Wayne v. State

912 N.W.2d 633

Michael WAYNE, Appellant,

v.STATE of Minnesota, Respondent.

A17-1754

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Filed: June 6, 2018

Michael Wayne, Moose Lake, Minnesota, pro se.

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Matthew Frank, Assistant Attorney General, Saint Paul, Minnesota; and Brenda Miller, Waseca County Attorney, Waseca, Minnesota, for respondent.

OPINION

CHUTICH, Justice.

In 1987, Michael Wayne was convicted of first- and second-degree murder. Thirty years later, Wayne filed his ninth petition for postconviction relief, relying on recent lab reports that showed that the amount of male DNA found on the victim’s body was insufficient for specific typing. Wayne argued that the forensic scientist’s inability to match his DNA profile to the male DNA found on the victim’s body established his actual innocence. The district court summarily denied Wayne’s petition, concluding that the lab reports did not establish his actual innocence. Because we conclude that Wayne’s petition is time-barred, or otherwise rests upon a meritless legal theory, we affirm.

FACTS

In 1987, Wayne was convicted of first- and second-degree murder for the death of Mona Armendariz and sentenced to life in prison.¹ He appealed, arguing that bloodstain evidence and certain witness statements were improperly admitted into evidence, the district court’s refusal to allow alternative perpetrator evidence was error, and the evidence was insufficient to convict. We affirmed his conviction in his consolidated appeal from the judgment of conviction and the denial of his first postconviction petition. State v. Fenney (Wayne I ), 448 N.W.2d 54, 62 (Minn. 1989).

After that, Wayne filed seven more petitions for postconviction relief. In his second petition, he claimed that new evidence—a new statement from a witness about an alleged alternative perpetrator—established his innocence; the district court denied the petition. Wayne v. State (Wayne II ), 498 N.W.2d 446, 447 (Minn. 1993). We affirmed, concluding that the alternative-perpetrator theory was presented at trial and the statement lacked credibility. Id. at 447–48. Wayne subsequently filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court for the District of Minnesota. The court denied his petition, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed, highlighting the same credibility problems that we emphasized. Wayne v. Benson , 89 F.3d 530, 533–34 (Minn. 1996).

His third petition raised other evidentiary issues, alleged a different alternative perpetrator, and included a request for DNA testing of bloodstains found on his clothing. Wayne v. State (Wayne III ), 601 N.W.2d 440, 441 (Minn. 1999). After DNA testing revealed no new evidence, the district court denied his motion. Id. We affirmed, stating that the DNA testing revealed only further evidence of Wayne’s guilt and that the other claims were barred by State v. Knaffla , 309 Minn. 246, 243 N.W.2d 737 (1976). 601 N.W.2d at 441–42.

Wayne’s fourth petition for postconviction relief claimed ineffective assistance of counsel, evidentiary errors, newly discovered evidence in the form of a written confession by an alleged alternative perpetrator, erroneous jury instructions, prosecutorial misconduct, and other constitutional errors. Wayne v. State (Wayne IV ), 747 N.W.2d 564, 565 (Minn. 2008). We concluded that the alternative-perpetrator claim had already been addressed in Wayne’s second postconviction petition and that his other claims were barred by Knaffla . Id. at 566. More importantly, we concluded that the newly discovered evidence was not credible and noted that if a new trial were held, the evidence would not likely result in an acquittal or more favorable outcome for Wayne. Id.

Wayne then filed a fifth petition for postconviction relief. In it, he sought DNA testing of the victim’s underwear to establish that he was not involved in her sexual assault. Wayne v. State (Wayne V ), 832 N.W.2d 831, 832–33 (Minn. 2013). The district court denied relief, and we affirmed, stating that the evidence had not been subject to a chain of custody " ‘sufficient to establish that it has not been substituted, tampered with, replaced, or altered in any material aspect.’ " Id. at 833 (quoting Minn. Stat. § 590.01, subd. 1a(b)(2) (2012) ). We also concluded that even if a sufficient chain of custody for the evidence had been established, Wayne had known of the evidence and the ability to test it for DNA for more than two years. Accordingly, we held that his petition seeking such testing was time barred. Id. at 834.

Wayne’s sixth petition for postconviction relief asserted that he received ineffective assistance of counsel because he was not informed of a plea deal that he claims was offered in chambers during trial. Wayne v. State (Wayne VI ), 860 N.W.2d 702, 704 (Minn. 2015). He argued that his petition was not time barred because it was based on a new interpretation of constitutional law that applied retroactively to his case. Id. at 705. The district court found that no evidence in the record supported Wayne’s claim of an uncommunicated plea deal, and we affirmed. Id. at 705–06. We also concluded that Wayne’s petition did not fall within the interests-of-justice exception to the time bar. Id.

Two months after filing his sixth petition, Wayne filed his seventh. He claimed that a U.S. Supreme Court case, McQuiggin v. Perkins , 569 U.S. 383, 133 S.Ct. 1924, 185 L.Ed.2d 1019 (2013), created an exception to any statutory time bar for postconviction relief, so long as the petition asserted actual innocence. Wayne v. State (Wayne VII ), 866 N.W.2d 917, 919 (Minn. 2015). The district court denied his petition, and we affirmed, stating that McQuiggin applied only to federal habeas corpus claims and not to state statutory procedures. Id. And even if McQuiggin applied, we concluded, Wayne had not shown his actual innocence. Id. at 919–20. Moreover, we noted that Wayne’s claim did not satisfy the interests-of-justice exception to the statutory time bar. Id. at 920.

Wayne’s eighth petition for postconviction relief was styled as a motion to correct his sentence. See Minn. R. Crim. P. 27.03, subd. 9. In it, he alleged that because the district court failed to instruct the jury on lesser-included offenses, a longer, and thus illegal, sentence was imposed. Wayne v. State (Wayne VIII ), 870 N.W.2d 389, 391 (Minn. 2015). The district court, however, considered this motion to be a postconviction petition because it attacked his conviction rather than his sentence. Id. at 391–92. We agreed, concluding that his legal argument sought to undermine his conviction, not his sentence. Id. at 392. We concluded that Wayne’s petition was time barred because 7 years had passed since the statutory deadline to file the petition and no exception to the time bar applied. Id.

On May 10, 2017, Wayne filed this ninth petition for postconviction relief, arguing that recent lab reports, which showed that the amount of male DNA found on the victim’s body was insufficient for a specific identification, established his actual innocence. Three years before filing this petition, Wayne secured an order for DNA testing of the victim’s t-shirt and the victim’s fingernail clippings. The lab completed testing of only the fingernail clippings, and testing results were obtained on August 21, 2014. These results showed that male DNA and the victim’s DNA profile were present on the fingernail clippings, but they did not provide enough male DNA for a specific identification.

In February 2015, the district court issued an order for DNA testing of the sexual assault kit collected during the investigation of this case. Results from this testing were obtained on August 26, 2015. These results showed that male DNA was present, but the results did not provide enough DNA to perform specific typing.

Wayne also appended DNA testing results from 2004 and 1998 to his petition. The results from 2004 showed that Wayne’s DNA was in the pockets of the pants found in his backpack when he was arrested. The results from 1998 showed that the same pair of pants was stained with the victim’s blood. In total, four DNA testing reports were appended to Wayne’s petition, but only two were presented to the court for the first time.

Wayne’s petition argued that because DNA specifically identifying him was not found on any of the items tested in 2014 and 2015, the reports are evidence of his actual innocence. He also moved the court for a new trial and an evidentiary hearing.

The district court denied Wayne’s petition and both of his motions. The district court observed that the only timely report (from August 2015) showed that, although male DNA was present on the sexual-assault-kit swabs, an insufficient amount existed for a specific identification. Accordingly, the district court concluded that this report did not establish Wayne’s innocence by clear and convincing evidence and denied the petition. The district court examined the DNA testing reports and determined that all but one—the sexual-assault-kit swab results—were dated more than 2 years before the date the petition was filed and were time barred.² The district court denied Wayne’s motion for a new trial as untimely. The court also denied Wayne’s motion for an evidentiary hearing, reasoning that an evidentiary hearing was not warranted because none of the facts about the DNA report were in dispute. Wayne filed this appeal.

ANALYSIS

Wayne argues that the district court abused its discretion by summarily denying his petition because none of the DNA results confirm his guilt. We review the denial of a petition for postconviction relief for an abuse of discretion. Dikken v. State , 896 N.W.2d 873, 876 (Minn. 2017). We will reverse a postconviction court only if it "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). A district court "shall liberally construe...