Gilbert v. State

1

Larry Jonnell Gilbert, Appellant, v. State of Minnesota, Respondent.

No. A21-1560

Supreme Court of Minnesota

January 17, 2024

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Saint Paul, Minnesota; and

Mark Nyvold, Special Assistant Public Defender, Fridley Minnesota, for appellant.

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, Saint Paul, Minnesota; and

Mary F. Moriarty, Hennepin County Attorney, Adam E. Petras Assistant County Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for respondent.

James R. Mayer, Anna McGinn, The Great North Innocence Project Minneapolis, Minnesota, for amici curiae The Great North Innocence Project and Innocence Project, Inc.

Moore, III, J. Took no part, Procaccini, J.

SYLLABUS

1. When the State has properly raised the procedural bar from the rule announced in State v. Knaffla, 243 N.W.2d 737, 741 (Minn. 1976), as a defense to a petition for postconviction relief, a district court abuses its discretion by granting the petition without explicitly determining whether the claim is procedurally barred and offering a sufficient explanation to support a determination that the claim is not procedurally barred.

2. The postconviction petitioner's claim alleging false trial testimony from the State's expert is procedurally barred under the Knaffla rule.

Affirmed.

OPINION

MOORE, III, Justice.

This case requires us to assess what record, if any, the district court must make in determining whether a postconviction claim is procedurally barred under the rule announced in State v. Knaffla, 243 N.W.2d 737, 741 (Minn. 1976), before granting relief. Larry Jonnell Gilbert was convicted of possession of a firearm by an ineligible person, in violation of Minn. Stat. § 624.713, subd. 1(2) (2022). After the court of appeals affirmed his conviction on direct appeal, Gilbert filed a motion for postconviction relief alleging that the State's DNA expert testified falsely at trial. In response to the motion, the State of Minnesota argued that Gilbert's claim was procedurally barred under Knaffla because the basis for the false testimony claim was known at the time of direct appeal and was not raised at that time. The district court, without addressing the Knaffla rule, granted Gilbert a new trial. The State appealed, and the court of appeals reversed. Gilbert v. State, 982 N.W.2d 763, 772 (Minn.App. 2022). We granted Gilbert's petition for review.

We hold that the district court abused its discretion by not explicitly determining whether Gilbert's claim was procedurally barred under Knaffla before granting postconviction relief. Because Gilbert's claim is procedurally barred under Knaffla, we affirm the decision of the court of appeals, but on different grounds.

FACTS

After the police found a handgun in the trunk of Gilbert's car, the State charged Gilbert with possession of a firearm by an ineligible person. See Minn. Stat. § 624.713 subd. 1(2). DNA analysis of a swab taken from the handgun showed that the major DNA profile on the handgun matched Gilbert's DNA sample.^[1] At trial, Gilbert presented an alternative perpetrator defense, arguing that the handgun belonged to another passenger in the car, and Gilbert's DNA was transferred onto the handgun through indirect contact.

The State called a forensic scientist with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) to testify, who performed the DNA analysis on the swab from the handgun found in Gilbert's car ("DNA expert"). The State questioned her about the possibility of DNA transfer through indirect contact. She testified that she had seen cases of DNA transfer in her experience, education, and training, and that "[i]t's usually a transfer from something that has a good amount of DNA there. So, like, blood or saliva, something that has very- a very good source of DNA to begin with." The DNA expert then testified:

If there is not blood or some sort of DNA-rich sample that we're talking about transferring to another item, I would expect there to be a low amount of DNA that would get transferred and would result in showing up in the minor types, if there is a mixture. I wouldn't expect this low amount of DNA to transfer and end up being a major profile.

Gilbert did not call a defense expert. The jury found Gilbert guilty as charged.

After appellate counsel was appointed but before an appeal had been filed, Gilbert's trial counsel informed his appellate counsel of the issue of potentially false trial testimony from the DNA expert regarding DNA transfer. At that time, trial counsel did not have an expert report or other documentation showing that the testimony was false. Trial counsel asked appellate counsel to raise the issue on appeal, but the issue was not raised. The court of appeals affirmed Gilbert's conviction, and we denied further review. State v. Gilbert, No. A20-0530, 2021 WL 668011, at *5 (Minn.App. Feb. 22, 2021), rev. denied (Minn. May 18, 2021).

On March 17, 2021, Gilbert filed a motion for postconviction relief, requesting a new trial based on alleged false trial testimony by the State's DNA expert. In support of his motion, Gilbert submitted an affidavit from an attorney in the Fourth Judicial District Public Defender Office, the same office where his trial attorney worked. The attorney's affidavit alleged that the required reading list for BCA trainees included a 2015 study on secondary DNA transfer.^[2] The affidavit stated that this study found that DNA transferred to an object through indirect contact can result in a major DNA profile, and therefore, the DNA expert's trial testimony to the contrary was "incorrect, misleading, highly prejudicial, and not supported by science."

In its response to Gilbert's motion, the State argued that the claim was procedurally barred under State v. Knaffla, 243 N.W.2d at 741, because the basis for the false testimony claim was known at the time of the direct appeal but was not raised. In response, Gilbert filed an informal "Letter Response" stating appellate counsel's failure to raise the issue was "either because [appellate counsel's representation] was ineffective assistance of counsel, or because without [an expert affidavit and documentation], the issue was not yet ripe and only available as post-conviction relief." The district court granted an evidentiary hearing.

Following an evidentiary hearing, the district court granted Gilbert a new trial. The district court, applying the Larrison test for claims of newly discovered evidence of falsified trial testimony, determined that the DNA expert's trial testimony was false and that this false testimony was "material to the jury's determination of guilt."^[3] See Larrison v. United States, 24 F.2d 82, 87-88 (7th Cir. 1928), overruled by United States v. Mitrione, 357 F.3d 712, 718 (7th Cir. 2004), vacated on other grounds, 543 U.S. 1097 (2005). The district court did not discuss the State's Knaffla argument.

In a precedential opinion, the court of appeals reversed. Gilbert, 982 N.W.2d at 772. The court of appeals concluded that the district court abused its discretion by not expressly determining whether Gilbert's claim was procedurally barred under the Knaffla rule, despite the State's assertion before the district court that the bar applied. Id. at 769. The court of appeals also determined that remand to the district court for consideration of the Knaffla rule was unnecessary because Gilbert's claim alleging false trial testimony by the State's DNA expert failed on the merits. Id. at 769.

We granted Gilbert's petition for review.

ANALYSIS

We review a district court's decision to grant a new trial in a postconviction proceeding for abuse of discretion. State v. Hurd, 763 N.W.2d 17, 34 (Minn. 2009); Fox v. State, 913 N.W.2d 429, 433 (Minn. 2018). An abuse of discretion occurs if a district court "exercised its discretion in an arbitrary or capricious manner, based its ruling on an erroneous view of the law, or made clearly erroneous factual findings." Reed v State, 793 N.W.2d 725, 729 (Minn. 2010).

I.

We begin by considering the district court's failure to address the State's argument that Gilbert's claim was procedurally barred. In State v. Knaffla, we held that "where direct appeal has once been taken, all matters raised therein, and all claims known but not raised, will not be considered upon a subsequent petition for postconviction relief." 243 N.W.2d at 741. For an unraised claim, there are two exceptions to the Knaffla procedural bar: (1) if a novel legal issue is presented; or (2) if the interests of justice require review. Griffin v. State, 883 N.W.2d 282, 286 (Minn. 2016).

We have not addressed what record, if any, the district court must make in determining whether a claim is procedurally barred under Knaffla before granting postconviction relief. The State contends that although the district court had the discretion to apply an exception to the Knaffla rule, it was required to first apply the Knaffla procedural bar to Gilbert's claim. See Griffin, 883 N.W.2d at 286 (noting that a procedurally barred claim will not be considered in a subsequent proceeding).

Accordingly, the State argues the district court abused its discretion because it did not address Knaffla in its order granting postconviction relief. Gilbert argues that there is sufficient evidence in the record to support a conclusion that his claim was not barred under Knaffla and that, even assuming the claim was barred, the interests-of-justice exception to the Knaffla rule applied.

In this case, the district court made no express determination that Gilbert's claim was not procedurally barred under Knaffla before granting Gilbert's motion for postconviction relief. The district court provided no analysis or discussion of the State's Knaffla argument. A district...