Harry Jerome Evans v. State of Minnesota

• Court: Supreme Court of Minnesota
• Decided: July 3, 2024
• Docket: A230980
• Status: Published

Opinion

STATE OF MINNESOTA

IN SUPREME COURT

A23-0980

Ramsey County Procaccini, J. Took no part, Hennesy, J.

Harry Jerome Evans,

Appellant,

vs. Filed: July 3, 2024 Office of Appellate Courts State of Minnesota,

Respondent.

________________________

Harry Jerome Evans, Bayport, Minnesota, pro se.

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

John J. Choi, Ramsey County Attorney, Alexandra Meyer, Assistant Ramsey County Attorney, Saint Paul, Minnesota, for respondent.

SYLLABUS

The district court did not abuse its discretion by summarily denying an untimely

petition for postconviction relief because the facts alleged in the petition failed to meet

either the newly-discovered-evidence exception or the interests-of-justice exception to the

statutory time bar.

Affirmed.

1 OPINION

PROCACCINI, Justice.

Harry Jerome Evans appeals from the denial of his petition for postconviction relief.

In 2006, Evans was convicted of first-degree murder of a peace officer engaged in the

performance of official duties for shooting Saint Paul Police Sergeant Gerald Vick. See

Minn. Stat. § 609.185(a)(4) (2012). We affirmed his conviction on direct appeal. State v.

Evans, 756 N.W.2d 854, 859 (Minn. 2008) (Evans I). Following his direct appeal, Evans

sought review of his conviction and sentence multiple times in both state and federal courts.

Although Evans concedes that his current petition falls outside the time limitation in

Minnesota Statutes section 590.01, subdivision 4(a) (2022), he claims the facts alleged in

his petition, if proven at an evidentiary hearing, would meet two of the statutory exceptions

to the time bar—the newly-discovered-evidence and the interests-of-justice exceptions.

Minn. Stat. § 590.01, subd. 4(b)(2), (5) (2022). The district court determined that the

petition failed to satisfy the exceptions and summarily denied the petition.

Because the district court did not abuse its discretion by determining that the

facts alleged in the petition failed to meet an exception to the statutory time bar for

postconviction relief, we affirm.

FACTS

In 2006, a jury found Harry Jerome Evans guilty of first-degree murder in the

shooting of Saint Paul Police Sergeant Gerald Vick. Evans I, 756 N.W.2d at 859. The

facts proved at trial and subsequent legal history are outlined in more detail in our

previous opinions. See id. at 859–62; Evans v. State, 788 N.W.2d 38, 41–43 (Minn. 2010)

2 (Evans II). To summarize: Sergeant Gerald Vick and Sergeant Joseph Strong were

conducting an undercover investigation of prostitution at a Saint Paul bar the night of the

shooting. Id. The two officers had been drinking at the bar to fit in with the other patrons.

Id. As the bar closed, the two left the bar and began conversing near Strong’s undercover

car. Id. The officers had driven separately in unmarked cars to avoid suspicion. Id. While

outside the bar, they got into a confrontation with Evans and his cousin, A.K. Id. at 860.

The officers told Evans and A.K. to leave the area. Id. Before Evans and A.K. walked

away, Evans raised his shirt, exposing his waistband to imply that he had a gun or could

get a gun. Id.

Strong left in his car. Id. While Strong was stopped at a nearby traffic light, A.K.

confronted him at the intersection, and Strong called Vick for backup. Id. Vick arrived at

the scene, parking his car on the sidewalk by A.K. Id. Strong exited his vehicle, and he

and Vick ran and stomped their feet toward A.K. and Evans to “push” them from the area.

Id. During this renewed confrontation, Strong heard several gunshots and saw Vick fall to

the ground. Id. Evans and A.K. fled from the scene before reuniting nearby. Id.

Given Evans’s proximity to Vick before the gunshots, Strong identified Evans as

the shooter. Id. at 859–60. At trial, A.K. also testified that Evans had shot Vick, with

Evans telling A.K. afterward, “I got him, I think I got one.” Id. at 161. A trial witness who

was in another vehicle at the same intersection also identified Evans as the shooter. The

police found .38-caliber bullets and shell casings at the crime scene and a .38-caliber

revolver on a nearby property. Id. Police also found a cartridge of that same caliber in a

pair of jeans at Evans’s residence. Id. DNA testing on the revolver excluded A.K. and

3 Vick but could not exclude Evans. Id. at 861–62. Evans claimed at trial that A.K. had shot

Vick and that Vick could not have been engaged in the performance of official duties at

the time of the shooting because he was intoxicated, allegedly in violation of Saint Paul

Police Department policies. Id. at 862. The jury found Evans guilty of first-degree murder

of a peace officer while the officer was engaged in official duties, in violation of Minnesota

Statutes section 609.185(a)(4), and the district court sentenced him to life in prison without

the possibility of release. Id.

Evans appealed his conviction to this court, challenging various aspects of his trial.

We rejected Evans’s arguments and affirmed his conviction. Evans I, 756 N.W.2d at 881.

Following his direct appeal, Evans continued to seek review of his conviction and sentence

in state and federal courts. Evans petitioned for postconviction relief for the first time in

2009. Evans II, 788 N.W.2d at 41. The district court denied his petition, and Evans

appealed to this court. Id. Evans claimed that his trial and appellate counsel had provided

ineffective assistance and that he was entitled to a new trial based on an allegation that,

following his original trial, A.K. had admitted to a third party that A.K. was the actual

shooter. Id. We rejected Evans’s postconviction claims and affirmed the district court’s

decision to deny the petition. Id. at 50.

Evans next filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in federal court, alleging

11 grounds for relief, including several claims similar to those that he made in his appeals

to our court in 2008 and 2010, as well as a claim of prosecutorial misconduct. Evans v.

King, No. 10-4045, 2011 WL 3837086, at *1 (D. Minn. Aug. 29, 2011). After conducting

the preliminary review required under federal court rules, the federal court rejected four

4 grounds, dismissing them with prejudice and denying the petition as to those grounds. Id.

at *2. Following adversarial proceedings, the district court rejected Evans’s remaining

seven grounds for relief, denied the petition, and dismissed it with prejudice in 2012. Evans

v. King, No. 10-4045, 2012 WL 4128509, at *7 (D. Minn. Sept. 19, 2012). Evans then

filed a motion for relief from judgment, seeking to reopen that habeas petition under

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), which the federal court denied in 2014. Evans v.

King, No. 10-4045, 2014 WL 5325375, at *7 (D. Minn. Oct. 20, 2014).

Evans next returned to state courts to seek relief, filing a motion for relief from

judgment under Minnesota Rule of Civil Procedure 60.02, which the district court

construed as a petition for postconviction relief. Evans v. State, 868 N.W.2d 227, 227

(Minn. 2015) (Evans III). In 2015, we affirmed the district court’s denial of that petition.

Id. at 230. We determined that the petition was time-barred under Rule 60.02 and

Minnesota Statutes section 590.01 (2022), and Evans did not claim any exception to those

time bars.

In 2015, Evans moved to correct the restitution portion of his sentence, the district

court denied the motion, and we affirmed the district court’s decision because the motion

was untimely. Evans v. State, 880 N.W.2d 357, 362 (Minn. 2016) (Evans IV). In 2019,

we affirmed the district court’s denial of another motion by Evans to correct his sentence.

Evans v. State, 925 N.W.2d 240, 244 (Minn. 2019) (Evans V).

In his current postconviction relief petition, Evans seeks an evidentiary hearing and

a new trial. Evans asserts a variety of claims, alleging in his petition and accompanying

affidavit that (1) the grand jury proceedings were flawed; (2) evidence was wrongly

5 withheld at his trial; (3) impeachment evidence was wrongly suppressed at trial;

(4) defective processing of evidence, as well as unreliable DNA evidence, compromised

the trial process; (5) a problematic drinking culture at the Saint Paul Police Department

denied him a fair trial; (6) a 2012–13 controversy at the Saint Paul Police Lab regarding

forensic evidence calls into question the evidence presented against him at trial; (7) A.K.

murdered Vick and admitted to doing so; (8) witnesses who testified against Evans lied at

trial; and (9) the prosecution failed to establish two elements of the offense. Evans

submitted 15 exhibits in support of his petition. One of his exhibits was the affidavit noted

above, eight of the exhibits were from Evans’s original trial, two contained the text of

sections from Minnesota Statutes, and the other four consisted of post-trial correspondence

and news articles.

The district court denied the petition without a hearing, determining that the facts

alleged in the petition failed to meet an exception to the statutory time bar for

postconviction relief.1 Evans appealed.

ANALYSIS

“We review the denial of a petition for postconviction relief, including the

petitioner’s request for an evidentiary hearing, for an abuse of discretion.” Campbell v.

State, 916 N.W.2d 502, 506 (Minn. 2018). In doing so, we review the district court’s “legal

1 The district court also concluded that Evans’s petition was procedurally barred under State v. Knaffla, 243 N.W.2d 737, 741 (Minn. 1976). The parties did not address that decision in their briefing. Because we determine that Evans’s petition is time-barred under Minnesota Statutes section 590.01, we need not consider whether the petition is also procedurally barred under Knaffla.

6 conclusions de novo and its findings of fact for clear error.” Rhodes v. State, 875 N.W.2d

779, 786 (Minn. 2016). A postconviction petitioner is entitled to an evidentiary hearing

“[u]nless the petition and the files and records of the proceeding conclusively show that

the petitioner is entitled to no relief.” Minn. Stat. § 590.04, subd. 1 (2022). But a district

court “need not hold an evidentiary hearing when the petitioner alleges facts that, if true,

are legally insufficient to entitle him to the requested relief.” Bobo v. State, 820 N.W.2d

511, 516 (Minn. 2012).

To be timely, a petition for postconviction relief must be filed within two years of

“an appellate court’s disposition of petitioner’s direct appeal.” Minn. Stat. § 590.01,

subd. 4(a)(2). Because we resolved Evans’s direct appeal in 2008, his current petition is

well beyond the two-year statutory time bar. The statute includes five exceptions to the

time bar, but “[a]ny petition invoking an exception . . . must be filed within two years of

the date the claim arises.” Id., subd. 4(c) (2022). Evans argues that his petition meets the

newly-discovered-evidence and interests-of-justice exceptions, which we discuss in turn.

Minn. Stat. § 590.01, subd. 4(b)(2), (5).

A.

Evans first argues that his claim satisfies the exception for “newly discovered

evidence.” Minn. Stat. § 590.01, subd. 4(b)(2). We have explained:

Essentially, this exception requires that the petitioner show that the evidence (1) is newly discovered; (2) could not have been ascertained by the exercise of due diligence by the petitioner or the petitioner’s attorney within the 2-year time-bar for filing a petition; (3) is not cumulative to evidence presented at trial; (4) is not for impeachment purposes; and (5) establishes by the clear and convincing standard that petitioner is innocent of the offenses for which he was convicted.

7 Riley v. State, 819 N.W.2d 162, 168 (Minn. 2012). “All five criteria must be satisfied to

obtain relief.” Id. A claim under this exception arises when the petitioner “knew or should

have known” of the evidence. Caldwell v. State, 976 N.W.2d 131, 138 (Minn. 2022)

(internal quotation marks omitted).

Even if we assume that the facts Evans alleged in his petition were true, Evans’s

petition and the exhibits attached to it fail to meet the requirements of the

newly-discovered-evidence exception. His first exhibit is his own affidavit summarizing

the contents of his petition, alleging discrimination by the Saint Paul Police Department

and making statements about other evidence that he alleges proves his innocence. This

document is not newly discovered evidence because Evans did not “discover” it; he wrote

it himself, and it merely describes and makes arguments related to other evidence.

Similarly, Evans includes as an exhibit a letter that he wrote to the Minnesota Attorney

General and the Ramsey County Attorney. Like the affidavit, this letter is not newly

discovered evidence because it was drafted by Evans himself. In any event, this letter also

does not satisfy the requirement that the evidence must exonerate the petitioner. See Minn.

Stat. § 590.01, subd. 4(b)(2).

Eight of the remaining exhibits were presented at Evans’s trial or contain transcripts

of proceedings occurring before and during his trial. These exhibits include transcripts of

the grand jury proceedings and transcripts of witness and expert testimony at trial.

Evidence of trial proceedings cannot be considered “new evidence,” because the evidence

was known to Evans at the time of trial. See Onyelobi v. State, 966 N.W.2d 235, 238

(Minn. 2021).

8 The remaining five exhibits—a letter to Evans from the Minnesota Department of

Human Rights, two news articles, and two statutes—also fail to meet the

newly-discovered-evidence exception, either because they are not newly discovered or

because they do not exonerate him.

The letter from the Minnesota Department of Human Rights appears to respond to

a complaint from Evans against the Saint Paul Police Department and Saint Paul Police

Crime Lab. The letter notes the Department’s decision not to take action on the complaint,

and the letter does not provide any new evidence that would satisfy the exoneration

requirement. Attached to the letter is a list of members of the Minnesota Board of Peace

Officer Standards and Training in 2005.2 Evans does not explain how this list could

exonerate him or why he was unable to obtain this information until now.

The first news article is from 2006 and relates to the Saint Paul Police Department’s

alleged drinking culture during the time of Evans’s offense and trial. The information in

this article was known or knowable by Evans when it was published in 2006. To the extent

that Evans had a claim based on this article, that claim arose in 2006, and the time to bring

that claim has long since passed. Evans also does not explain how evidence of a drinking

culture at the police department would exonerate him. And, to the extent that this evidence

could have been used for impeachment purposes, such evidence is excluded from the

newly-discovered-evidence exception. Minn. Stat. § 590.01, subd. 4(b)(2).

2 The origin of this list is unclear, but Evans attached it to the letter from the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.

9 The second news article explains that the Saint Paul Police Crime Lab had to be

“shut down in 2013 after it was discovered that incompetence and contamination tainted

1,700 drug cases.” Although the article was published in 2021, it refers to allegations that

were publicized in 2013 and known to other incarcerated individuals at that time. See, e.g.,

State v. Hill, 871 N.W.2d 900, 903, 909 & n.9 (Minn. 2015) (noting that the Saint Paul

Police Crime Lab had been investigated for deficiencies in its quality control measures and

that the Legislature had taken action to address the concerns).3 Because this information

was known or knowable by Evans in 2013, the time to bring a claim based on this article

has also long since passed.4 See Caldwell, 976 N.W.2d at 138.

Finally, the two statutes that Evans includes as exhibits, Minnesota Statutes sections

609.43 (2022) and 628.61 (2022), relate to misconduct of public officers and grand jury

proceedings, respectively. Neither of these statutes is newly discovered evidence. Both

statutes were enacted prior to Evans’s trial, and Evans does not explain why they could not

have been discovered until now.

3 Numerous individuals filed postconviction relief petitions based on the allegations against the crime lab in the same time frame. See, e.g., Roberts v. State, 856 N.W.2d 287, 291 (Minn. App. 2014); Goodman v. State, No. A15-0458, 2015 WL 7693546, at *1 (Minn. App. Nov. 30, 2015); Flores v. State, No. A14-1855, 2015 WL 4508404, at *4 (Minn. App. July 27, 2015); Castillo v. State, No. A14-1067, 2015 WL 1608832, at *1 (Minn. App. Apr. 13, 2015). 4 Evans also fails to explain how the issues involving faulty drug testing at the Saint Paul Police Crime Lab identified in 2013 impacted his 2006 murder trial or would exonerate him.

10 In sum, the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Evans’s petition

without a hearing because, assuming the facts he alleged in his petition are true, his claim

did not meet the requirements of the newly-discovered-evidence exception.

B.

Evans also argues that the interests-of-justice exception applies to his petition.

Minn. Stat. § 590.01, subd. 4(b)(5). This exception permits a court to hear an otherwise

time-barred petition when “the petitioner establishes to the satisfaction of the court that the

petition is not frivolous and is in the interests of justice.” Id. Among other requirements,

a petitioner invoking this exception must allege an injustice that caused the petitioner’s

failure to file before the statutory deadline. White v. State, 984 N.W.2d 882, 887

(Minn. 2023). Again, even if we assume that the facts alleged in his petition are true,

Evans’s claim does not meet the requirements of the interests-of-justice exception. Evans

does not allege that an injustice delayed the filing of his current petition. It would be very

difficult for him to do so. As detailed above, Evans has filed a series of previous actions

in state and federal courts in the years following his conviction. These continual

submissions demonstrate that he was not unduly restrained from filing his current claims

until now, and Evans does not allege circumstances that prevented him from discovering

the evidence that he now presents. Because Evans does not allege that an injustice

prevented him from filing his petition in a timely manner, the district court did not abuse

its discretion by denying Evans’s petition.

Because the facts alleged in Evans’s petition do not meet either the newly-

discovered-evidence or interests-of-justice exceptions, the district court did not abuse its

11 discretion by concluding that his petition is untimely under Minnesota Statutes section

590.01 and must be denied.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s denial of Evans’s petition

without a hearing.

HENNESY, J., not having been a member of this court at the time of submission,

took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.