Second Guilty Plea After Rejection of First Plea Is No Bar to Double Jeopardy Challenge

State v. Jeffries, Minn.S.Ct., 10/19/2011.  This came up from the court of appeals.  Go here. 

The state charged Mr. Jeffries with felony domestic assault, then gave notice of its intent to seek to impose upon him an upward sentencing departure for being a career offender.  Mr. Jeffries then decided to plead guilty under a deal that called for an upward, but stayed sentencing departure.  The trial court not only accepted the plea, it pronounced Mr. Jefferies “convicted of that.”

And then changed his mind.  The supreme court said, not so fast.  You said you accepted the guilty plea and you said that Mr. Jeffries was guilty.  What’s left?  The majority rejects the claim of the chief justice that a trial judge has the discretion to withdraw acceptance of a guilty plea upon ascertaining additional information about a defendant’s criminal history; nothing in the rules creates such discretion.

This plea was not only accepted, it was “recorded” such that jeopardy attached.  See State v. Martinez-Mendoza.  This means that the second guilty plea must be vacated because the second conviction violates double jeopardy.  That second plea also did not act as a waiver of the double jeopardy claim.

One Spouse May Testify Against Other Spouse on Charge of Disorderly Conduct.

State v. Zais, Minn.S.Ct., 10/26/2011.  The state charged Mr. Zais with disorderly conduct.  When his wife swiped his garage door opener Mr. Zais began to remove some of the panels in the garage door.  The stated wanted to put his wife on the stand to testify to these acts and to the threats he’d made the previous evening to “do whatever he had to to get in” the house.  Mr. Zais asserted marital privilege to prevent his wife from testifying to these threats.  The trial court agreed with Mr. Zais and excluded her testimony. 

The marital privilege statute, Minn.Stat. 595.02, does not apply to “a criminal action or proceeding for a crime committed by one against the other.”  Mr. Zais argued that the applicability of this exception should be determined solely by the elements of the crime; the state, on the other had, said the court should examine the underlying conduct to make that determination.  The appellate court says that you have to do both.  When you do, then the exception kicks in and she can testify.

Defendant Had Sufficient Interest in Vehicle to Prohibit Prosecution For Placing Tracking Device on Vehicle.

State v. Hormann, Minn.Ct.App., 10/19/2011.  The state charged Mr. Hormann with stalking his then-wife, and with placing a tracking device on a car that she mostly drove but actually belonged to him.  The appellate court upheld the stalking conviction but reversed the tracking device conviction.

Along the way, the former wife testified generally about what a horrid marriage it had been and broadly characterized Mr. Hormann as someone who broke every door in the couple’s home, broke the walls, physically abused her, engaged in “a lot of violence,” was “very angry,” was “controlling” of her and of money – you get the picture.  The appellate court concluded that this amounted to inadmissible character evidence.  It was, however, harmless error to have admitted it.

Now to the tracking device.  The statute, Minn.Stat. 626A.35, subd. 1, does not apply “where the consent of the owner of the [vehicle] to which the mobile tracking device is to be attached has been obtained.”  In this case, Mr. Jacobs’ spouse had signed title to the car over to him even though she was the person who drove it the most.  Mr. Jacobs’ failure to have recorded that transfer did not defeat his interest in the car.    He was thus an “owner” under the statute and could not be prosecuted for placing the tracking device on the car.

That Judge’s Spouse Works in the Prosecutor’s Office Does Not Require Removal.

State v. Jacobs, Minn.S.Ct., 9/14/2011.  The state charged Mr. Jacobs with two counts of criminal sexual conduct; he sought to remove the trial judge because his spouse worked in the county attorney’s office that was prosecuting the case.  Cause for removal exists if the judge would be disqualified under the Code of Judicial Conduct.  In pertinent part, the code says this:

A judge shall disqualify himself or herself in any proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including but not limited to the following circumstances:
(1) The judge has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party or a party’s lawyer, or personal knowledge of facts that are in dispute in the proceeding.
(2) The judge knows that the judge, the judge’s spouse, a person with whom the judge has an intimate relationship, a member of the judge’s household, or a person within the third degree of relationship to any of them, or the spouse or person in an intimate relationship with such a person is:
(a) a party to the proceeding, or an officer, director, general partner, managing member, or trustee of a party;
(b) acting as a lawyer in the proceeding;
(c) a person who has more than a de minimis interest that could be substantially affected by the proceeding; or
(d) likely to be a material witness in the proceeding.
Minn. Code cf Judicial Conduct, Rule 2.11(A).

Mr. Jacobs conceded that that judge’s spouse was not acting as a lawyer, that she had no financial interest in the outcome, and that she had no reputational interest at stake in the outcome.  That leaves as the remaining basis on which to remove the judge the reason that his “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”  The inquiry under Minnesota law is whether “an objective examination of the facts and circumstances would cause a reasonable examiner to question the judge’s impartiality.” State v. Burrell, 743 N.W.2d 596 (Minn. 2008) [emphasis in original].  Neither the fact of the marriage relationship nor the judge’s failure to disclose it to the parties meets this standard. 

Once Trial Court Accepted Guilty Plea & Adjudicated Defendant Guilty, State Had No Authority to Appeal Denial of It’s Motion To Vacate Plea.

State v. Martinez-Mendoza, Minn.S.Ct., 8/31/2011.  The state charged Mr. Martinez-Mendoza with first and second criminal sexual conduct for the sexual abuse of his girlfriend’s daughter.  The parties cut a deal whereby Mr. Martinez-Mendoza under which he would plead guilty to second degree criminal sexual conduct, receive the presumptive sentence, which the plea petition stated was 90 months, and dismiss the other count.  The trial court took the plea, adjudicated Mr. Martinez-Mendoza guilty and set a sentencing date.

At sentencing, it turned out that the presumptive sentence was only 36 months, and stayed at that.  The state moved to vacate the plea; or to reinstate the top CSC I count.  The prosecutor said that he’d relied on a colleague's opinion that the presumptive sentence was ninety months; the defense attorney said he wasn’t sure whether the  the presumptive sentence was 90 or 36 but wrote 90 on the petition to placate the prosecutor. Both counsel agreed that the plea agreement contemplated a 90 month sentence.   The trial court had not looked up the presumptive sentence. 

The trial court said that the lawyers  had been a mistake about the presumptive sentence, but that they had nonetheless made a valid plea agreement that called for dismissal of one count and a guidelines sentence for the plea to the other count.  The trial court imposed the presumptive sentence.  The court of appeals heard the state’s appeal and said that there had been a mutual mistake and reversed.  The supreme court reverses the court of appeals.

There is a preliminary, jurisdictional issue:  what’s the state’s authority to appeal the trial court’s denial of its motion to vacate, etc.?  Rule 28.04, subd. 1 allows the state to appeal from any pretrial order so long as jeopardy has not attached, so is that sufficient?  Does it matter that the trial court had both accepted the plea and adjudicated Mr. Martinez-Mendoza guilty?  Yes, it does.  Jeopardy attached when the trial court accepted the plea and adjudicated him guilty.  That means that the state had no authority to pursue an appeal.

In a footnote, responding to the vigorous dissents, the court says that the mistake about the length of the presumptive sentence was irrelevant to determining the terms of the agreement, which called for the presumptive guidelines sentence.  Finally, the court left open the question whether the state can recharge Mr. Martinez-Mendoza with the top CSC I count.