State v. Horst, Minn.S.Ct., 5/18/2016. Ms. Horst and some of her friends plotted, for the usual reasons - infidelity, abuse - to kill Horst's husband, Brandon. Eventually all but one of the friends, Allen, dropped out; for instance, on the way to the murder one of the friends ran into an old girlfriend and that was that. Ms. Horst gave Allen a loaded gun, told him to hide in the basement until Brandon was asleep and then go upstairs and shoot him. Ms. Horst then went shopping at Walgreens. From there she sent multiple text messages urging Allen on until finally Allen shot Brandon one time in the head as he lay sleeping. Ms. Horst then returned to the murder scene, called 911, and reported that someone had broken into her home and killed her husband. The state charged Ms. Horst with first degree premeditated murder and Allen turned state's evidence against her.
Police "invited" Ms. Horst to accompany them down to the police station, an invitation that she apparently accepted. The officers questioned her in an unlocked conference room, she was allowed to keep possession of her personal belongings, and she left after concluding the interview. Justice Stras concluded that these facts supported the trial court's conclusion that the interview of Ms. Horst was not a "custodial" interview that required a Miranda warning. Ms. Horst pointed to the two times that an officer accompanied her to the bathroom, the location of the interview at the police station, and the increasingly "accusatory tone" of the interview to support her claim that the interview was a "custodial" one. Relying on a "totality of the circumstances" analysis, Justice Stras affirmed the trial court's conclusion that the interview had not been a "custodial" one.
Before Ms. Horst left the police station an officer grabbed her cell phone. The state later got a search warrant to "seize" the contents of the phone, but Ms. Horst complained about the warrantless seizure of the phone, itself. The trial court said that after Ms. Horst and the officer talked about what texts or calls might be on the phone an exigency existed because of the "possibility of imminent destruction or removal" of the data contained on the phone. Justice Stras said that seizure of the phone in order to preserve its contents while getting a warrant was no different that "seizure" of a person whom police have probable cause to suspect had marijuana hidden in his home so that he could not sound the alarm. Illinois v. McArthur, 531 U.S. 326 (2001). Ms. Horst had argued that it would have been easy enough to get a warrant to seize the cell phone, which could have been accomplished with a phone call under Rule 36.03. Justice Stras acerbically observes, however, that although the rule permits a telephone call to get a warrant the office must also prepare a "duplicate original warrant," which would mean interrupting the interview - is there only one officer working this case? - draft the warrant, call the judge, etc., all the while risking that Ms. Horst would simply get up and walk the cell phone out the door and into the nearest incinerator.
Ms. Horst complained about the state's use of multiple search warrants to obtain her medical records in order to refute her claim that she had miscarried multiple times as a result of Brandon's assaults. Ultimately, however, the state did not introduce any of those records. Ms. Horse nonetheless said that because the state had use of those records to formulate its theory of the case that there had been constitutional violations. Justice Stras said that even if the records influenced the state's presentation of its case the evidence of guilt was sufficiently overwhelming that no reasonable jury would have reached a different conclusion.
Ms. Horst complained that the trial court should have given an accomplice corroboration instruction. The state agreed that Allen was an accomplice, but because Ms. Horst didn't request the instruction it was harmless under the "plain error" doctrine. Justice Stras agreed after going through a multi-factor analysis described in State v. Jackson, 746 N.W.2d 894 (Minn. 2008).
Finally, the court rejected Ms. Horst's claim that the state's evidence had been insufficient to convict her; and rejected a claim that because a potential juror and an investigator had been classmates some decades ago the trial court should have removed the juror for cause.
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