State v. Rossberg, Minn.S.Ct., 8/6/2014. A jury convicted Mr. Rossberg of the first degree premeditated murder of Devan Hawkinson. Before Mr. Rossberg shot Mr. Hawkinson six times with a .22 firearm the two of them were friends. Indeed, the rumor in the trailer park where the two lived was they were having it on with the same woman, D.T. Anyway, eventually, Mr. Rossberg became less and less enamored of this arrangement to the point that he began behaving rather inappropriately toward Mr. Hawkinson. There was lots of back and forth between the two men leading up to Hawkinson’s death. The woman in this triangle sometimes lived at Mr. Rossberg’s trailer, sometimes at Mr. Hawkinson’s trailer, and sometimes back with her husband.
The trial court allowed the state to introduce evidence of several incidents of prior bad acts, some of which were Spreigl evidence, and some of which were “relationship” evidence. Justice Anderson distinguished these two kinds of “prior bad acts” evidence. Spreigl evidence is prior bad acts evidence of an unrelated crime or bad act against another person not the present victim. “Relationship evidence” is prior bad acts between an accused and a victim that illuminates the history of the relationship between the two individuals. These evidentiary rulings by the trial court are the subject of Mr. Rossberg’s appeal.
The Spreigl evidence pertained to testimony about a 911 call from D.T. in which she reported that Mr. Rossberg might be suicidal because she had heard a gunshot from his trailer. The trial court had admitted this testimony because it believed that it was relevant to the “disputed fact” of whether Mr. Rossberg had committed the homicide; and was relevant to whether he was in possession of the weapon used to commit it. Justice Anderson rejects this explanation. Whether Mr. Rossberg committed the homicide was not really a “disputed fact” but the ultimate issue of guilt. Essentially, the court is saying that if whether Mr. Rossberg committed the homicide is a State v. Ness, 707 N.W.2d 676 (Minn. 2006) “disputed fact” then it swallows Ness in one gulp. Whether Mr. Rossberg possessed the murder weapon is a specific fact but not one that was in dispute. This is because Mr. Rossberg, himself, had reported the theft of the gun. Unfortunately for Mr. Rossberg, Justice Anderson goes on to conclude that this error was harmless.
The rest of the evidence that the trial court admitted was “relationship” evidence. Here’s the court’s description of this evidence:
two 911 calls from September 2008, in which D.T. reported that Rossberg might be suicidal and that he was yelling and pounding on Hawkinson’s door; Rossberg telling his son that he would hurt Hawkinson if Hawkinson got too close to D.T.; Rossberg’s statements to his friend about wanting to kill Hawkinson with a machete; Hawkinson’s neighbor seeing Rossberg repeatedly pounding on Hawkinson’s doors and windows; one of Hawkinson’s black eyes and Rossberg’s admission that he caused it; the two 911 calls from November 2008 about Rossberg yelling, pounding on Hawkinson’s door, and entering Hawkinson’s trailer; and Rossberg’s statement in fall 2010 about wanting to shoot Hawkinson with his .22.
Most of these “relationship” evidence events were old. The court said, however, that age isn’t enough. Rather, the court employs a “balancing process as to time, place and modus operandi” to determine whether older conduct remained relevant. The court upheld the admission of testimony of these events because it illuminated Mr. Rossberg’s ongoing confrontational behavior toward Mr. Hawkinson and the continuing strained relationship between the two men.
Mr. Rossberg also complained on appeal about the admission of evidence about two statements that Mr. Hawkinson made to the police. In the first statement, Mr. Hawkinson said that he knew that Mr. Rossberg owned guns and said that he was afraid that Mr. Rossberg would shoot him. The challenge to the admissibility of this statement was on evidence rules, not the Confrontation Clause. Under a plain error review of any confrontation clause challenge, the court ducks the question by concluding that if there were an error it was harmless because it didn’t affect his substantial rights.
In the second statement, Mr. Hawkinson said the he was afraid of Mr. Rossberg, that Mr. Rossberg had come into his trailer even though the door was locked, and that he didn’t want Mr. Rossberg to come back. The court said that the reported statement that Mr. Rossberg had entered Mr. Hawkinson’s locked trailer came closest to affecting the verdict, but not close enough. This was because there was other undisputed evidence that Mr. Rossberg knew where Mr. Hawkinson hid a spare key. The court does say that evidence that Mr. Hawkinson was afraid of Mr. Rossberg was not relevant because Mr. Rossberg did not raise a self defense claim. The error in admitting this evidence was, again, harmless.
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