State v. Holmes

701 N.W.2d 267, 2005 Minn. App. LEXIS 720, 2005 WL 1804296
CourtCourt of Appeals of Minnesota
DecidedAugust 2, 2005
DocketA04-1134
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 701 N.W.2d 267 (State v. Holmes) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals 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. Holmes, 701 N.W.2d 267, 2005 Minn. App. LEXIS 720, 2005 WL 1804296 (Mich. Ct. App. 2005).

Opinion

OPINION

STONEBURNER, Judge.

Appellant Frank Eugene Holmes challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction of first-degree driving while intoxicated and argues that the district court erred in ordering his previously imposed sentence for gross-misdemeanor DWI to run consecutive to the subsequently imposed felony DWI sentence. Appellant also asserts that the district court erred by using a criminal-history score of five, including one custody-status point, in his felony sentencing.

FACTS

Appellant’s father, Frank Wayne Holmes (“father”), testified that on the day of appellant’s arrest, appellant came to father’s home with a friend. Father called 911 at about 4:00 p.m. because appellant was causing a disturbance. Father testified that appellant acted “ornery” when he drank to excess. Although father did not witness appellant drinking alcohol on that day, he testified that he believed appellant was drunk because “I could smell it and see it....” Appellant and the friend drove away from father’s home in a pickup truck while father was on the phone with 911.

Jonathan Davis testified that he was driving on Highway 210 just before 5:00 p.m. when he saw a pickup truck driving “very dangerously ... and kind of scary.” He watched the truck as it “whizzed by ... then ... almost ran another vehicle off into the ditch ... and was continuing down the road at a high rate of speed.” Davis called 911 and gave the dispatcher the location and description of the truck. Davis followed the truck while he was on the phone with 911 and watched as the truck crashed into a minivan at the intersection of Fourth and Washington. Davis saw the driver as he was pulled off or out of the pickup truck by officers and “dragged” to the squad cars. Davis identified appellant at trial as the person he thought was the driver. A recording of Davis’s 911 call was played for the jury.

*270 Donna Bzdok, the minivan driver, testified that she was driving east on Washington (Highway 210), shortly before 5:00 p.m. She heard a noise that sounded like a “squeal” and looked in her rearview mirror. “[I]t looked like a car had gone to the right a little bit and hit the curb or pulled in front of someone.” She continued to watch in her mirror and saw the truck as it kept “veering to the right,” while the driver was moving as if he was “some kid jamming to music.” As she approached Fourth Street, the light turned red, she stopped, and the truck collided with her minivan.

Bzdok got out of her van and noticed police cars pulling up. She saw the driver as “he was getting out of his truck, and he fell back into his truck, and then when he finally caught his balance and got out and slammed the door, he staggered around.” She testified that appellant fell to the ground and “was having trouble standing up ... he sort of kept falling over the car.” When asked if she could identify the driver at trial, Bzdok indicated appellant and stated, “I think it’s the gentleman in the blue shirt.”

Brainerd police officer Corky McQuiston was dispatched in response to the 911 calls. He observed the pickup as it rear-ended the minivan. He knew appellant by name from previous encounters and identified appellant as the driver of the truck. He saw appellant get out of the truck and have “difficulty standing ... [sjwaying, wobbling, leaning up against the truck to maintain his balance.” McQuiston testified that he asked appellant what happened and “all he could really do was mumble and swear.” McQuiston testified that appellant was “combative and resistive,” he had an “obvious strong odor of alcoholic beverage coming from him, his balance, his slurred speech ...,” all of which led the officer to believe appellant was intoxicated. He arrested appellant but did not request field sobriety tests. McQuiston testified that such a request “would have been pointless ... because of [appellant’s] level of uncooperation” and inability to communicate. Appellant refused to take a preliminary breath test. McQuiston, who had 16 years of experience and had stopped more than 100 people for DWI, testified that, at the time of appellant’s arrest, he “felt [appellant] was extremely drunk.” McQuiston searched the truck after it was impounded and found unopened cans of beer and a small bottle of liquor.

The implied-consent advisory was read to appellant at the jail, and appellant responded to each question with a profanity or slurred, incomprehensible speech. He refused testing. A videotape of the reading of the advisory was played for the jury.

On cross-examination, McQuiston testified that the truck’s windshield was cracked on the passenger side and he assumed the passenger had hit his head, because of the location of the crack and the absence of any injury to appellant’s head.

Appellant was convicted of felony DWI under Minn.Stat. § 169A.24, subd. 1(1) (2002), and was committed to the Department of Corrections for 66 months, based on a criminal-history score of 5, including one custody-status point, to be served consecutive to a previously imposed but stayed one-year gross-misdemeanor DWI sentence. The day after appellant’s felony sentencing, the district court revoked appellant’s probation in the gross-misdemeanor matter and executed the one-year sentence “consecutive to the previously addressed file.” This appeal followed.

ISSUES

I. Is the evidence sufficient to support appellant’s conviction?

*271 II. Did the district court err by making a prior sentence consecutive to the current sentence or by using a wrong criminal-history score in determining the duration of appellant’s sentence?

III. Was appellant’s Sixth Amendment right to jury trial violated under Blakely when the district court determined the existence of a custody-status point and enhanced appellant’s sentence accordingly?

ANALYSIS

I. Sufficiency of evidence

When considering a claim of insufficient evidence, a reviewing court’s only inquiry is whether, on the facts in the record and legitimate inferences to be drawn from those facts, a jury could reasonably conclude that the defendant was guilty of the offense charged. State v. Bias, 419 N.W.2d 480, 484 (Minn.1988). This review is limited to a careful analysis of the record to determine whether the evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to the conviction, is sufficient to allow the fact-finder to reach the verdict that it did. State v. Webb, 440 N.W.2d 426, 430 (Minn.1989). It must be assumed that the jury believed the state’s witnesses and disbelieved any evidence to the contrary. State v. Wahlberg, 296 N.W.2d 408, 411 (Minn.1980).

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Related

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
701 N.W.2d 267, 2005 Minn. App. LEXIS 720, 2005 WL 1804296, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-holmes-minnctapp-2005.