Court Rejects Various Post Conviction Claims as Knaffla Barred.

State v. Reed, Minn.S.Ct., 12/29/2010.  A jury convicted Mr. Reed of conspiracy and aiding and abetting the murder of a police officer.  The Minnesota Supreme Court upheld his confictions.  State v. Reed, 737 N.W.2d 572 (Minn. 2007).  Mr. Reed then filed a post conviction petition, asserting various claims.  Among them:  the trial court violated his constitutional right of self-representation; the statute of limitations barred his prosecution; and both trial and appellate counsel provided ineffective assistance of counsel.

Officer Sackett responded to a false emergency call, during which he was shot and killed.  Mr. Reed was accused of being the person who directed Constance Trimble-Smith to make the false emergency call, and accused of shooting the officer.  Shortly before trial, Mr. Reed asked the trial court to appoint new counsel.  The trial court denied that request.  Mr. Reed pursued this denial on direct appeal.  The supreme court assumed, without deciding, that Mr. Reed had asked to represent himself; it did so because in its view Mr. Reed had waived this issue by not presenting it on direct appeal.  State v. Knaffla, 309 Minn. 246, 243 N.W.2d 737(1976). 

Mr. Reed also argued that a three year limitations period controlled prosecution for conspiracy and aiding and abetting murder.  He further argued that a valid limitations defense deprives the trial court of subject matter jurisdiction and thus cannot be waived or barred under Knaffla.  The supreme court rejects this claim.  The court says that a limitations statute is a “claim-processing rule” that can be waived.  Because Mr. Reed knew of the limitations defense on direct appeal but did not raise it, he is barred from raising it now.

The court also rejects the ineffectiveness of counsel arguments and rejects a claim that additional affidavits supported a recantation of evidence such that there should have been at least an evidentiary hearing on the claim.