State v. Hurd

819 N.W.2d 591, 2012 WL 3192815, 2012 Minn. LEXIS 392
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedAugust 8, 2012
DocketNo. A11-1057
StatusPublished
Cited by32 cases

This text of 819 N.W.2d 591 (State v. Hurd) 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. Hurd, 819 N.W.2d 591, 2012 WL 3192815, 2012 Minn. LEXIS 392 (Mich. 2012).

Opinion

[594]*594OPINION

PAGE, Justice.

Appellant Ryan Stanley Hurd was indicted by a Steele County grand jury on one count of first-degree premeditated murder, Minn.Stat. § 609.185(a)(1) (2010); one count of first-degree murder while committing a kidnapping, Minn.Stat. § 609.185(a)(3) (2010); one count of second-degree intentional murder, Minn.Stat. § 609.19, subd. 1(1) (2010); and two counts of second-degree felony murder, Minn. Stat. § 609.19, subd. 2(1), (2) (2010), in connection with the stabbing death of his girlfriend, Kathryn Anderson. A jury found Hurd guilty on all counts, and the trial court convicted Hurd of first-degree premeditated murder and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Hurd appeals his conviction and sentence, arguing that: (1) there was insufficient evidence to find him guilty of first-degree premeditated murder; (2) there was insufficient evidence to find him guilty of first-degree murder while committing a kidnapping; and (3) the trial court abused its discretion when it denied his request to instruct the jury that any confinement or removal that was incidental to the murder was insufficient to constitute kidnapping. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm Hurd’s conviction for first-degree premeditated murder.

Hurd lived with Anderson in Anderson’s apartment in Eagan. Anderson attended cooking school at Le Cordon Bleu. Hurd had a daughter with another woman. The daughter lived with her mother, but occasionally spent time with Hurd and Anderson. Because Anderson was only 18 years old when she moved out of her parents’ home and was not old enough to sign her own lease, her parents rented and paid for her apartment. To reimburse her parents for rent, Anderson would send her parents checks drawn from student loan funds issued to her by Le Cordon Bleu to cover her living expenses. On December 1, 2009, Anderson went to the Le Cordon Bleu financial aid office to fill out a form requesting student loan funds. Hurd came with Anderson and stood by the doorway of the office. The financial aid director testified that Anderson usually stayed to chat when she came to the office, but on December 1, Anderson was “[djefi-nitely not herself.” The director further testified that Anderson “was very uncomfortable ... kind of in a hurry or looking back.”

The next morning, Anderson and Hurd were involved in an altercation in the school hallway. An instructor intervened, and Anderson was “really upset about that and really upset that other people saw.” One of Anderson’s classmates testified that Anderson “was visibly upset” during their noon cake-decorating class. Anderson commented that Hurd had been “meaner and meaner” and was becoming more aggressive toward her. A.B., a good friend and classmate of Anderson, testified that during class Anderson was frustrated and told A.B. that she and Hurd had been fighting. During class, and in the hour before class began, Anderson exchanged 28 text messages with Z.R., a man she had met on MySpace. Among other things, Anderson and Z.R. texted about meeting each other that weekend. Z.R. asked Anderson if she was still dating her boyfriend. Anderson replied that she was and indicated that meeting at her apartment was probably “not a good idea.”

Also during that class, Anderson received numerous phone calls from Hurd. Anderson mentioned to her classmates that Hurd kept calling her and she was frustrated that he would not stop, even though he knew she was in class. Anderson’s cell phone battery eventually died.

[595]*595After class, Anderson went to Walmart with A.B. A.B. testified that Anderson came with her to the store because “[s]he didn’t really want to deal with [Hurd].” Because her cell phone battery was dead and Hurd had her car, Anderson asked A.B. to call Hurd and tell him to pick up Anderson at Walmart. When A.B. called Hurd, who suffered from ulcers, Hurd told A.B. that he was in the hospital. A.B. then drove Anderson to the hospital and left her there.

Later that evening, Anderson called A.B. and told her that Hurd had left the hospital, that Anderson and Hurd had argued on the way home from the hospital, and that Anderson had stopped speaking to Hurd. Hurd had become angry, dropped Anderson off at her apartment, and then left in Anderson’s car. Anderson told A.B. she would see A.B. the next day at school. Anderson also briefly exchanged text messages with the mother of Hurd’s daughter, informing the child’s mother for the first time that a scheduled weekend visit with the daughter was not going to take place. Meanwhile, Hurd went to a movie and was seen leaving the theater at around 9:20 p.m.

A neighbor who lived in the apartment directly below Anderson’s apartment testified that on the night of December 2, between 9 and 10 p.m., she heard scuffling and arguing that lasted for about 10 minutes coming from Anderson’s apartment. The neighbor heard a male voice say, “[f] * * k you, bitch.” Cell phone records indicate that during that evening, nine calls were made to Hurd’s mother from Hurd’s cell phone. Two calls were also made to Hurd’s mother from Anderson’s cell phone. Hurd’s mother testified that on the evening of December 2, she spoke with her son about the possibility that he would return home to Tulsa, Oklahoma. During at least one of their conversations, she also heard Anderson in the background saying that Hurd was coming home.

Shortly after 6 a.m. on December 3, Hurd purchased a winter jacket and a prepaid cell phone from a Walmart in Bloomington, Minnesota. Around 6:30 a.m., Hurd, using the name “Mark Johnson,” purchased a bus ticket to Tulsa, Oklahoma, at the Greyhound bus station in downtown Minneapolis.

Around 7 a.m. that morning, Anderson’s body, dressed in only boxer shorts and a hooded sweatshirt, was found in a ditch along a gravel road near Owatonna. The location where the body was found was approximately 47 miles from Anderson’s Eagan apartment, and almost 5 miles from the nearest exit from Interstate 35. The location was isolated and secluded with the nearest lights at least a quarter of a mile away. Witnesses testified that Anderson did not know anyone in Owatonna and was not known to have any reason to be in the area where her body was found.

When Anderson did not arrive for her noon class on December 3, A.B. texted and called Anderson’s cell phone but received no response. A.B. called Hurd, who told her that he did not know where Anderson was. Hurd told A.B. that he had arrived home from a movie the night before and then had an argument with Anderson around 10:30 p.m. Shortly thereafter, Anderson “left with a guy.” Hurd then packed his belongings to leave for Tulsa.

Having received no response from Anderson, A.B. went to Anderson’s apartment, where she found the front door unlocked. There was testimony that it was Anderson’s practice, whenever she left her apartment, to always take her wallet and keys with her, and to lock the door, unless Hurd was in the apartment. It was also Anderson’s practice to take her cell phone with her wherever she went. Inside Anderson’s apartment, A.B. found the tele[596]*596vision on and the apartment messier than normal. A subsequent police search of the apartment found prepared, but uneaten, food on the stove and Anderson’s cell phone in a drawer. Anderson’s PlayStation gaming system was not in the apartment. A stamped envelope addressed to Anderson’s parents, the kind she regularly used to send rent reimbursement checks to her parents, was found ripped open and empty, lying on the floor.

After visiting Anderson’s apartment, A.B.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
819 N.W.2d 591, 2012 WL 3192815, 2012 Minn. LEXIS 392, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-hurd-minn-2012.