Isensee v. State

1

Matthew Howard Isensee, petitioner, Appellant, v. State of Minnesota, Respondent.

No. A22-0572

Court of Appeals of Minnesota

November 21, 2022

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by Minn.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

Koochiching County District Court File No. 36-CR-19-128

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender Benjamin J. Butler, Assistant Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and Jeffrey Naglosky, Koochiching County Attorney, International Falls, Minnesota (for respondent)

Considered and decided by Bryan, Presiding Judge; Bjorkman, Judge; and Slieter, Judge.

Slieter, Judge

In this appeal from an order denying postconviction relief, appellant argues that he must be permitted to withdraw his guilty plea to threats of violence because the plea is inaccurate. Appellant also claims that he is entitled to jail credit for time served at a residential treatment facility.

A manifest injustice exists because appellant's guilty plea was inaccurate and, therefore, we reverse on that basis. However, because the treatment facility appellant spent time at is not the functional equivalent of a correctional facility, he is not entitled to jail credit, and we affirm on that issue. Therefore, we affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand.

FACTS

In February 2019, and in response to a report that he was in a bar fight and threatened to "kill everyone," appellant Matthew Howard Isensee was arrested. The following day, Isensee was charged with one count of threats of violence, based on the risk of causing terror or inconvenience, in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.713 subd. 1 (2018).^[1]

In October 2019, Isensee pleaded guilty to the charge. During the plea colloquy, Isensee testified that on February 24, 2019, near midnight, he was at the "Outpost" bar in International Falls, drinking alcohol, when "[m]ultiple people attacked" him. The plea colloquy continued as follows between Isensee and his counsel:

Q: Okay and in the police reports, [the bartender] who would testify, says that you made some threats to kill people, um seems like it was just around her, either just inside the bar or outside the bar, is that correct?

A: Yes.

. . . .

Q: So, you're saying that you did say it, you would agree that [the bartender] was at least a part of it that you either threatened to kill someone or come back and do them in, right?

A: Yes.

Q: Okay. So, you made that statement, right?

A: Yes.

. . . .

Q: And you made these threats against the other people, or people in the bar, and those threats were threats of violence, would you agree with that?

A: Yes, but the other party was threatening me too in the same exact matter.

Q: Okay. So, again, did you threaten to kill everyone?

A: Yes.

Then the prosecutor questioned Isensee:

Q: Mr. Isensee, how do you think, that the threats that you're now taking responsibility for making to F'ing kill everybody, how do you think that made them feel?

A: Um, I believe only one person heard it, but I believe she was probably could've been a little scared at the moment, but.

Q: Okay, which, do you know which person you think is the one that heard it?

A: The one that made the record[ed] statement.^[2] [The bartender] or whatever.

Q: Okay, the bartender?

A: Yes.

Q: And so, you agree that when [the bartender] heard you say that you were going to kill everyone that she was afraid that you were going to act on that?

A: Um, I don't think she was afraid I was going to act on it, she personally knows me from, for like 15, 16 years now.

Then Isensee and his counsel resumed with this colloquy:

Q: [Y]ou made these threats, right? The second one is that you all, didn't actually intend, but you made the statements in reckless disregard that could, could have or would tend to objectively cause fear in another, right?

A: Yes.

Q: So, the statements that you have admitted to, you weren't, you recklessly made those statements --

A: Yes.

Q: -- would that be correct?

A: Yes.

The district court "defer[red] acceptance of the plea" until sentencing.

During the January 2020 sentencing hearing, the district court accepted Isensee's guilty plea, entered a conviction, granted a downward dispositional departure, stayed execution of a 32-month prison sentence, and placed Isensee on probation for five years. The district court awarded Isensee 169 days of credit for time served.

A probation condition required Isensee to successfully complete inpatient chemical-dependency treatment at Project Turnabout. Isensee spent 46 days in treatment at Project Turnabout in late 2020.

Multiple probation violation reports were filed, and a contested probation violation hearing was held in June 2021. The district court found that Isensee violated two conditions of his probation, revoked Isensee's probation, and executed his 32-month prison sentence.

In March 2022, Isensee filed a petition for postconviction relief arguing that he should be permitted to withdraw his guilty plea as "constitutionally inaccurate." The state did not respond.^[3] In April 2022, without a hearing, the postconviction court denied Isensee's petition in its entirety. Isensee appeals.

DECISION

"We review the denial of a petition for postconviction relief for an abuse of discretion. A postconviction court abuses its discretion when it has 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." Pearson v. State, 891 N.W.2d 590 596 (Minn. 2017) (quotation and citation omitted). We will sustain the postconviction court's factual findings if they are supported by sufficient evidence in the record. Cuypers v. State, 711 N.W.2d 100, 103 (Minn. 2006). "A petitioner bears the burden to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that facts exist that warrant postconviction relief." Tscheu v. State, 829 N.W.2d 400, 403 (Minn. 2013).

I. Isensee's guilty plea was inaccurate.

A defendant does not have an absolute right to withdraw a guilty plea. State v. Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d 90, 93 (Minn. 2010). But a court must allow withdrawal if it is necessary to correct a manifest injustice. Minn. R. Crim. P. 15.05, subd. 1; Lussier v. State, 821 N.W.2d 581, 586 n.2 (Minn. 2012) (reaffirming that "a motion to withdraw a guilty plea made after sentencing must be raised in a petition for postconviction relief"). "A manifest injustice exists if a guilty plea is not valid." Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d at 94. A constitutionally valid plea must be accurate, voluntary, and intelligent. Id. The defendant bears the burden of showing that his plea was invalid. Id.; see also Lussier, 821 N.W.2d at 588 (holding that the accuracy requirement is intended to "protect a defendant from pleading guilty to a more serious offense than that for which he could be convicted if he insisted on his right to trial" (quotation omitted)). The validity of a guilty plea is a question of law that we review de novo. Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d at 94.

A guilty plea is accurate if it is supported by a proper factual basis. State v. Theis, 742 N.W.2d 643, 647 (Minn. 2007). "In a typical plea, . . . an adequate factual basis is usually established by questioning the defendant and asking the defendant to explain in his or her own words the circumstances surrounding the crime." State v. Ecker, 524 N.W.2d 712, 716 (Minn. 1994). "The factual basis of a plea is inadequate when the defendant makes statements that negate an essential element of the charged crime because such statements are inconsistent with a plea of guilty." State v. Iverson, 664 N.W.2d 346, 350 (Minn. 2003).

Minnesota Statutes section 609.713, subdivision 1, provides that a person is guilty of threats of violence if he "threatens, directly or indirectly, to commit any crime of violence with purpose to terrorize another . . . or in reckless disregard of the risk of causing such terror." The reckless-disregard provision is at issue here. The supreme court recently concluded that:

a person recklessly makes threats of violence, in violation of section 609.713, subdivision 1, when (1) through words or actions, []he communicates an intention to injure another or their property; (2) the threat is to commit a statutorily defined crime of violence; (3) in context, those words or conduct create a reasonable apprehension that []he will follow through with or act on the threat; and (4) []he makes the violent threat in conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that h[is] words or conduct will cause extreme fear.

State v. Mrozinski, 971 N.W.2d 233, 240 (Minn. 2022).

"[T]he question of whether a given statement is a threat turns on whether the communication in its context would have a reasonable tendency to create apprehension that its originator will act according to its tenor." State v. Schweppe, 237 N.W.2d 609, 613 (Minn. 1975) (quotation omitted). "Because threats are context specific, a person who might lack a specific intent to threaten or terrorize may nevertheless utter an objectively threatening statement recklessly, committing a terroristic-threats crime." State v. Bjergum, 771 N.W.2d 53, 57 (Minn.App. 2009), rev. denied (Minn. Nov. 17, 2009). Although "declaring the intent to injure by an unlawful act constitutes a terroristic threat," it is only so "when the person who utters the statement recklessly disregards the risk of terrorizing another." Id. Again, Isensee's testimony is the sole basis for our review as to the context of Isensee's statement in the bar. See Ecker, 524 N.W.2d at 716.

The postconviction court found that Isensee "admitted to threatening to kill everyone with reckless disregard as to the risk of causing terror." It based this...