State v. Finnegan, Minn.S.Ct., 6/30/2010. This is the guy who missed the second day of his trial because he was busy trying to commit suicide. I’ve written about this previously, here. Both the trial court and the court of appeals concluded that Mr. Finnegan’s absence from trial was voluntary and a waiver of his right to be present during the trial. The Minnesota Supreme Court agrees in a badly splintered set of opinions.
An absent defendant has the burden to prove that the absence was involuntary and justified. State v. Cassidy, 567 N.W.2d 707 (Minn. 1997)Mr. Finnegan suggested that a suicide attempt must always be an involuntary absence; the appellate court rejects this bright line approach and says that the voluntariness of a defendant’s absence is fact specific.
Mr. Finnegan also argued that the trial court had jumped the gun in moving ahead with the trial at a point when the court had insufficient information on just what was going on. The appellate court also rejects this argument; the trial court’s determination of voluntariness must be made with some dispatch lest jurors, witnesses and all the rest sit idly by. Later, however, a defendant can file a post conviction petition to prove that the absence was involuntary, in which case he gets a new trial. Mr. Finnegan did just that but failed to advance his claim. Rather, he relied on the presentence investigation report which said that on the second day of trial he was intoxicated on methamphetamine and thus physically unable to come to his trial. There was no evidence offered at post conviction that he had accidently or otherwise overdosed.
Justices Paul Anderson and Meyer dissented, in which Justice Page joined.
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