State v. Jeffries

806 N.W.2d 56, 2011 Minn. LEXIS 643, 2011 WL 4949993
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedOctober 19, 2011
DocketNo. A09-1391
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 806 N.W.2d 56 (State v. Jeffries) 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. Jeffries, 806 N.W.2d 56, 2011 Minn. LEXIS 643, 2011 WL 4949993 (Mich. 2011).

Opinions

OPINION

MEYER, Justice.

Appellant Erik Lerone Jeffries pled guilty to felony domestic assault and negotiated an agreement with the State in which Jeffries would receive a stayed sentence. The district court indicated at the plea hearing that it was accepting Jeffries’ plea and that Jeffries was convicted. At a later date, the court told Jeffries it was “giving you your pleas back” and set the case for trial. Jeffries eventually reached another plea agreement with the State that resulted in a 60-month executed sentence. Jeffries appealed, arguing that the Double Jeopardy Clauses of the United States and Minnesota Constitutions prohibited the State from prosecuting him a second time for felony domestic assault. He also claimed ineffective assistance of counsel. The court of appeals affirmed the 60-month executed sentence. We reverse and remand.

I.

During an argument on January 22, 2008, Jeffries threw a glass egg at his girlfriend. The egg missed his girlfriend but hit his girlfriend’s teenage daughter in the face, causing her to require stitches and miss several days of school. The State charged Jeffries with felony domestic assault, Minn.Stat. § 609.2242, subd. 4 (2010). The charge was enhanced to a felony because Jeffries had two prior domestic assault convictions within the previous ten years.

Jeffries reached a negotiated plea agreement with the State. Under the agreement, Jeffries would plead guilty to the charged offense and receive a 48-month stayed sentence, which represented a downward dispositional departure and an upward durational departure from the presumptive sentence under the sentencing guidelines. The downward dispositional [59]*59departure was due to “agreement of the parties and the defendant’s acceptance of responsibility.” The upward durational departure was based on Jeffries’ “significant criminal history” and the nature of the injury to the victim.

At his plea hearing on June 13, 2008, Jeffries was arraigned, entered a guilty plea, presented his written plea petition, placed the required waivers on the record, and testified to the factual basis for the plea. He testified that he had convictions for two previous domestic assaults against the same girlfriend, and he agreed that the injuries to the daughter made the offense “a little more serious” than a typical fifth-degree assault. Jeffries was not asked about the remainder of his criminal history at this hearing.

After Jeffries testified, the court said: Erik Lerone Jeffries, based upon the facts on the record, I’ll accept your plea of guilty and find you guilty of the fifth degree domestic assault on January 22nd, 2008, in the City of Minneapolis. So you are convicted of that.
I’m going to go ahead with the joint agreement of the parties and release you today on certain conditions, and then we’ll have you back for sentencing in about six weeks or so out from today’s date.

The court and the parties scheduled a date for the sentencing hearing. The following exchange then occurred:

[PROSECUTOR]: Your Honor, I would like the record to reflect that the defendant’s appearance at sentencing and his cooperation with the [pre-sentence investigation- (PSI) ] is a condition of the deal. So if he fails to cooperate with the pre-sentence investigation report, fails to appear for that, fails to provide the information, or fails to appear at sentencing, the plea will stand, but the deal is off.
THE COURT: Okay. [Defense counsel], anything you would like to cover with regard to that?
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Well, I think if the deal is off, then the deal should be off. They get the best of both worlds. If there’s something that the probation officer doesn’t like about his answer and they tell the court in their report that he didn’t cooperate—
THE COURT: I’m not anticipating the cooperation being the key. I’m anticipating if you don’t show up— [DEFENSE COUNSEL]: He’ll show up.
THE COURT: — that’s going to be the key.
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: He’ll show up.
THE COURT: Okay.
[PROSECUTOR]: And that was what I meant by cooperation, when they make an appointment, that he actually appears and talks to the probation officer.
THE COURT: Sure. Okay. All right.

The discussion moved on to the terms of a no-contact order that would be part of the conditions of release.

On the date set for sentencing, the district court indicated in discussions in chambers that it was no longer willing to accept the plea agreement. On the record, the court told Jeffries the reason for its decision:

Good afternoon, Mr. Jeffries. I know this is a turn of events that is probably confusing for you. Let me just share a little bit of my thoughts with you. I accepted the pleas earlier. We have sentencing set in for today and then we had the presentence investigation done. To be candid with you, your history looked a lot worse than what I thought it was when I indicated that the plea [60]*60agreement probably would be acceptable. I’m not prepared to sentence you to a probationary sentence as it was outlined in the plea agreement basically because of the past criminal history and the different information that I have. But also I’ll be candid with you. I don’t think you’ll be successful on probation, and you’d be looking at more time.
I understand that the State has filed a notice or will file the career offender enhancement in this case. That’s a decision solely for the State to make. But because I’m not prepared to go forward with the sentencing, I’m giving you your pleas back. So you’re not guilty, and your guilty pleas won’t be used against you or anything. But we do have a trial date set for October 27 of 2008, and so we’ll have the matter go to trial at that time if it isn’t resolved in some other way prior to that.

The court then asked if Jeffries’ attorney wanted to place anything on the record. Jeffries’ attorney responded by inquiring about separate matters involving probation violations, but he did not object on the record to the court’s action then or at any subsequent hearing before the district court.

The parties eventually reached a second plea agreement, and on March 31, 2009, Jeffries again pled guilty to felony domestic assault. Jeffries placed the required waivers on the record, testified to the facts underlying the charge, and agreed to an executed sentence of 22 months if he complied with the conditions of release or a 60-month executed sentence if he did not. The court accepted the plea, delayed sentencing, and released Jeffries on the conditions that he obey a no-contact order, remain law abiding, and neither use nor possess drugs or alcohol.

Two days later, Jeffries was arrested for possession of marijuana. The district court held an evidentiary hearing, found that Jeffries had violated the conditions of his release, and imposed a 60-month executed sentence consisting of a minimum 40-month term of imprisonment and maximum 20 months of supervised release, with credit for 199 days served.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
806 N.W.2d 56, 2011 Minn. LEXIS 643, 2011 WL 4949993, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-jeffries-minn-2011.