Rule 27.03 Request To Reduce Sentence Properly Treated as Post Conviction Petition

Johnson v. State, Minn.S.Ct., 4/13/2016.   Mr. Johnson is serving a life sentence with possibility of release after thirty years.  Mr. Johnson had pleaded guilty under a deal whereby he could be sentenced between thirty and thirty-six years if the prosecutor thought he'd provided "useful information" about something; otherwise, he would get life with possibility of release.  The prosecutor apparently didn't think much of Mr. Johnson's information so the court gave him the life with possibility of release.  About a year later, Mr. Johnson filed his first post-conviction petition, complaining about the prosecutor's "sole discretion" to decide if his information had been "useful."  The supreme court rejected that claim back in 2002, Johnson v. State, 641 N.W.2d 912 (Minn. 2002).

This go around, Mr. Johnson is still complaining about the plea deal, but he also threw in a claim that his sentence is "repugnant to the Eighth Amendment ... because it is disproportionate and unfair when compared to the shorter sentences and more culpable conduct of his codefendants."  Mr. Johnson made this claim under Rule 27.03, subd. 9 to correct his sentence.

Mr. Johnson threw in under this rule because his claim would be time-barred as a post conviction petition.  Chief Justice Gildea agrees with the trial court's conclusion that Mr. Johnson's claim was really a post conviction claim that was outside the limitations period or any of its exceptions.  State v. Coles, 862 N.W.2d 477 (Minn. 2015) pretty much seals Mr. Johnson's fate.  There, the court said that when the requested relief would alter the benefit of the plea deal then Rule 27.03, subd. 9 doesn't apply.  In reaching this conclusion the court continues to dodge the question whether the limitations amendments to the post conviction statute overruled the Knaffla exceptions; the court also ducks whether Rule 27.03 can be used to raise Mr. Johnson's Eighth Amendment question.