Knoll v. State

1

Richard Theodore Knoll, petitioner, Appellant, v. State of Minnesota, Respondent.

No. A22-1550

Court of Appeals of Minnesota

April 24, 2023

This Opinion is Nonprecedential except as provided by Minn.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

Isanti County District Court File No. 30-CR-17-154

Richard Theodore Knoll, Mora, Minnesota (self-represented appellant)

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and Jeffrey R. Edblad, Isanti County Attorney, Nicholas J. Colombo Assistant County Attorney, Cambridge, Minnesota (for respondent)

Considered and decided by Gaitas, Presiding Judge; Ross, Judge; and Wheelock, Judge.

GAITAS, JUDGE.

Appellant Richard Theodore Knoll challenges the district court's denial of his postconviction petition without an evidentiary hearing after this court affirmed his conviction for third-degree burglary on direct appeal. Because the district court did not abuse its discretion when it determined that Knoll's claims lack merit and Knoll was not entitled to a postconviction evidentiary hearing, we affirm.

FACTS

Knoll was arrested in March 2017, when police officers responding to a burglary report found him inside a locked garage on private property. Respondent State of Minnesota charged Knoll with third-degree burglary, Minn. Stat. § 609.582, subd. 3 (2016), fifth-degree drug possession, Minn. Stat. § 152.025, subd. 2(1) (2016), and attempted misdemeanor theft, Minn. Stat. §§ 609.52, subd. 2(a)(1), .17, subd. 1 (2016). The district court granted Knoll conditional release pending trial.

Knoll was represented by multiple different public defenders throughout the pretrial and trial proceedings in his case. On two occasions, Knoll requested continuances to consult with his preferred public defenders about settlement offers and his defense strategy. Both times, Knoll assured the district court that he wanted to waive his right to have a speedy trial.

The case was tried on October 5, 2018; a jury found Knoll guilty of the third-degree burglary offense, and not guilty of the remaining charges. At sentencing, the district court stayed execution of a 15-month sentence and placed Knoll on probation for five years.

Represented by an appellate public defender, Knoll filed a direct appeal to this court. He argued that the district court committed plain error by allowing the prosecutor to introduce evidence of an accomplice's guilty plea to the burglary offense. We affirmed Knoll's conviction. State v. Knoll, A19-0764, 2020 WL 1129872, at *3 (Minn.App. Mar. 9, 2020).

On May 13, 2022, Knoll filed a pro se petition for postconviction relief, asking the district court to vacate his conviction "to correct the manifest injustice inflicted through procedural error and the mismanagement of the case [as] required by law." Knoll's petition argued that he was entitled to relief on four grounds: (1) violation of his constitutional right to a speedy trial, (2) ineffective assistance of both trial and appellate counsel, (3) prosecutorial misconduct, and (4) the jury's legally inconsistent verdicts. In a separate motion, Knoll moved for an evidentiary hearing to develop his postconviction claims.

On September 7, 2022, the district court denied Knoll's postconviction petition and motion for an evidentiary hearing. The district court determined that Knoll's speedy-trial, prosecutorial-misconduct, and inconsistent-verdict claims were Knaffla-barred^[1] because Knoll knew or should have known of these claims at the time of his direct appeal. Alternatively, the district court ruled that, even if these claims were not Knaffla-barred, they lacked merit. Although the district court determined that Knoll's ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims were not procedurally barred, it concluded that there was no "evidence in the record to suggest that either trial counsel, or appellate counsel was ineffective." The district court denied Knoll's request for an evidentiary hearing for the same reason.

Knoll appeals.

DECISION

I. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Knoll's petition for postconviction relief.

An appellate court reviews "the denial of a petition for postconviction relief for an abuse of discretion." Pearson v. State, 891 N.W.2d 590, 596 (Minn. 2017). "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." Id. (quotation omitted).

Initially, we agree with the district court's determination that Knoll's speedy-trial, prosecutorial-misconduct, and inconsistent-verdict claims were Knaffla-barred. See Knaffla, 243 N.W.2d at 741. When a postconviction petitioner has had a direct appeal, the petitioner cannot subsequently raise claims that were known at the time of the direct appeal in a petition for postconviction relief. Id. Because the bases for Knoll's speedy-trial, prosecutorial-misconduct, and inconsistent-verdict claims were known to him at the time of his direct appeal, but were not included in his direct appeal, he is barred from raising them in a subsequent petition for postconviction relief. See id. Moreover, because the basis for Knoll's claim that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance was also known to him at the time of the direct appeal, we conclude that this claim-which was first raised in the postconviction petition-is also Knaffla-barred.

However, Knoll's postconviction petition also alleged that his appellate attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel by failing to raise his speedy-trial, prosecutorial-misconduct, and inconsistent-verdict claims on direct appeal. In this appeal, Knoll does not pursue his argument that appellate counsel should have raised the issue of prosecutorial misconduct on direct appeal. But he argues that his appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the speedy-trial and inconsistent-verdict claims on direct appeal, and for failing to bring a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. He contends that the district court erred by concluding otherwise and denying his petition for postconviction relief. Because Knoll's claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel was not known to him at the time of his direct appeal, this issue is not Knaffla-barred. We therefore consider whether the district court abused its discretion in denying Knoll's request for postconviction relief based on ineffective assistance of appellate counsel.^[2]

Under the federal and state constitutions, a criminal defendant is entitled to the assistance of counsel. U.S. Const. amend. VI; Minn. Const. art. I, § 6. This right means "the right to the effective assistance of counsel." McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 771 n.14 (1970) (emphasis added). The threshold for assessing any ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim is "whether counsel's conduct so undermined the proper functioning of the adversarial process that the trial cannot be relied on as having produced a just result." Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686 (1984). To prevail on a claim that counsel was ineffective, a defendant must show that (1) counsel was deficient and (2) the deficient performance prejudiced the defense. Id. at 687. "If a claim fails to satisfy one of the Strickland requirements, [an appellate court] need not consider the other requirement." State v. Mosley, 895 N.W.2d 585, 591 (Minn. 2017).

To prove that counsel's performance was deficient, a defendant must show it "fell below an objective standard of reasonableness." Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687-88. A petitioner alleging ineffective assistance of counsel must overcome the "strong presumption that counsel's performance fell within a wide range of reasonable assistance." Gail v. State, 732 N.W.2d 243, 248 (Minn. 2007). An attorney meets the objective reasonableness standard when the attorney "provides [the] client with the representation of an attorney exercising the customary skills and diligence that a reasonably competent attorney would perform under the circumstances." State v. Doppler, 590 N.W.2d 627, 633 (Minn. 1999) (quotation omitted). "Appellate counsel does not have a duty to raise all possible issues, and may choose to present only the most meritorious claims on appeal." Zumberge v. State, 937 N.W.2d 406, 413 (Minn. 2019) (quotation omitted). Nor does appellate counsel "act unreasonably by not raising issues that he or she could have legitimately concluded would not prevail." Zornes v. State, 880 N.W.2d 363, 371 (Minn. 2016). To prove prejudice, the defendant must show that, but for counsel's deficient performance, there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of the proceeding would have been different. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694; Andersen v. State, 830 N.W.2d 1, 10 (Minn. 2013).

Because the Strickland test involves mixed questions of law and fact, an appellate court reviews a district court's determinations de novo. State v. Mouelle, 922 N.W.2d 706, 715 (Minn. 2019). "[T]o determine whether [a defendant's] appellate counsel was ineffective, [a reviewing court] must look to the merits of [the defendant's] underlying claims." Onyelobi v. State, 932 N.W.2d 272, 280 (Minn. 2019).

Knoll argues that his appellate attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel by failing to argue on direct appeal that delays in commencing his trial deprived him of his constitutional right to a speedy trial, by failing to challenge the jury's verdicts as legally inconsistent, and by failing to pursue a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. To evaluate Knoll's claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel, we address the merits of these three issues.

A. Right to Speedy Trial

The United States and Minnesota...