Williams v. State,, Minn.Ct.App., 6/12/2017. Mr. Williams moved under Rule 27.03, subd. 9 to correct sentences that he received in two different courts. He said that the trial courts had improperly assigned criminal history points to two out of state convictions. Importantly, at least to the court of appeals, Mr. Williams had not raised these objections at the time of either sentencing and he did not bring these sentencing corrections motions until after the time for direct appeal had lapsed. Both Rule 27.03 courts said that Mr. Williams had the burden of proving that the criminal history score calculation was incorrect. One of the Rule 27.03 courts also said that his motion to correct sentence also implicated the plea, thus making it the equivalent of a post conviction petition. That court summarily tossed the sentence correction request as time barred under the post conviction statute but in doing so it did not give Mr. Williams the opportunity to be heard on the limitations questions.
At sentencing, the state has the burden of proving facts "necessary to justify consideration of out-of-state convictions in determining a defendant's criminal history score." State v. Outlaw, 748 N.W.2d 349 (Minn.Ct.App., 2008), review denied (Minn. July 15, 2008). That's not the case for a Rule 27.03 sentencing correction motion, which is a "collateral proceeding" but not always a post conviction proceeding. The upshot is that although a sentence that is based upon an incorrect criminal history score is an unauthorized sentence, it's the defendant who has to do the heavy lifting when this is brought to the court's attention in a collateral proceeding.
Mr. Williams does score a modest victory on the opportunity to be heard claim. The Minnesota Supreme Court recently chided a post conviction court for summarily dismissing a petition on limitations grounds without first giving the parties an opportunity to be heard on it beforehand. Weitzel v. State, 883 N.W.2d 553 (Minn. 2016.
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