State of Minnesota v. Jose Amador Molina

Court of Appeals of Minnesota·Decided December 5, 2016·No. A15-1853·Unpublished

Opinion

This opinion will be unpublished and may not be cited except as provided by Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2014).

STATE OF MINNESOTA

IN COURT OF APPEALS

A15-1853

State of Minnesota,

Respondent,

vs.

Jose Amador Molina,

Appellant.

Filed December 5, 2016

Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded Kirk, Judge

Clay County District Court File No. 14-CR-14-3813

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Brian J. Melton, Clay County Attorney, Pamela Harris, Assistant County Attorney, Moorhead, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Benjamin J. Butler, Assistant County Attorney, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Kirk, Presiding Judge; Schellhas, Judge; and Bjorkman, Judge.

UNPUBLISHED OPINION

KIRK, Judge After a hit-and-run accident, appellant was charged with driving after cancellation, felony driving while impaired (DWI), and multiple counts of criminal vehicular operation

(CVO). Appellant challenges: (1) the district court’s denial of his pretrial motion to suppress blood-alcohol evidence; (2) the jury’s determination that he was driving the vehicle at the time of the accident; and (3) the district court’s decision to sentence him on the DWI charge after also entering a conviction for an alcohol-related CVO offense. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand.

FACTS

After a hit-and-run accident, appellant Jose Amador Molina was charged with:

(1) criminal vehicular operation (CVO) causing great bodily harm–gross negligence; (2) CVO causing great bodily harm–under the influence of alcohol; (3) CVO causing great bodily harm–driver who causes collision leaves scene; (4) CVO causing substantial bodily harm–gross negligence; (5) CVO causing substantial bodily harm–under the influence of alcohol; (6) CVO causing substantial bodily harm–driver who causes collision leaves scene; (7) driving after cancellation (DAC) as inimical to public safety; and (8) felony driving while impaired (DWI).

Appellant moved to suppress his blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) results that were obtained after a warrantless blood draw, arguing that he was coerced into giving a blood sample and that no established exception to the warrant requirement applied. Following a contested omnibus hearing, the district court denied appellant’s motion to suppress.

A three-day jury trial was held on June 23-25, 2015. The following evidence was presented to the jury at trial:

B.O. testified that he was a guest at the Grand Inn hotel in Moorhead on November 10, 2014. B.O. was sitting at the open window of his second-floor hotel room when he witnessed a vehicle rear-end a truck on the street in front of the hotel with enough force to cause the rear-ends of both vehicles to go airborne. B.O. observed a male exit the driver-side door, run around the vehicle, and try to open the front passenger-side door. B.O. described the male as approximately 5’5’’, with short, black hair, and a dark complexion. The male was unable to open the front or back passenger- side doors. The male then got back in the driver’s side of the vehicle and began rocking the vehicle back and forth to free it from the truck. Once the vehicle was free, the male drove away. B.O. testified that, “I’m almost certain there was a female in the passenger side [of the vehicle], but she looked like she was unresponsive. She didn’t move once.”

C.C., who lives on the 3500 block of Village Green Drive, testified that he saw a severely damaged vehicle outside his apartment building on November 10, 2014. C.C. saw a male running around the vehicle from the passenger side over to the driver’s side and back with both of the vehicle’s front doors open. The male then ran southeast on foot as though he was abandoning the vehicle. C.C. did not see anyone else at the scene. P.C., C.C.’s wife, testified that she called the police to report the severely damaged vehicle. C.C. testified that the male returned to the scene after law enforcement arrived.

Officer Raul Lopez of the Moorhead Police Department (MPD) testified that he was the first officer to respond to the Grand Inn and that he spoke to B.O. Officer Lopez was also the first to respond to C.C. and P.C.’s apartment complex. When Officer Lopez

initially approached the damaged vehicle, all of the doors were closed, and he did not see anyone inside. He checked the vehicle a second time and still did not notice an occupant.

A male, later identified as appellant, then came sprinting toward the vehicle.

Officer Lopez asked appellant where the girl was, and he replied that she was in the vehicle. Officer Lopez rechecked the vehicle and “saw a female that was crumbled . . . into the driver’s seat, covered . . . in blood.” He noted that, “[i]t wasn’t like she was reclining in the seat or sitting in any normal position. . . . [H]er body was so flaccid that she was just almost like a puddle, just melted down into the driver’s seat.” Officer Lopez ordered appellant to the ground and tried to open the vehicle door. He was unable to wake the female, later identified as D.M.

Officer Lopez testified that D.M. and appellant were transported to the hospital by ambulance. Appellant had dried blood on his face, but he did not have any major facial or head injuries. While appellant was at the hospital, Officer Lopez read him the Minnesota Motor Vehicle Implied Consent Advisory, and appellant agreed to submit to a blood draw. A nurse collected a sample of appellant’s blood. Appellant was released from the hospital that night. Donna Zittel, a forensic scientist in the toxicology lab section of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), testified that she tested appellant’s blood sample and it revealed a BAC of 0.114.

Officer Lopez also testified that at the hospital, appellant told him that D.M. was driving and suddenly there was a “big crash.” When they were stopped because of the crash, D.M. told him that they had to get out of there and she drove away. Appellant explained that D.M. said she had to go to sleep, and appellant left the scene to charge

D.M.’s cell phone, which was inoperable, so he could call the police. Appellant did not claim that there was anyone else in the vehicle. Appellant called 911 shortly before Officer Lopez arrived at the vehicle. When he spoke to dispatch, appellant reported that there was a girl knocked out or asleep in a vehicle that was “crashed up,” and that the girl had crashed her white vehicle.

Sergeant Steven Larsen of the MPD testified that he was the second officer to arrive at the apartment complex. When Sergeant Larsen arrived, Officer Lopez was attending to a female with a traumatic head injury in the driver’s seat of the vehicle. The front passenger corner of the vehicle was significantly damaged and the front driver-side corner of the vehicle had much less damage. Although the entire windshield was cracked, only the passenger side was broken. There was blood on the glass of the broken passenger-side windshield and on the passenger-side visor. Both the driver-side and front passenger-side airbags deployed during the accident.

Detective Ryan Nelson of the MPD testified that he collected blood evidence and hair from the vehicle. He also collected both airbags, as well as a piece of glass from the passenger-side windshield, and he obtained DNA samples from D.M. and appellant for comparison. Detective Nelson also met with D.M. who was conversational, but was having memory problems. He testified that while speaking with D.M., she said she took turns driving with appellant that night, but that she did not know who was driving at the time of the accident.

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State of Minnesota v. Jose Amador Molina, (Mich. Ct. App. 2016).

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