State v. Brown

State of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Willie B. Brown, Jr., Appellant.

A19-0409

A19-1493

STATE OF MINNESOTA IN COURT OF APPEALS

August 24, 2020

This opinion will be unpublished and may not be cited except as provided by Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2018).

Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded

Bryan, Judge

Hennepin County District Court

File Nos. 27-CR-18-14949, 27-CR-18-10755

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Nicole Cornale, Assistant County Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Davi E. Axelson, Assistant Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

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

UNPUBLISHED OPINION

BRYAN, Judge

In this consolidated appeal, appellant challenges his convictions for second-degree murder and drive-by shooting, arguing that the district court made the following four errors: (1) the district court granted respondent's request to join the second-degree murder charge with separate drive-by shooting/second-degree assault charges; (2) the district court denied appellant's motion to suppress the evidence obtained from the execution of the warrant to obtain his blood sample; (3) the district court denied appellant's motion to suppress evidence regarding the "show-up" identification; and (4) the district court admitted prejudicial evidence regarding a history of appellant's strained relationship with T.F. Appellant also filed a pro se supplemental brief in which he raised several issues, including an argument that the respondent presented insufficient evidence at trial to sustain his second-degree murder conviction, which would require remand for entry of judgment of acquittal pursuant to the Double Jeopardy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Because the erroneous joinder of the offenses prejudiced appellant, we reverse and remand for separate proceedings on the second-degree murder charge and the drive-by-shooting/second-degree assault charges. We also conclude that, because the search warrant was not supported by probable cause, the district court erred when it denied appellant's motion to suppress the results of the blood test. In addition, because respondent did not satisfy the requirements for admission of relationship evidence, we conclude that the district court erroneously admitted this evidence at trial. Finally, we conclude that because the respondent presented sufficient evidence of appellant's guilt, the appropriate remedy in this case is to remand for separate proceedings on the two case files and not to remand for entry of judgement of acquittal.

FACTS

In April 2018, respondent State of Minnesota charged appellant Willie Brown, Jr., with second-degree murder in district court file number 27-CR-18-10755. Brown frequently stayed at T.F.'s residence on Sheridan Avenue (the Sheridan Avenue residence) along with several other individuals, including T.F.'s brothers and T.F.'s second cousin, D.H. In the early morning hours of April 26, 2018, Brown had an argument with T.F.'s brothers. Brown and D.H. left the Sheridan Avenue residence together in a black Chevrolet Impala rented to D.H.'s wife. According to the complaint, at approximately 5:00 a.m. on April 26, 2018, Brown shot D.H., and left the scene driving the black Chevrolet Impala. In June 2018, the state charged Brown by a separate complaint with two additional crimes: drive-by shooting and second-degree assault in district court file number 27-CR-18-14949. The new drive-by shooting and second-degree assault allegations in this complaint relate to the same conduct: at 7:39 a.m. on April 26, 2018, approximately 2.5 hours after D.H. was killed, Brown fired multiple rounds at the Sheridan Avenue residence.

The state subsequently moved to join the offenses, and the district court granted the joinder motion over Brown's objection. After ruling on various pretrial motions and granting the state's request to admit relationship evidence, the case proceeded to trial. The jury found Brown guilty of all three charged offenses, and the district court sentenced Brown to 386 months for second-degree murder and 48 months for drive-by shooting, to be served consecutively. This appeal followed.¹ Given the issues raised, we first discussthe facts relating to the district court's disposition of the parties' pretrial motions. Next we discuss the facts related to the district court's decision to admit evidence of Brown's prior acts as relationship evidence. Finally, we summarize the facts established during the trial.

A. Suppression and Joinder Motions

In the months leading up to the trial, the parties made several motions. For the purposes of this appeal, we will focus on the following three motions: (1) the state moved to join the offenses and to proceed with a single trial; (2) Brown moved to suppress the results of a blood test; and (3) Brown moved to suppress witness identification evidence. Although the district court held an evidentiary Rasmussen² hearing, the state only presented evidence in opposition to Brown's motion to suppress the identification evidence at this evidentiary hearing. The state made arguments regarding the remaining motions based on the complaints. We address each of the three motions in turn.

First, the state moved to join the separate offenses for a single trial. In support of its motion for joinder, the state argued that, based on the allegations in the complaint, the second-degree murder offense occurred at a different location from the drive-by-shooting/second-degree assault offenses, but both locations were in the same general partof Minneapolis, about a mile apart.³ The state also argued that Brown committed the drive-by-shooting/second-degree assault offenses approximately 2.5 hours after he committed the second-degree murder. The state surmised that Brown committed these offenses out of a desire to retaliate against both D.H. and T.F. Although the state presented no evidence on this issue, the district court granted the motion for joinder, concluding that the offenses shared a unity of time, place, and purpose. Specifically, the district court concluded that the criminal objective motivating the conduct in the offenses was "retaliation/revenge," and, therefore, the offenses were part of the same behavioral incident.

Second, Brown challenged the probable cause supporting the search warrant that the district court issued to obtain a blood sample from Brown after his arrest. The search warrant application included the statement that Brown "was believed to have been under the influence of narcotics at the time of his arrest." The search warrant application did not include any other statements or observations to support this belief. The district court signed the warrant and the results of testing from the blood sample revealed amphetamines in Brown's system. Brown argued that the application accompanying the warrant request didnot contain sufficient facts to establish probable cause and justify the warrant. The district court denied Brown's motion to suppress the results of the blood test. Relying on the single statement that officers suspected Brown was "under the influence of narcotics at the time of his arrest," the district court concluded that the application established sufficient probable cause.

Third, Brown moved to suppress the evidence of a show-up identification that police conducted with two witnesses, J.P. and A.G. At the Rasmussen hearing, the state offered the testimony of the officer who conducted the identification. The state did not offer any testimony from either J.P. or A.G. The state also introduced the video recording from the officer's body camera, and the district court admitted this exhibit into the record. The officer testified that he arrived at the intersection of Thomas Avenue North and 30th Avenue after other law enforcement officers. He responded to a report of shots being fired and damaged property. He learned that a suspect was in custody, other officers had recovered firearms somewhere in the area, a vehicle was involved and parked on Thomas Avenue, and that officers had identified two possible witnesses. The officer observed a black Impala facing southbound on Thomas Avenue and briefly inspected it. The black Impala was parked in the street, right in front of J.P. and A.G.'s residence. He noticed a bullet hole on the passenger side door panel that appeared to have come from inside the vehicle. He also observed what appeared to be blood on the seats. The officer met with both J.P. and A.G., and asked them to describe the person they saw that morning. J.P. described the individual as a tall, African-American male wearing a black t-shirt and gray sweatpants. A.G. provided a general description of the individual's clothing andappearance. The officer testified that both J.P. and A.G. explained that they observed this individual get out of the black Impala and walk through the yards nearby. The officer then described how he explained the identification procedure to J.P. and A.G. and separately drove J.P. and A.G. to the Sheridan Avenue residence one at a time for the show-up identifications. Each time, Brown stepped out of the squad car restrained by hand cuffs, and both J.P. and A.G. separately identified Brown as the individual who had been driving the Impala. Based on this evidence, the district court denied the motion to suppress the identification, finding that the circumstances were not unnecessarily suggestive.

B. The State's Motion on the Eve of Trial

On the Friday before the trial was to begin, the state made a second hybrid motion. The state captioned the motion as a "notice," titling the request as "Notice of Intent to Introduce Relationship Evidence." In this pleading, the state requested admission of evidence regarding Brown's conduct prior to the morning of April 26, 2018, as either immediate...