
Before
the Minnesota
Supreme Court
June 2007
SUMMARY OF ISSUES
Summaries
prepared by the Supreme Court Commissioner’s Office
Monday, June 4, 2007, 9:00 a.m.
Supreme Court
Courtroom, State Capitol
State
of Minnesota, Respondent vs. Trevor Anthony Brown, Appellant – Case No.
A06-1038: Appellant Trevor Anthony Brown’s conviction
of first-degree murder was reversed by the supreme court. Brown
v. State, 682 N.W.2d 182 (Minn.
2004). On retrial, appellant was
convicted of second-degree murder and aiding and abetting first-degree
murder. On appeal following the retrial,
appellant presents the following issues for review: (1) whether he was denied a fair trial
because the district court excluded evidence that a prosecution witness
belonged to the same gang as another person that appellant contends committed
the murder; (2) whether he was denied a fair trial because the district court
allowed the jury to view a surveillance videotape that was transferred to a computerized
format; and (3) whether he was denied a fair trial because the prosecution
asked him during cross-examination whether he owned boots with tread similar to
footprints found at the murder scene, after the district court had excluded
evidence about the footprints. (Dakota County)
St.
Croix Development, LLC, et al., Respondents
vs. Mark David Grossman, et al., Appellants – Case No. A06-1879:
Respondents St.
Croix Development, LLC, and Montanari Homes, Inc., filed a notice of lis
pendens against the residence of appellants Mark and Stephanie Grossman. The Grossmans moved to dismiss the
lis pendens; their motion was denied.
The Grossmans then appealed the denial of the motion to dismiss; the
court of appeals dismissed the appeal on grounds that although an order
discharging a lis pendens is immediately appealable, an order denying discharge
of a lis pendens is not. At issue before
the supreme court is whether an order denying a motion to discharge a lis pendens
is immediately appealable, under either Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 103.03 or the
collateral order doctrine. (Washington County)
Tuesday, June 5, 2007, 9:00 a.m.
Supreme Court
Courtroom, State Capitol
Southern
Minnesota Beet Sugar Coop, Relator vs. County of Renville,
Respondent – Case No. A07-394: Southern Minnesota Beet
Sugar Coop appeals from a decision of the Minnesota Tax Court affirming Renville County’s assessment of the estimated
market value for tax purposes of the coop’s beet sugar processing plant. The questions before the supreme court
are: (1) whether the tax court erred in
concluding that the coop’s plant qualifies as a special purpose property,
making it appropriate to rely solely on the cost approach to value under American Express Financial Advisors, Inc. v.
County of Carver, 573 N.W.2d 651, 657 (Minn. 1998); (2) whether the tax
court abused its discretion by not considering the comparable sales approach to
valuation given that such data was part of the record; (3) whether the tax
court erred in concluding that the property’s highest and best use is as a
sugar beet processing facility; (4) whether the tax court erred in adopting the
valuation of the county assessor; (5) whether tanks, silos, and bins located on
the property are non-taxable processing equipment rather than taxable real
estate; and (6) whether the tax court erred by not reducing the estimated
market value of the property in accordance with evidence of the ratio of sales
price to assessed value of other comparable properties. (Minnesota
Tax Court)
State
of Minnesota, Respondent
vs. Courtney Bernard Clark, Appellant – Case No. A06-1765: On
appeal from his conviction of first-degree murder, appellant Courtney Bernard
Clark presents the following issues for review:
(1) whether the district court should have suppressed his statements to
police, either because at the time of the statements he was going through drug
withdrawal and was not capable of making a valid waiver of his Miranda rights or because the statements
resulted from improper promises and threats by the police; and (2) whether the
district court erred in admitting evidence of his 1994 conviction of attempted
first-degree criminal sexual conduct. (Ramsey County)
Wednesday, June 6, 2007, 9:00 a.m.
Supreme Court
Courtroom, State Capitol
State
of Minnesota, Respondent
vs. Johnny Jerome Clark, Appellant – Case No. A06-1464: On
appeal from his conviction of first-degree premeditated and domestic-abuse
murder, appellant Johnny Jerome Clark presents the following issues for
review: (1) whether the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt
a “past pattern of domestic abuse” by Clark required for conviction of
domestic-abuse murder under Minn. Stat. § 609.185(a)(6) (2006);
and (2) whether the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the
murder was premeditated. (Dakota County)
Ronald
Enright, as attorney-in-fact for S.E., et al., Respondents vs. Robert H.
Lehmann, Appellant, Lehmann Engineering, Inc., Defendant – Case No. A06-347:
Respondent Ronald Enright obtained a judgment against appellant Robert
H. Lehmann on behalf of respondents S.E. and Marlys Enright. To collect the judgment, Enright garnished
funds in two joint bank accounts.
Although the accounts were titled in the names of Lehmann and his wife,
Lehmann’s wife contributed all of the funds in both accounts. In Park
Enterprises v. Trach, 233 Minn.
467, 47 N.W.2d 194 (1951), the court affirmed a district court order allowing a
creditor to garnish a joint bank account owned by husband and wife in order to
collect a debt owed by the husband. In
1973, the legislature enacted the Minnesota Multiparty Accounts Act, Minn.
Stat. §§ 524.6-201 et seq. (2006), which provides that “a joint account
belongs, during the lifetime of all parties, to the parties in proportion to
the net contributions by each to the sums on deposit, unless there is clear and
convincing evidence of a different intent.”
Minn. Stat. § 524.6-203(a)
(2006). The question for the court is
whether funds contributed by Lehmann’s wife to the joint accounts are subject
to garnishments for judgments entered against only Lehmann. (Dakota
County)
EN
BANC NONORAL: Louis Buggs, Appellant vs.
State of Minnesota,
Respondent – Case No. A06-1058: Appellant Louis Buggs was
convicted of first-degree murder. On
appeal from the denial of his petition for postconviction relief, Buggs
challenges the procedures used to establish the pool from which his jury was
selected on grounds that African-Americans are substantially underrepresented
in the sources from which prospective jurors are drawn. (Hennepin
County)
Thursday, June 7, 2007, 9:00 a.m.
Supreme Court
Courtroom, State Capitol
In re Petition for Reinstatement of
David A. Singer, a Minnesota
Attorney, Registration No. 101473 – Case No. A05-1136: An
attorney discipline case that presents the question of whether or not to
reinstate petitioner David A. Singer to the practice of law.
EN BANC NONORAL: Thomas Daniel Rhodes, petitioner, Appellant
vs. State of Minnesota, Respondent – Case No. A07-148: Thomas
Daniel Rhodes appeals from the denial of his second petition for postconviction
relief following his 1998 conviction of murder. Rhodes presents the following issues for
review: (1) whether the district court or one of the members of
the jury that convicted him is the more qualified to determine what the jury’s
verdict might have been upon the discovery of allegedly new
evidence; (2) whether he was denied the effective assistance of
counsel at trial and on appeal; and (3) whether the issues raised in
this postconviction petition are barred because they were or could have been
raised in his previous postconviction petition or on direct appeal. (Kandiyohi
County)
EN BANC NONORAL: Under the Rainbow Child Care Center, Inc.,
Respondent vs. County of Goodhue, Relator
– Case No. A07-468: Goodhue County
appeals from a judgment of the Minnesota Tax Court. At issue on appeal is whether respondent
Under the Rainbow Child Care Center, Inc., qualifies for exemption from
property taxes as an institution of purely public charity under Minn. Stat. §
272.02, subd. 7 (2006). (Minnesota Tax Court)
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Courtroom
300, Minnesota
Judicial Center
State
of Minnesota,
Respondent vs. Jessica Ann Wiltgen, Appellant – Case No. A06-152:
On August 13, 2005, appellant Jessica Ann Wiltgen was arrested for driving
while impaired and her driver’s license was administratively revoked under
Minn. Stat. § 169A.52 (2006).
Wiltgen filed a petition for judicial review of the revocation; the
balance of the revocation was stayed and Wiltgen’s driving privileges were
temporarily reinstated by order of the court.
On September 13, 2005, before the revocation of her license for the
August 13 arrest could be judicially reviewed, Wiltgen was again arrested for
driving while impaired. Wiltgen was
charged with second-degree driving while impaired based, in part, on the
revocation of her driver’s license for the August 13 arrest. The district court reduced the charge of
second-degree driving while impaired to third-degree driving while impaired on
grounds that the August 13 arrest could not be used to enhance the September
13th charge because there had been no judicial review of the August 13 license
revocation. The court of appeals
reversed the district court and reinstated the charge of second-degree driving
while impaired. Before the supreme court
are two issues: (1) whether the
reduction of the charges against Wiltgen from second-degree to third-degree
driving while impaired had a critical impact on the state’s ability to
prosecute her; and (2) whether a license revocation for which judicial review
has been requested but not yet conducted can be used to enhance the charges
stemming from a subsequent arrest. (Hennepin County)
State
of Minnesota, Respondent vs. Robert Joseph Jordan, Appellant – Case No.
A06-1445: Appellant Robert Joseph Jordan was charged
with possession of a controlled substance.
Jordan moved to
suppress evidence obtained during a search of his residence pursuant to a
night-time warrant; the district court granted Jordan’s motion. The state appealed and the court of appeals
reversed the district court’s suppression order. There are two issues before the supreme
court: (1) whether the affidavit
supporting the warrant satisfied the requirements of Minn. Stat. § 626.14
(2006), the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, and article I,
section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution for issuance of a nighttime warrant;
and (2) whether the district court erred in suppressing the evidence obtained
during the search because Jordan’s expectation of privacy was violated by the
search, even though he was not home at the time. (Aitkin
County)