Suspension of Proceedings During Competency Evaluation Does Not Prevent Grand Jury From Considering & Returning Indictment

State v. Hohenwald, Minn.S.Ct., 7/11/2012.  The state filed a Complaint against Mr. Hohenwald charging him with four counts of second degree murder.  The court ordered a competency determination, which suspends the criminal proceedings.  Notwithstanding the suspension, the state convened a grand jury which indicted Mr. Hohenwald on a bunch of charges, including murder in the first degree.  The grand jury returned the indictment the same day that the Rule 20 examiner submitted his report, but the court did not rule that Mr. Hohenwald was competent until a month later.  The court found Mr. Hohenwald guilty.

There was some sort of spat going on between Larry and Lois Steenerson and Mr. Hohenwald over some farm property.  Mr. Hohenwald stopped by the Steenerson’s residence late one evening to try to work out whatever the dispute was about.  A series of 911 calls later, deputies arrived at the Steenerson’s just as Hohenwald ran from the house, jumped into a waiting car and tried to flee.  The deputies found the Steenerson’s dead inside.  Mr. Hohenwald claimed self defense for Larry and denied killing Lois all together.

Mr. Hohenwald’s attorney moved to dismiss the indictment, saying that the grand jury could not consider an indictment while proceedings were suspended by the competency examination.  The rule says “[i]f the court determines that reason exists to doubt the defendant’s competency, the court must suspend the criminal proceedings.”  Justice Stras, ever the grammarian, concludes that “the criminal proceedings” only covers what’s going on in the” then-existing case in which the court orders the suspension, not in an unspecified or indefinite number of cases.”  That’s the Complaint and not what a grand jury is doing upstairs behind closed doors, even when the indictment gets filed  under the same file number as the Complaint.  An indictment, after all, is “an independent process for bringing new and separate criminal charges against a defendant.”  State v. Dwire, 409 N.W.2d 498 (Minn. 1987).  Never mind that the court had also said that an indictment “effectively amended” the prior complaint.  State v. Pettee, 538 N.W.2d 126 (Minn. 1995). 

Justice Stras also rejects a sufficiency argument, a prosecutorial misconduct argument having to do with witness questioning; and ducked an evidence ruling having to do with a prior consistent statement, an issue that the court thought was inconsequential even if erroneous.