Caldwell v. State, A12–2301.

853 N.W.2d 766

Lincoln Lamar CALDWELL, Appellant

v.STATE of Minnesota, Respondent.

No. A12–2301.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Sept. 24, 2014.

Gregory J. Young, Minneapolis, MN, for appellant.

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Saint Paul, MN; and Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Linda K. Jenny, Assistant County Attorney, Minneapolis, MN, for respondent.

Considered and decided by the court without oral argument.

OPINION

STRAS, Justice.

The appellant, Lincoln Lamar Caldwell, challenged his conviction of first-degree premeditated murder for the benefit of a gang in his third petition for postconviction relief, in which he alleged that three witnesses presented false testimony at his trial. The postconviction court summarily denied the petition. On appeal, Caldwell argues that the court abused its discretion when it failed to grant him an evidentiary hearing in connection with his petition. Because we conclude that Caldwell has alleged facts that, if proven, would entitle him to relief, we reverse and remand to the postconviction court for an evidentiary hearing.

I.

Kirk Harrison (“Kirk”) shot and killed Brian Cole from an SUV driven by Caldwell. Both Caldwell and Kirk were members of the LL gang, which was engaged in an ongoing rivalry with the One–Nine gang. Cole was not a member of a gang, but he was standing near members of the One–Nine gang when Kirk shot him.

On the day of the murder, Caldwell drove an SUV with five passengers, including Kirk. According to the trial testimony of Kirk's brother, Carnell Harrison (“Carnell”), who was also a passenger in the SUV that day, Caldwell handed a gun to Kirk. Later, while Caldwell was driving the SUV in north Minneapolis, the group recognized members of the One–Nine gang in a crowd of 10 to 20 people. Caldwell drove around the block, parked the SUV, and then either Caldwell or Kirk said, “we can catch them over there.” Each member of the group, except Carnell, walked toward the crowd. Carnell assumed that Caldwell and Kirk were going to “shoot at [the One–Nines].” A few minutes later, the group of men returned to the SUV, at which point Caldwell and Kirk were arguing. Kirk said, “[y]ou should have took the shot,” and Caldwell responded, “it was too crowded.”

Caldwell then drove the SUV around the block again. Another passenger, William Brooks, testified that Caldwell and Kirk had remarked that members of the One–Nine gang had shot at them previously and that they “were going to get them.” According to Brooks, Caldwell then passed a gun to Kirk. Other witnesses testified that, at some point, a passenger in the SUV pointed out the One–Nines, who were standing in a group of people. Caldwell then drove toward the group. When the SUV was near the One–Nines, Kirk leaned out of the window and attempted to fire the gun. Initially, the gun did not fire because of the safety mechanism. Once Kirk disengaged the safety, he fired six or seven shots into the crowd, one of which hit Cole and killed him. Caldwell and his passengers fled the scene in the SUV.

An acquaintance of Caldwell, S.T., testified at trial that he encountered Caldwell at a friend's house shortly after the shooting. According to S.T., Caldwell recounted “g[etting] down”—which S.T. understood as “fighting or shooting or [a] brawl or something”—with the One–Nines. Caldwell also explained that the “intended target” had been “Ill Will,” one of the leaders of the One–Nine gang. From Caldwell's description of the gun—a “grey and black Smith & Wesson” 9mm semiautomatic pistol—S.T. recognized it as one that he had seen in Caldwell's possession on several occasions.

Before Cole's funeral, Caldwell encountered one of Cole's friends, who wore a t-shirt printed with an image of the newspaper article reporting Cole's death. Caldwell told the friend, “I'm the reason why you got that shirt.” Later, Caldwell told an associate that he originally thought that the victim of the shooting was a member of the One–Nine gang with whom Caldwell had a particularly strong rivalry. Referring to killing Cole, Caldwell stated, “we shouldn't have did it.... Dude was a nobody.”

A grand jury indicted Caldwell on six counts of murder as both a principal and an accomplice. See Minn.Stat. § 609.05, subd. 1 (2012). A jury found Caldwell guilty of all six counts. The district court convicted him of the most serious offense-first—degree premeditated murder for the benefit of a gang, Minn.Stat. §§ 609.185(a)(1), 609.229 (2012)—and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of release. Caldwell filed a direct appeal, which we stayed while he filed two petitions for postconviction relief. The postconviction court denied both petitions, after which we consolidated Caldwell's three appeals. In the consolidated appeal, we affirmed Caldwell's conviction and the denial of both petitions for postconviction relief. State v. Caldwell, 803 N.W.2d 373, 377 (Minn.2011).

Caldwell subsequently filed a third petition for postconviction relief. In that petition, Caldwell alleged that Brooks, Carnell, and S.T. each testified falsely at his trial. He supported the petition with a statement by each witness and a signed and notarized affidavit in which the investigator who interviewed the witnesses affirmed that each statement was a true and correct transcription of his recorded interview with the witness. Caldwell also offered an undated handwritten note signed “William Brook.”

In his transcribed statement, Brooks denied the following key facts from his trial testimony: that he heard Caldwell or Kirk say that the One–Nines had shot at them previously; that he heard Caldwell or Kirk say that they “were going to get” the One–Nines in retaliation for the previous incident; and that he saw Caldwell pass a gun to Kirk. As for the reason that Brooks's trial testimony differed from his statement, Brooks explained that he feared criminal liability for his involvement in the shooting. He was also upset with the others because “[a]ll these babies and kids and dogs and all types of people” had been present during the shooting. According to Brooks, he recanted because he felt bad that Caldwell “g[ot] life for something he didn't really do.” The handwritten note stated that Brooks lied at trial in an attempt to make a deal with the prosecutor and get out of jail, but in his transcribed statement, Brooks specifically denied the facts from the handwritten note.

In his statement, Carnell denied several key facts from his trial testimony: that he saw Caldwell pass a gun to Kirk; that he heard members of the group discuss trying to “catch” the One–Nines on foot; and that he remembered many of the details from the shooting. Like Brooks, Carnell explained that his account differed at trial because he felt pressure to avoid criminal charges and that he came forward to prevent Caldwell from remaining in prison for a crime that he did not commit.

S.T. declared in his statement that he invented his trial testimony. More specifically, S.T. denied speaking to Caldwell at a friend's house shortly after the murder. In fact, S.T. stated that he did not see Caldwell at all in the aftermath of the shooting. S.T. also specifically denied seeing Caldwell with the gun Kirk used to shoot Cole, which contradicted S.T.'s testimony at trial that the gun belonged to Caldwell. S.T. explained that he testified falsely in exchange for a suspended sentence on an unrelated charge. He came forward because, in his view, the police took advantage of him.

The postconviction court was not reasonably well satisfied that Brooks's and Carnell's trial testimony was false, nor was it reasonably well satisfied that S.T.'s testimony, even if it was false, might have affected the verdict. Accordingly, the court denied Caldwell's petition without an evidentiary hearing.

II.

The question presented by this case is whether the postconviction court erred when it denied Caldwell's request for an evidentiary hearing. We review the ultimate decision by the postconviction court to grant or deny an evidentiary hearing for an abuse of discretion. See Riley v. State, 819 N.W.2d 162, 167 (Minn.2012). In doing so, we review the postconviction court's underlying factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. Martin v. State, 825 N.W.2d 734, 740 (Minn.2013).

A postconviction petitioner is entitled to an evidentiary hearing “[u]nless the petition and the files and records of the proceeding conclusively show that the petitioner is entitled to no relief.” Minn.Stat. § 590.04, subd. 1 (2012). In the context of witness-recantation claims, we have interpreted the statutory rule to impose two requirements. First, the allegations in a petition must be “more than argumentative assertions without factual support.” Beltowski v. State, 289 Minn. 215, 217, 183 N.W.2d 563, 564 (1971). Stated differently, the allegations in the petition must have factual support that carries “sufficient indicia of trustworthiness,” Ferguson v. State (Ferguson II ), 779 N.W.2d 555, 560 (Minn.2010), to “justify the expense and risk” of an evidentiary hearing. State v. Ferguson (Ferguson I ), 742 N.W.2d 651, 660 (Minn.2007) ; see also Miles v. State, 800 N.W.2d 778, 784 (Minn.2011) (applying the indicia-of-trustworthiness standard from witness-recantation claims to claims involving newly discovered evidence). Second, the sufficiently trustworthy allegations must recite facts that would, if proven by a preponderance of the evidence, entitle the petitioner to a new trial. See, e.g., Martin, 825 N.W.2d at 740 ; see also Minn.Stat. § 590.04, subd. 3 (2012) (setting the burden and standard of proof at evidentiary hearings). We address each of these requirements in turn.¹

A.

We begin with the first requirement, which is that Caldwell's evidence must bear “sufficient indicia of trustworthiness” to justify an evidentiary hearing. In this case, Caldwell has submitted statements from Brooks, Carnell, and S.T. that recant portions of their trial testimony. A...