EN BANC CALENDAR

Before the Minnesota Supreme Court

April 2007

SUMMARY OF ISSUES

Summaries prepared by the Supreme Court Commissioner’s Office

Monday, April 2, 2007, 9:00 a.m.

Supreme Court Courtroom, State Capitol

State of Minnesota, Respondent vs. Jermaine Sean Brown, Appellant – Case No. A05-1041: On appeal from his conviction of aiding and abetting a conspiracy to commit controlled substance crime, appellant Jermaine Sean Brown raises the following issues for review: (1) whether he was denied the right to an impartial jury because a juror who admitted that he was prejudiced against African-Americans, but stated that his prejudice would not affect his ability to be fair and impartial, was not dismissed from the jury venire by the district court; (2) whether Minnesota should expressly adopt the “implied bias” doctrine, under which bias is presumed when a juror discloses facts that create a high risk of partiality; (3) whether he was denied effective assistance of counsel by his trial attorney’s failure to challenge the juror who admitted he was prejudiced; (4) whether the evidence at trial was sufficient to convict him; (5) whether the district court committed reversible error by not requiring the prosecution to disclose the identity of its confidential informant; and (6) whether the district court committed reversible error by allowing witnesses to testify about what the informant said, comments that were recorded on audio tapes not turned over to the defense. (Blue Earth County)

State of Minnesota, Respondent vs. William Arthur Anderson, Appellant –Case No. A05-1167: Appellant William Anderson was convicted after a jury trial of possession of a firearm by an ineligible person; his conviction was affirmed by the court of appeals on direct appeal. Anderson had a prior conviction of second-degree burglary, but imposition of sentence was stayed and the conviction was later converted to a misdemeanor after Anderson successfully completed probation. At issue is whether Anderson’s prior conviction qualifies as a predicate offense under Minn. Stat. § 609.165 (2006), which requires a felony conviction for a “crime of violence.” In addition, the firearm was discovered in a warrantless search conducted under a condition of Anderson’s probation for a prior conviction of controlled substance crime that was added by the probation department after sentencing. At issue concerning the discovery of the firearm are: (1) whether the additional condition to Anderson’s probation terms violated his Sixth Amendment right to be present at sentencing; (2) whether the search violated the Minnesota Constitution’s prohibition against unreasonable searches; and (3) whether Anderson waived these issues by not raising them at the district court. (Itasca County)

Tuesday, April 3, 2007, 9:00 a.m.

Supreme Court Courtroom, State Capitol

State of Minnesota, Respondent vs. Edison Joseph Mahkuk, Appellant – Case Nos. A05-1520 and A06-2087: Appellant Edison Mahkuk appeals from his conviction of first-degree murder for the benefit of a gang (in No. A05-1520) and from the denial of his petition for postconviction relief (in No. A06-2087). In his direct appeal, Mahkuk raises the following issues: (1) whether the district court denied him the right to a public trial by excluding all gang members, including Mahkuk’s brother and cousin, from the courtroom; (2) whether he was denied the right to a fair trial by the district court’s decision to admit evidence of gang affiliation and activity; and (3) whether the district court erred in its instructions to the jury. In his appeal from the denial of postconviction relief, Mahkuk argues he is entitled to a new trial, on grounds of newly-discovered evidence, based on the testimony of a co-defendant at that co-defendant’s trial, which trial occurred after Mahkuk’s. (Hennepin County)

Irongate Enterprises, Inc., Relator vs. County of St. Louis, Respondent – Case No. A06-1193: Relator Irongate Enterprises, Inc., appeals from the dismissal of its petition contesting the property taxes payable on the Irongate Mall in Hibbing. Minnesota Statutes § 278.05, subd. 5 (2006), requires that Irongate provide certain information, including income and expense figures, verified net rentable areas, and anticipated income and expenses, to the county assessor within 60 days after the deadline for filing its petition or, if not provided initially, within 30 days of the county’s request for the information; failure to do so results in dismissal of the petition. The county requested copies of the mall leases; Irongate did not provide copies of the actual leases or their abstracts but indicated they were available for review at the property manager’s office in California. Irongate also contends that the terms of the leases were reflected in the other information it provided. The Minnesota Tax Court dismissed Irongate’s petition on grounds that Irongate did not comply with section 278.05. At issue on appeal to the supreme court is whether the information provided by Irongate to the county complied with the statutory requirements and whether the requirements of section 278.05 as applied by the Tax Court in this case are unconstitutionally vague. (Minnesota Tax Court)

EN BANC NONORAL: Vernon Neal Powers, petitioner, Appellant vs. State of Minnesota, Respondent – Case No. A06-1941: Appellant pro se Vernon Powers appeals from the denial of his third petition for postconviction relief following his conviction of first-degree murder. Petitioner contends that Blakely v. Washington applies retroactively to his sentence, and that his sentence is unconstitutional because it was imposed under sentencing guidelines developed not by the legislature but by a commission appointed by the Minnesota Supreme Court. (Mower County)

Wednesday, April 4, 2007, 9:00 a.m.

Supreme Court Courtroom, State Capitol

State of Minnesota, Respondent vs. Jairam Ganpat, Appellant – Case No. A06-1176: On appeal from his conviction of first-degree murder, appellant Jairam Ganpat presents the following issues for review: (1) whether the district court erred in finding him competent to stand trial; and (2) whether the district court should have suppressed Ganpat’s statement to investigators. (Dakota County)

Monday, April 9, 2007

Courtroom 300, Minnesota Judicial Center

Mary Larson, et al., Appellants vs. James Preston Wasemiller, M.D., Respondent, Paul Scot Wasemiller, M.D., et al., Defendants, St. Francis Medical Center, Respondent – Case Nos. A05-1698 and A05-1701: After appellant Mary Larson developed complications after surgery, she and her husband Michael sued respondents Dr. James Wasemiller, Dr. Paul Wasemiller, and Dakota Clinic for medical malpractice. Appellants later sought to add a claim that respondent St. Francis Medical Center was negligent in granting operating privileges to Dr. James Wasemiller. The district court declined to grant the hospital’s motion for summary judgment but certified as important and doubtful the following issues: (1) whether Minnesota recognizes the common law doctrine of negligent credentialing or privileging of a physician against a hospital or other review organization; and (2) whether Minn. Stat. §§ 145.63 and 145.64 (2006) immunize hospitals from claims of negligent privileging or otherwise limit such claims. Section 145.63 bars claims against organizations and committees that gather and review information relating to the care and treatment of patients for such purposes as evaluating and improving the quality of health care “when the person acts in the reasonable belief that the action or recommendation is warranted by facts known” to the organization or committee “after reasonable efforts to ascertain the facts” upon which the organization’s decision is made. Section 145.64 bars the discovery in litigation of the information maintained by such “review organizations,” but does not prevent the discovery of that information from its original source. The court of appeals declined to rule on the question of whether Minnesota recognizes a common law claim of negligent privileging, but held that section 145.63 limits the liability of hospitals for negligent privileging claims to decisions “not made in the reasonable belief that the action is warranted by facts known to it after reasonable effort to ascertain the facts.” On appeal to the supreme court, the issue for review is whether, in light of the limits placed by section 145.64 on the parties’ access to peer review materials, Minnesota should recognize a common law claim for negligent privileging. (Wilkin County)

Mavco, Inc., d/b/a Maverick Construction, Appellant vs. Rodney Eggink, et al., Respondents, Vermillion State Bank, et al., Defendants, Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Respondent – Case No. A05-2018: Appellant Mavco, Inc., filed a mechanic’s lien against property owned by respondents Rodney and Karla Eggink in January 2004 and on May 17, 2004, commenced a mechanic’s lien foreclosure action. The notice of lis pendens was filed two days later, on May 19. But on May 14, 2004, the Egginks refinanced the property with respondent Wells Fargo. The Wells Fargo mortgage was not recorded until July 2004, and Mavco did not serve a supplemental complaint on Wells Fargo until June 2005. Minnesota Statutes § 514.12, subd. 3 (2006), provides that “no person shall be bound by any judgment [in a lien foreclosure action] unless made a party thereto” within one year from the last day of work on the property, in this case November 26, 2004. The district court determined that the Wells Fargo mortgage had priority over Mavco’s mechanic’s lien because Wells Fargo was not added as a party in the foreclosure action within the one-year period specified by section 514.12 and declined to allow Mavco’s supplemental complaint to relate back to the commencement of the foreclosure action. The court of appeals affirmed. The issues before the supreme court are: (1) whether the one-year statute of limitations in section 514.12 applies to a mortgagee whose interest in the property was not recorded at the time the foreclosure action was commenced; and (2) whether the district court erred in not allowing Mavco’s complaint against Wells Fargo to relate back. (Sherburne County)

Tuesday, April 10, 2007, 9:00 a.m.

Courtroom 300, Minnesota Judicial Center

State of Minnesota, Respondent vs. John Joseph Bussmann, Appellant – Case No. A05-1782: Appellant John Bussmann, a former clergyman, was convicted under Minn. Stat. § 609.344, subd. l(ii) (2006), of two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct involving two female members of his congregation. Section 609.344, subd. l(ii), defines third-degree criminal sexual conduct to include sexual penetration between a member of the clergy and a person to whom the clergymember is not married, “during a period of time in which the complainant was meeting on an ongoing basis with [the clergymember] to seek or receive religious or spiritual advice, aid, or comfort” in private. The court of appeals affirmed Bussmann’s conviction. At issue on review are whether the statute under which Bussmann was convicted is unconstitutionally vague as to the meaning of “ongoing” and “religious or spiritual advice, aid, or comfort” and whether the statute violates the First Amendment’s prohibition against a law “respecting an establishment of religion.” (Hennepin County)

State of Minnesota, Appellant vs. Edward Richard Krasky, Respondent – Case No. A04-2011: Respondent Edward Krasky was charged with criminal sexual conduct involving two children. One of the children was found by the district court to be incompetent to testify; the child’s statements to a nurse about the alleged abuse were ruled to be testimonial and therefore were inadmissible under the United States Supreme Court decision in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004). The state appealed and the court of appeals reversed, concluding that the child’s statements to the nurse were not testimonial; the supreme court granted review and stayed the proceedings. After the supreme court issued its opinions in State v. Bobadilla, 709 N.W.2d 243, 252 (Minn. 2006) (holding that a statement to a government official is testimonial when the questioner “is acting, to a substantial degree, in order to produce a statement for trial”), and State v. Scacchetti, 711 N.W.2d 508, 514-15 (Minn. 2006) (holding that a child’s statement made to a nurse practitioner was not testimonial because there was no governmental involvement and the purpose of the nurse practitioner’s examination was to assess the child’s medical condition), the court remanded this matter to the court of appeals to reconsider the testimonial nature of the child’s statements. While the matter was pending at the court of appeals, the United States Supreme Court held in Davis v. Washington, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S. Ct. 2266 (2006), that statements are not testimonial when they are obtained primarily to assist the police in “an ongoing emergency” but are testimonial when “the primary purpose of the interrogation is to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.” The court of appeals reversed its earlier decision and held that the child’s statements were testimonial and therefore are inadmissible. The question on review is whether this court’s definitions of testimonial and nontestimonial statements in Bobadilla and Scacchetti remain valid in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Davis v. Washington. (Kandiyohi County)

EN BANC NONORAL: Victor Fields, petitioner, Appellant vs. State of Minnesota, Respondent – Case No. A06-1770: Appellant pro se Victor Fields, convicted of first-degree murder, appeals from the denial of his petition for postconviction relief claiming ineffective assistance of counsel, at trial and on direct appeal, and prosecutorial misconduct during closing argument. At issue is whether the district court erred in denying Fields’s postconviction petition without an evidentiary hearing. (Hennepin County)

Wednesday, April 11, 2007, 9:00 a.m.

Courtroom 300, Minnesota Judicial Center

State of Minnesota, Respondent vs. Ronald Lindsey Reed, Appellant – Case No. A06-1033: On appeal from his conviction of first-degree murder in the 1970 shooting of a police officer, appellant Ronald Reed presents the following issues for review: (1) whether the juvenile court, rather than the district court, had jurisdiction over Reed because at the time of the offense the age of majority for purposes of criminal prosecution as an adult was 21 years of age and Reed was then 19 years old; (2) whether the district court committed reversible error in its instructions to the jury; (3) whether the evidence was sufficient to convict him; and (4) whether the district court erred in replaying the tape of a call to 911 for the jury during its deliberations. Reed raises additional issues in a pro se supplemental brief. (Ramsey County)

State of Minnesota, Respondent vs. Harry J. Evans, Appellant – Case No. A06-821: Appellant Harry Evans appeals from his conviction of first-degree murder of a plain-clothes police officer. At issue are: (1) whether Evans’s right to a fair trial was violated because the district court declined to investigate an allegation that one of the jurors had made a racist comment; (2) whether Evans’s right to a fair trial was violated because the district court limited his access to the medical records of a witness and limited his cross-examination of that witness; (3) whether the district court committed reversible error by instructing the jury that “defendant need not have known or had reason to know” that the victim was a police officer in order to convict him; (4) whether the district court erred in not instructing the jury that it could not convict Evans on the testimony of an accomplice unless that testimony was corroborated by other evidence; and (5) whether Evans’s right to a fair trial was violated by the extent of personal information and character evidence, sometimes referred to as “spark of life” evidence, concerning the officer. Evans raises additional issues in a pro se supplemental brief. (Ramsey County)