A Stipulated Facts Trial Has to be Based on, Well, on Stipulated Facts, Mostly

State v. Dereje, Minn.Ct.App., 4/2/12.  I keep having to write about stipulated facts trials.  See here, and here, and here.  In this iteration of this conundrum, the parties tried to “stipulate” to facts on which the parties didn’t entirely agree.

The state charged Mr. Dereje with fifth degree criminal sexual conduct.  Mr. Dereje denied committing the offense.  For a while, Mr. Dereje was not competent to stand trial, but eventually he was restored to competency.

Mr. Dereje then agreed to submit the Complaint and the police reports, which contained both the victim’s account of the sexual assault and Mr. Dereje’s denial of it, to the court for a stipulated facts trial under Rule 26.01, subd. 3.  In doing so, Mr. Dereje agreed in writing to waive his right to a jury trial, to testify, to compel witnesses to testify, and to confront the prosecutor’s witnesses.  The trial court duly found Mr. Dereje guilty.

What Mr. Dereje did not do, however, was agree to submit a “body of evidence” to the trial court for it to sort out, including resolving disputed facts.  This was error of some sort, but subject to plain error analysis.  It was, the appellate court said, like the receipt of evidence that should properly have been excluded.  It was plain error, but it did not affect Mr. Dereje’s substantial rights.  Although Mr. Dereje didn’t agree to submit this “body of evidence” he could have done so, which would result in turning the whole mess into a court trial instead of a stipulated facts trial.

But, we’re not done.  The court goes on to hold that Mr. Dereje’s trial counsel was ineffective.  How so? 

Here, there was a complete failure of meaningful adversarial testing:  trial counsel made no attempt to draw the court’s attention to the disputed factual evidence in a case that hinged on credibility.

Counsel believed, in apparent good faith, that he was engineering a stipulated facts trial when it turned out he was doing (a bad job) of conducting a court trial.  For this unwitting mistake, the appellate court deems counsel’s performance ineffective.  And,  the resulting error was a “structural,” one that requires reversal of the conviction.  Cf, State v. Dalbec, 800 N.W.2d 624 (Minn. 2011.)  (Failure of defense counsel to give written closing argument in court trial not structural error.)

Then there’s this rather ominous footnote 2:

While we do not base our decision on appellant’s assertion that the resolution of this case was nothing more than a poorly handled guilty plea, we reiterate that a stipulated evidence trial in which a disposition and sentence is suggested before the matter is submitted, as in this case, has the appearance of a negotiated plea rather than a proper trial.

Shades of Missouri v. Frye, ___ U.S. ___ (2012)