Opsahl v. State

677 N.W.2d 414, 2004 Minn. LEXIS 197, 2004 WL 744885
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedApril 8, 2004
DocketA03-298
StatusPublished
Cited by125 cases

This text of 677 N.W.2d 414 (Opsahl v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Opsahl v. State, 677 N.W.2d 414, 2004 Minn. LEXIS 197, 2004 WL 744885 (Mich. 2004).

Opinions

OPINION

MEYER, Justice.

This case comes to us from the district court’s denial of an evidentiary hearing for post-conviction relief. On October 23, 1992, a jury convicted appellant, Darby Jon Opsahl, of the 1986 murder of Margaret Rehmann. The state based its case on statements Opsahl made to police during the initial investigation of the crime and on testimony of several of Opsahl’s acquaintances who claimed to have heard Opsahl make certain admissions about the murder. We affirmed. Opsahl then brought this claim for posteonviction relief. In support of his claim, Opsahl presented affidavits that allege several state witnesses provided fabricated or unreliable trial testimony, with some of the trial witnesses claiming that the prosecuting attorney pressured them into testifying falsely. The district court denied posteonviction relief without granting an evidentiary hearing. We reverse and remand for a hearing.

On the afternoon of October 16, 1986, Margaret Rehmann was murdered in her home in rural Lester Prairie, Minnesota. The McLeod County Sheriffs Department conducted an extensive investigation but was initially unable to trace the crime to a suspect. Nearly a year later, Jeff Olson informed police that he believed Opsahl and John Kannianen were involved in the Rehmann murder. Based on Opsahl’s incriminating statements and other leads, Opsahl was charged with first- and second-degree murder in violation of Minn.Stat. §§ 609.185(3); 609.05, subd. 1; 609.19(1), (2) (1986).

When Olson first spoke to the police, he called Deputy Larry Wittsack of the Carver County Sheriffs Department. In response to that call, Deputy Wittsack and Detectives Wayne Vinkemeier and Richard Waage arranged a meeting with Olson and [418]*418Opsahl at Olson’s residence. Opsahl told Vinkemeier that he and an acquaintance, John Kannianen, often got drunk and high on drugs and drove around the Lester Prairie area looking for homes to burglarize. Opsahl related that, during one of these “booze cruises,” Opsahl waited in the car while Kannianen went up to a house, was greeted by a middle-aged woman in a red shirt, and went inside. Opsahl heard a “poof’ approximately ten minutes later, which he subsequently identified to the officers as a gunshot. According to Op-sahl’s story, Kannianen came out of the house about twenty minutes later with some coins, which he showed to Opsahl. Irvin Rehmann, the murder victim’s husband, confirmed that he stored a can of half-dollar coins underneath the laundry room sink. In a taped statement Opsahl gave to police, Opsahl indicated that Kan-nianen told him that he had shot a woman in the house.

According to Vinkemeier, Opsahl appeared “very nervous * * * teary eyed [and] * * * somewhat emotional about the conversation.” After their initial meeting, Vinkemeier and two other sheriffs officers accompanied Olson and Opsahl on a car ride through rural McLeod County. During that trip, Opsahl focused on the Reh-mann residence as they drove by and commented that it “could be the place” where Kannianen allegedly shot Rehmann. Op-sahl commented that another farm site also looked familiar. After the drive, Op-sahl provided police with similar information in a recorded statement.

Approximately a week later, Vinkemeier and Agent Dennis Sigafoos of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) met with Opsahl and took his fingerprints and palm prints. None of these prints matched any fingerprints or palm prints left at the scene of the crime. On June 16, 1989, Opsahl provided police with another statement and accompanied Vinkemeier to a Hutchinson, Minnesota, hardware store to identify the weapon that Kannianen allegedly used in the murder. Opsahl pointed out a .44 caliber handgun. A .44 caliber gun was used in the shooting.

In 1988, the police informed Opsahl that Kannianen could not have been involved in the Rehmann murder, as he was in New Jersey in October 1986. In a 1990 interview, Opsahl changed the story he told the investigators. Opsahl recanted his previous statements, claiming that neither he nor Kannianen were involved in the murder, and that he and Olson agreed to place the blame for the murder on Kannianen because Olson did not like Kannianen.

At trial, Irvin Rehmann testified that he arrived home at approximately 5:45 p.m. on the afternoon of the murder and found the jamb on the door to the garage “busted” and the door kicked in. Once in the 'kitchen, he found his wife lying dead on the kitchen floor. Daniel Murphy, an officer who arrived later, found a footprint on the exterior of the door that was kicked in. That footprint bore the impression of a shoe tread design but was never matched to any specific shoe.

The state’s case relied on statements made by Opsahl to several acquaintances that implicated him in the murder. Ross Reinitz testified that he heard Olson tell Opsahl that they “could always take care of [Opsahl’s neighbor] like [they] took care of that old bitch by Lester Prairie.” Allan Kroells provided similar testimony. Laura Roberts testified that Opsahl told her that he had hurt someone during a robbery near Winsted, a small town near Lester Prairie. Marina Allan, Opsahl’s former live-in girlfriend, testified that during a fight Opsahl told her to “shut up or I’m going to shoot you like I did that little old lady.” Richard Rogowski testified that at a Fourth of July party in 1988, Opsahl [419]*419admitted to him that he burglarized a house where someone was shot. Dean Johnson testified that Opsahl told him that he had shot and killed a woman during a burglary. According to Robert Beckman, Opsahl told him that Olson shot a woman in the head with a .44 caliber handgun. Corey Telthoester testified that Olson told him that he and Opsahl burglarized the house and that Opsahl shot an older woman in the house while Olson was on his way out the window of the house. The state presented no physical evidence linking Op-sahl to the murder.

Opsahl testified in his own defense but called no other witnesses. He denied that he was involved in the Rehmann murder, that he was at a burglary scene in McLeod County, or that he ever told anyone that he had committed a murder. Opsahl admitted to “booze cruising” with Kannianen around the time of the murder. He testified that Olson, who was familiar with Opsahl’s and Kannianen’s activities, asked Opsahl if Kannianen could have been involved in the murder. Opsahl testified that he cooperated with the police in order to help them in their investigation by informing them that Kannianen could have committed the crime. He explained that he reacted emotionally during the investigation because the photographs of the deceased victim reminded him of his own grandmother. Opsahl denied making any admissions to Rogowski at a Fourth of July party in 1988, claiming instead that he attended a fireworks display in Minneapolis.

The jury convicted Opsahl of two counts of second-degree murder and one count of first-degree murder. We affirmed the conviction on direct appeal and held, inter alia, that the record contained sufficient evidence to support the conviction. State v. Opsahl, 513 N.W.2d 249, 255 (Minn.1994).

On October 29, 2002, Opsahl filed this petition for postconviction relief in district court in McLeod County. Opsahl claimed that he was entitled to a new trial or, alternatively, an evidentiary hearing, based on recanted trial testimony and prosecutorial misconduct. In addition, Op-sahl argued that he was entitled to a new trial or a Schivartz hearing based on juror misconduct.

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Bluebook (online)
677 N.W.2d 414, 2004 Minn. LEXIS 197, 2004 WL 744885, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/opsahl-v-state-minn-2004.