Fulks v. State

Darrell Evans Fulks, petitioner, Respondent, v. State of Minnesota, Appellant.

No. A20-1511

Court of Appeals of Minnesota

September 7, 2021

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by Minn. R Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

Ramsey County District Court File No. 62-CR-13-6046

Mark D. Nyvold, Fridley, Minnesota (for respondent) Keith Ellison Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

John J. Choi, Ramsey County Attorney, Jeffrey A. Wald, Assistant County Attorney, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Bratvold, Presiding Judge Connolly, Judge; and Hooten, Judge.

Bratvold, Judge

In this appeal from a district court order granting postconviction relief and vacating respondent's conviction for first-degree refusal to submit to a chemical test, appellant argues that the district court erred. We first conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion by determining that, under Fagin v. State, 933 N.W.2d 774 (Minn. 2019), appellant failed to plead with sufficient detail the exigent circumstances that justified a warrantless search of respondent's blood or urine. Even if we assume that appellant's pleading was sufficiently detailed, we next conclude that the district court did not err by concluding respondent met his burden of proving no exigency existed at the time of his arrest. Thus, a warrantless search of respondent's blood and urine was not justified, and we affirm.

FACTS

Offense and conviction

The following summarizes the relevant facts from the postconviction order, most of which are undisputed. On August 15, 2013, at around 2:05 a.m., a Minnesota State Patrol trooper stopped a black SUV on I-94 in St. Paul, travelling eastbound at 75 miles per hour in a 55-mile-per-hour zone. The trooper identified the driver as respondent Darrell Evans Fulks. The trooper noted an odor of alcohol coming from Fulks, who failed field sobriety tests. Fulks admitted he had consumed three beers and smoked marijuana a few hours before driving. Fulks refused a preliminary breath test. The trooper arrested Fulks and transported him directly to the Ramsey County Detention Center.

At 2:48 a.m., the trooper read Fulks the implied-consent advisory. Fulks asked to speak with an attorney. The trooper provided a phone and phone books, and at 2:57 a.m., Fulks stated he was finished. The trooper asked if Fulks would submit to a blood or urine test and Fulks refused.

The appellant State of Minnesota charged Fulks with first-degree driving while impaired-refusal to submit to a chemical test.^[1] After reaching an agreement with the state, Fulks pleaded guilty in September 2014 to refusal to submit to a chemical test. On January 12, 2015, the district court sentenced Fulks to 84 months in prison with a five-year conditional-release period after confinement. Fulks did not appeal.

Postconviction petition

On February 21, 2019, Fulks petitioned for postconviction relief requesting that his test-refusal conviction be vacated as unconstitutional. Fulks argued that the state lacked a warrant to obtain his blood or urine and no exception to the warrant requirement applied, relying on Johnson v State, 916 N.W.2d 674, 684 (Minn. 2018) (Johnson I).^[2] The state opposed his petition and argued that exigent circumstances excused the warrant requirement. After an evidentiary hearing in May 2019, the district court granted Fulks's petition, concluding that the state failed to prove that an exigency existed at the time of Fulks's arrest. The state appealed.

First appeal and remand

In May 2020, this court reversed and remanded the district court's order granting postconviction relief, determining that the district court erred when it placed the burden on the state to prove that an exception to the warrant requirement justified the warrantless search of Fulks's blood and urine. Fulks v. State, No. A19-1123 (Minn.App. May 21, 2020) (order op.). We relied on Fagin v. State, 933 N.W.2d 774, which was issued while the state's appeal was pending. Fagin held that the petitioner has the burden to prove that no warrant existed and none of the exceptions to the warrant requirement applied. Id. at 779-80.

In September 2020, the district court held a second evidentiary hearing. The district court received one piece of evidence by stipulation of the parties: an affidavit of the arresting trooper. The trooper averred that "[a]t no time did I request a search warrant," "[n]othing prevented me from attempting to obtain a search warrant," and "[i]t did not occur to me to get a search warrant." In response to questions from the court, the state argued that it pleaded the exigency "with specificity; namely, that this event happened in the middle of the night, there was a two-hour window, and that at the time of the refusal, there was only one hour left." The state relied on Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 1(5) (2012), which requires the state to prove that defendant's alcohol concentration exceeded the legal limit within two hours of driving. Fulks argued that no exigent circumstances existed because the state could have obtained a warrant.

The district court granted Fulks's postconviction petition and vacated his test-refusal conviction. The district court first determined that the state failed to plead the exigency in sufficient detail. The district court then considered the circumstances surrounding the warrantless search and found that "Fulks was stopped at 2:05AM and refused to voluntarily submit to a test at 2:57AM. This gave [the trooper] approximately 68 minutes to obtain a warrant within the two-hour window. Sixty-eight minutes is sufficient time to obtain a warrant." The district court finally determined that "under the circumstances here, Fulks has established by a preponderance of evidence that a judge would have been available, and a telephonic warrant could have been obtained without much delay and without undermining the efficacy of the search." The district court concluded, "Because law enforcement did not obtain a warrant and exigent circumstances were not present, any search of Fulks's blood or urine was unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution."

The state appeals.

DECISION

The state argues that the district court "abused its discretion in vacating respondent's test-refusal conviction because Fulks failed to submit any evidence to satisfy his burden to prove the lack of exigent circumstances." Fulks argues that the record "supports, factually and legally, the District Court's findings and conclusion that sufficient time existed to obtain a warrant, and no exigency existed." Fulks also contends that the evidence shows that "no warrant was ever going to be sought making it irrelevant whether a warrant could have been obtained within 68 minutes or any other period of time."

Appellate courts review the district court's decision to grant or deny a petition for postconviction relief for an abuse of discretion. Fagin, 933 N.W.2d at 777. Appellate courts review the district court's factual findings under the clearly erroneous standard, and its legal conclusions de novo. Id.; State v. Stavish, 868 N.W.2d 670, 677 (Minn. 2015). In particular, appellate courts review a district court's "ultimate determination of exigency de novo." Stavish, 868 N.W.2d at 677.

Before analyzing the district court's reasons for granting relief, we begin by summarizing the relevant law. Calling it the "Birchfield rule," the Minnesota Supreme Court held that "in the DWI context, the State may not criminalize refusal of a blood or a urine test absent a search warrant or a showing that a valid exception to the warrant requirement applies." Johnson I, 916 N.W.2d at 679 (citing Birchfield, 136 S.Ct. at 2185-86 (2016)). Johnson I determined that the "Birchfield rule" is substantive and applies retroactively to criminal defendants' convictions on collateral review. Id. at 684. This means that although Fulks was convicted in 2013, well before the Birchfield rule was articulated, the rule applies to his conviction.

The Birchfield rule has led to many postconviction petitions that, like Fulks's petition, challenge the validity of a test-refusal conviction. Fagin set out the procedural and pleading standards that apply to a postconviction petition based on the Birchfield rule. Fagin, 933 N.W.2d at 780-81. The petitioner first must affirmatively allege that no search warrant was issued and that (at least upon information or belief) no warrant exception applied. Id. at 780. If the petitioner satisfies this requirement, then the burden shifts to the state, which must "admit or deny the existence of a warrant," and if no warrant was issued, "shall admit the lack of an exception or, alternatively, state specifically the exception relied on and the grounds for the State's reliance. The exception and its grounds must be pleaded in sufficient detail to give the petitioner adequate notice of the State's position." Id. The district court must then hold an evidentiary hearing, unless the record shows the petitioner is not entitled to relief. Id. at 781. At the evidentiary hearing, the petitioner must prove that no warrant exception applied "by a fair preponderance of the evidence." Id. at 779 (quotation omitted); see Minn. Stat. § 590.04, subd. 3 (2020).

Here the parties dispute whether exigent circumstances supported a warrantless search of Fulks's blood. To determine whether an exigency justified a warrantless search, courts examine the totality of the circumstances. Trahan, 886 N.W.2d at 222. Caselaw has specifically addressed whether the dissipation of alcohol over time provides exigent circumstances that justify a warrantless search. "[W]hile the...