EN BANC CALENDAR
Before
the
September 2014
SUMMARY OF ISSUES
Summaries prepared by the Supreme Court Commissioner’s Office
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Courtroom
300, Minnesota Judicial Center
RDNT, LLC, Appellant vs. City of Bloomington, Respondent – Case No. A13-0310: Respondent City of Bloomington denied appellant RDNT’s application for a conditional use permit that would allow it to expand a senior-living facility. The district court issued a writ of mandamus to compel the City to issue the permit, reasoning that the City’s decision was not supported by facts in the record. The court of appeals reversed, concluding that the City appropriately exercised its discretion.
On appeal to the supreme
court, the issues presented include: (1) whether RDNT’s proposed use was in
conflict with the City’s comprehensive plan; and (2) whether the City
improperly failed to consider conditions proposed by RDNT that may have
mitigated the City’s concerns about granting the permit. (Hennepin County)
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Courtroom
300, Minnesota Judicial Center
State of Minnesota, Respondent vs. Gregory Antoine Davis,
Appellant – Case No. A13-1863: Appellant
Gregory Davis was convicted after a jury trial of first-degree felony murder. On appeal to the supreme court, the following
issues are presented: (1) whether Davis is entitled to a new trial because the
district court erroneously instructed the jury on the elements of burglary,
which was the predicate felony for the first-degree felony murder count; (2)
whether Davis is entitled to a new trial because the district court erroneously
instructed the jury on when it needed to return verdicts on the lesser offenses
that were submitted to it; (3) whether Davis is entitled to a new trial because
the district court abused its discretion when it excluded reverse-Spreigl evidence about an alleged
alternative perpetrator; and (4) whether Davis is entitled to a new trial
because Minn. R. Crim. P. 26.03., subd. 1, precludes a district court from
allowing a defendant to be absent from portions of his or her trial even when
that defendant has voluntarily waived the right to be present. (Hennepin County)
Nonoral: Myon Demarlo Burrell, petitioner, Appellant vs. State of Minnesota, Respondent – Case No. A13-1769: Appellant Myon Burrell was convicted after a court trial of first-degree murder for the benefit of a gang. The supreme court affirmed his conviction on direct appeal. Burrell filed a petition for postconviction relief based on a claim of newly discovered evidence from witness 1. After holding evidentiary hearings at which witness 1, who had been subpoenaed, failed to appear and granting Burrell continuances, the district court denied the petition.
On appeal to the supreme court, the following issues are presented: (1) whether the district court abused its discretion when it did not issue a bench warrant for witness 1 after this person failed to appear at an evidentiary hearing; (2) whether the district court abused its discretion when it precluded the testimony of a defense witness at an evidentiary hearing; and (3) whether the district court abused its discretion when it did not issue a writ for the appearance of a defense witness at an evidentiary hearing. (Hennepin County)
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Courtroom
300, Minnesota Judicial Center
State of Minnesota, Respondent/Cross-Appellant vs. Brian Keith
Schnagl, a/k/a Brian Keith Schnagel, Appellant/Cross-Respondent – Case No. A13-1332: Appellant Brian Schnagl’s 98-month sentence included a
5-year conditional release term. See Minn. Stat. § 609.109, subd. 7(a)
(2000). Schnagl was released from prison for the remaining one-third of
his 98-month sentence, see Minn. Stat. § 244.101, subd. 1 (2012), but
was returned to prison on two occasions for supervised-release
violations. After his release from prison for supervised-release
violations and placement on conditional release, the Department of Corrections
notified Schnagl that the expiration date for his conditional-release term had
been extended to exclude the time when he was imprisoned for supervised-release
violations. Schnagl filed a motion to correct his sentence pursuant to Minn.
R. Crim. 27.03, subd. 9, arguing that he remained on supervised release
while he was imprisoned, and because a conditional-release term runs
concurrently with a supervised-release term, he was entitled to credit against
his conditional-release term for the time he spent in custody on
supervised-release violations. The district court denied the motion to
correct the sentence, and the court of appeals affirmed.
On appeal to the supreme court, the following issues are presented: (1) is the term of an offender’s conditional release reduced by the time spent in custody for supervised-release violations; (2) does the sentencing court have jurisdiction over post-sentencing challenges to adjustments made in a supervised or conditional-release term. (Dakota County)
State of Minnesota, Respondent vs. William Robert Bernard, Jr., Appellant – Case No. 13-1245: Minnesota law makes it a crime for a person to refuse a test of their breath, blood, or urine for the presence of alcohol if certain conditions are met. Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 2 (2012). Respondent State of Minnesota charged appellant William Bernard with two counts of first-degree test refusal after he was arrested on suspicion of driving while impaired and refused a breath test. The district court dismissed the test-refusal charges, concluding that the State could not criminalize Bernard’s refusal of a breath test because no exception to the warrant requirement would have justified a warrantless search of Bernard. The court of appeals reversed the district court.
On appeal to the supreme court, the issue presented is whether it violates Bernard’s Fourth Amendment or substantive due process rights to charge him with violating Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 2, based on his refusal to submit to a warrantless search of his breath. (Dakota County)
Monday, September 8, 2014
Courtroom
300, Minnesota Judicial Center
State of Minnesota, Respondent vs. Nisius Dealvin McAllister, Appellant – Case No. A13-1801: After a jury found appellant Nisius McAllister guilty of first-degree premeditated murder and first-degree felony murder, the district court convicted him of first-degree premeditated murder. Before trial, the district court denied McAllister’s motion to suppress custodial statements that he made to police investigators, rejecting his argument that the statements were obtained after he had unambiguously invoked his right to remain silent.
On appeal to the supreme court, the following issues are presented: (1) whether the district court erred by admitting McAllister’s custodial statements to police investigators; and (2) whether the evidence was sufficient to support the jury’s guilty verdicts. (Hennepin County)
State of
Minnesota, Respondent vs. Tommy Salyers, III, Appellant – Case No. A13-0597: When sheriff’s
deputies searched the home of appellant Tommy Salyers, they encountered a
locked gun cabinet in Salyers’ bedroom.
The officers could find no key, so they used a crowbar to force the
cabinet open. Inside they discovered three
firearms. Salyers’ girlfriend told
officers she recently moved out of the house, and that the cabinet was hers and
one of the guns belonged to her son.
A
jury found Salyers guilty of three offenses relating to his possession of the
firearms. The court of appeals affirmed
his convictions.
On
appeal to the supreme court, the following issues are presented: (1) whether the
heightened circumstantial-evidence standard of review applies to a challenge to
the sufficiency of the evidence of constructive possession; and (2) whether a
person possesses the readily accessible firearms inside a container under that
person’s control. (Koochiching County)
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Courtroom
300, Minnesota Judicial Center
Joan Nichols, Appellant vs. State, Office of Secretary of State, et al., Respondents – Case No. A13-0529: Appellant Joan Nichols brought an action against respondents arising out of her employment as the Communications Director for the Office of Secretary of State. Among other claims, Nichols asserted a statutory claim for fraudulent inducement of employment under Minn. Stat. §§ 181.64–.65 (2012). The district court denied respondents’ motion to dismiss the statutory claim based on the doctrine of sovereign immunity. The district court concluded that the broad “statement of statutory coverage” in section 181.64 demonstrates that the Legislature unmistakably intended the statute to apply to the State. See Minn. Stat. § 645.27 (2012) (“The state is not bound by the passage of a law unless named therein, or unless the words of the act are so plain, clear, and unmistakable as to leave no doubt as to the intention of the legislature.”). The court of appeals reversed.
On appeal to the supreme court, the issue presented is
whether the Legislature waived the State’s sovereign immunity on a statutory
claim of false inducement of employment.
(Ramsey County)
Nonoral: Danny Ortega, Jr., petitioner, Appellant vs. State of Minnesota, Respondent – Case No. A14-0171: Following a jury trial, appellant Danny Ortega was convicted of first-degree murder. The supreme court affirmed his conviction on direct appeal. Ortega filed a petition for postconviction relief, alleging false trial testimony by one of the State’s witnesses. The district court denied the petition without an evidentiary hearing.
On appeal to the supreme court, the issue is whether Ortega was entitled to an evidentiary hearing on his petition for postconviction relief. (Dodge County)
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Courtroom
300, Minnesota Judicial Center
State of Minnesota,
Respondent vs. Kabba Kangbateh, Appellant – Case No. A13-1071: Kabba Kangbateh was found guilty by a jury of multiple
offenses, including committing attempted second-degree murder for the benefit
of a gang and the lesser-included offense of attempted second-degree
murder. The district court adjudicated
Kangbateh guilty of the crime committed for the benefit of a gang and sentenced
him for that offense to the median presumptive term (the “middle of the box”),
165 months in prison. Kangbateh
appealed, and the court of appeals reversed the conviction, holding that the
State failed to present sufficient evidence to support the conviction. The appeals court remanded the case to the
district court to impose sentence for the attempted second-degree murder.
On
remand, the district court again imposed a sentence of 165 months. The sentence duration was within the
presumptive range, but it was 12 months greater than the new middle-of-the-box
sentence, 153 months. Kangbateh appealed
again to the court of appeals, and it affirmed the sentence.
On appeal to the supreme court, the issue presented is whether, after an appellate court reverses a conviction for which a middle-of-the-box sentence has been imposed and remands for resentencing on a conviction of a lesser-included offense, the district court must impose the middle-of-the-box sentence for that offense or may it impose the same sentence previously imposed for the greater offense. (Ramsey County)