State v. Berkovitz

705 N.W.2d 399, 2005 Minn. LEXIS 666, 2005 WL 2877979
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedNovember 3, 2005
DocketA04-1722
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 705 N.W.2d 399 (State v. Berkovitz) 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
State v. Berkovitz, 705 N.W.2d 399, 2005 Minn. LEXIS 666, 2005 WL 2877979 (Mich. 2005).

Opinion

OPINION

PAGE, Justice.

In September 2003, appellant Susan Rae Berkovitz shot and killed Shelley Joseph-Kordell and wounded Richard Hendrick-son. On May 4, 2004, after a trial, a jury found Berkovitz guilty of first-degree premeditated murder and attempted first-degree premeditated murder. Berkovitz filed a motion for a new trial, arguing her lawyers had coerced her into not testifying at the trial. The trial court denied the motion, finding Berkovitz’s lawyers gave her “strong” and “unequivocal” advice without using any “intimidating, high pressure, unduly persuasive words.”

On appeal, Berkovitz argues the trial court erred in denying her motion for a new trial. Berkovitz additionally claims in her pro se supplemental brief that she was not informed of her Miranda rights, that the court erroneously denied her motion to change venue, and that her trial counsel provided ineffective assistance of counsel by failing to prepare her for the trial and by not submitting her request for a substitution of the trial judge. We affirm.

Testimony at trial revealed the following. Berkovitz is the youngest of three children born to Hyman and Anna Berko-vitz. The couple’s other two children are Sherilee Feldman and Robert Berkovitz. Hyman and Anna began living in St. Paul in 1955. In 1997, Feldman and Robert Berkovitz arranged for Feldman to assume power of attorney over Hyman’s estate after Hyman began exhibiting signs of dementia. They did not inform Berkovitz because they were concerned about her reaction. In November 1997, Hyman granted Feldman the primary power of *401 attorney and Robert Berkovitz the secondary power of attorney.

In 1999, Hyman added a codicil to his will that increased Berkovitz’s share of his estate as a secondary beneficiary from 25% to 40%. In addition to the codicil, Hyman also created a spend-down account in which money was gifted to Feldman and Robert Berkovitz to pay for some of Hy-man’s future expenses. Berkovitz, however, was not made aware of the spend-down account.

In May 1999, Berkovitz, who had been living with Hyman and Anna until July 1998, moved back to their house. In July 1999, Feldman and Robert Berkovitz moved Hyman and Anna into an apartment for senior citizens. Berkovitz was not informed of the move until shortly before it took place. Although informed that she could remain in the house until it was sold, Berkovitz became angry and contacted the Ramsey County Adult Protection Agency and reported that Feldman was abusing Hyman and Anna and was forcing them to move against their will. She also reported Feldman to the police. As a result, the police contacted Anna, who informed them that the move was voluntary.

At about the same time, Berkovitz learned that Hyman had granted Feldman his power of attorney. In August 2000, Berkovitz filed a petition for appointment of general conservator, seeking to become Hyman and his estate’s conservator. In September 2000, Anna filed an objection to Berkovitz’s conservatorship petition, stating that Berkovitz had “constantly harassed” family members and should not be granted the conservatorship. Anna subsequently requested and obtained a harassment restraining order against Ber-kovitz. To oppose the petition, Feldman and Robert Berkovitz hired attorney Richard Hendrickson to represent them in the proceedings. In December 2000, before Berkovitz’s petition was resolved, Hendrickson notified Berkovitz that she had to vacate Hyman and Anna’s house by the end of March 2001. Berkovitz refused to move, and Hendrickson filed an unlawful detainer against her. After a hearing, the district court ordered Berko-vitz to vacate the house.

In June 2001, a hearing was held on Berkovitz’s petition. After the hearing, the court found Hyman to be an “incapacitated person” and appointed Anna and Estates in Transition, Inc., a Minnesota corporation that provided services to elderly persons and was owned and managed by Hyman and Anna’s niece, Shelley Joseph-Kordell, as co-conservators of Hyman’s person. Estates in Transition was appointed as the sole conservator of Hyman’s estate. In its order, the court limited Berkovitz to supervised visits with Hyman under conditions to be determined by Estates in Transition.

Angry about the outcome of the conser-vatorship proceedings, Berkovitz filed several unsuccessful petitions to challenge the conditions of her visitation and the management of Hyman’s estate. Berkovitz focused her anger on Joseph-Kordell and Hendrickson, who had become counsel for Estates in Transition. Berkovitz subsequently made a number of unsuccessful complaints to various authorities about Joseph-Kordell and Hendrickson. As time passed, the relationship between Berkovitz and her family deteriorated to the point that, in April 2002, Anna sought another restraining order against Berkovitz.

At some point, Anna decided that she and Hyman should move to California and, in July 2002, Hyman and Anna moved to an assisted living facility in Los Angeles. When Berkovitz realized that Anna and Hyman had left Minnesota, she filed a petition to compel Hyman’s return. That *402 petition was denied by a Minnesota district court. At the same time the court declared Berkovitz to be a frivolous litigant. As a result, the court required Berkovitz’s future communication with the court and the Probate Court Administrative Office to be in writing and barred Berkovitz from entering the Probate Court Administrative Office. In January 2003, the court heard and granted Joseph-Kordell and Hen-drickson’s petitions to prohibit Berkovitz from directly communicating with them. The court then ordered Berkovitz to only communicate with Joseph-Kordell and Hendrickson through an attorney. In April 2003, Anna, Feldman, and Robert Berkovitz transferred Hyman’s conserva-torship to California, and Feldman became the conservator for Hyman’s person and estate. On July 1, 2003, Hyman died at the age of 95.

On September 3, 2003, Berkovitz filed a harassment petition against Joseph-Kor-dell and Hendrickson, and the district court set a hearing for September 29, 2003. On the morning of the 29th, Joseph-Kordell and Hendrickson met at the Hennepin County Government Center’s information desk at about 9:30 a.m. Hen-drickson asked for security, and Michael Frost, an unarmed security guard at the government center, escorted Joseph-Kor-dell and Hendrickson to the 17th floor of the building.

After arriving at the 17th floor, Hen-drickson noticed that Berkovitz was standing in the hallway outside the courtroom. After Joseph-Kordell and Hendrickson checked in with a clerk at the district court administrative office, Joseph-Kordell indicated that she needed to use the restroom and asked Frost to escort her and not let anyone into the restroom while she was using it. She told Frost that the person she was concerned with was outside the courtroom but did not specifically identify Berkovitz. Hendrickson remained in the reception area, planning to serve Berkovitz with documents related to a pending motion to have the district court declare Ber-kovitz a frivolous litigant and to place further restrictions on her. As Hendrickson was kneeling - to get documents from his briefcase, he heard a crack and felt as if his neck was hit by a baseball bat. Hen-drickson spun around, landed on his right-hand side, and felt blood running down his shoulder. Hendrickson then saw Berko-vitz walking away from him carrying a gun.

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Andersen v. State
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Berkovitz v. State
826 N.W.2d 203 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 2013)
State v. Castillo-Alvarez
820 N.W.2d 601 (Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 2012)
State v. Evans
756 N.W.2d 854 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 2008)
State v. Mogler
719 N.W.2d 201 (Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 2006)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
705 N.W.2d 399, 2005 Minn. LEXIS 666, 2005 WL 2877979, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-berkovitz-minn-2005.