State v. Anderson, C4-84-964

• Decision Date: 13 December 1985
• Docket Number: No. C4-84-964,C4-84-964
• Citation: 379 N.W.2d 70
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Steven Todd ANDERSON, f.k.a. Steven Todd Jenkins, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 70

379 N.W.2d 70

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Steven Todd ANDERSON, f.k.a. Steven Todd Jenkins,

Appellant.

No. C4-84-964.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Dec. 13, 1985.

Syllabus by the Court

1. The evidence, taken as a whole, identifies defendant, beyond a reasonable doubt, as the person who killed Rudolph Blythe and Deems Thulin.

2. The evidence is sufficient to prove premeditation in the killing of Rudolph Blythe.

3. The trial court properly ruled as to the admissibility of the expert psychiatric testimony, evidence of James Jenkins' character and past bad conduct, the graphological personality assessment and the polygraph test results.

4. The trial court did not err in denying the motion for a Schwartz hearing

based on speculative and doubtful allegations of jury misconduct.

5. Lack of sequestration of the jury during its deliberations, on this record, did not deny defendant a fair trial by an impartial jury.

C. Paul Jones, Anne Lewis, Minnesota State Public Defender, Minneapolis, for appellant.

Hubert H. Humphrey, III, Atty. Gen., St. Paul, Michael W. Cable, Lincoln County Atty., Ivanhoe, for respondent.

OPINION

WAHL, Justice.

Steven Todd Anderson, formerly known as Steven Todd Jenkins, was convicted of the first degree murder ¹ of Rudolph Blythe and the second degree murder ² of Deems Thulin, by shooting. The trial court sentenced him to consecutive terms of life imprisonment and 116 months imprisonment. He appeals from this judgment of conviction and sentence, contending there is insufficient evidence that he killed Blythe and Thulin or that Blythe's killing was premeditated. He also claims he was denied due process and a fair trial by various court rulings and by the court's failure to sequester the jury during deliberations. We affirm the convictions.

The tragedy occurred on the morning of September 29, 1983, when Rudolph (Rudy) Blythe, president of the Buffalo Ridge State Bank of Ruthton, Minnesota and Deems (Toby) Thulin, loan officer, drove to an uninhabited farm owned by the bank to meet a man they believed to be a prospective buyer for the property. They were shot and killed at the farm. The only other people on the property at the time of the shooting were Steven and his father, James Jenkins.

Steven's parents, James and Darlene Jenkins, had owned the farm, located between Ruthton and Tyler, and had run a small dairy operation there from 1977 to 1980. They had pledged the property as security for a 1979 farm operating loan from Buffalo Ridge State Bank. In 1980, James and Darlene Jenkins divorced, defaulted on the loan and declared bankruptcy. The family abandoned the property shortly thereafter and title passed to the bank. After the divorce and loss of the farm, Steven lived on and off with his mother or his paternal grandparents in Minnesota and with his father in Minnesota, Ohio and Texas. In May, 1983, he returned from Texas to Minnesota and his father followed several months later.

Father and son planned to begin dairy farming in Minnesota again. They rented a small farm near Hardwick in Rock County. During the months before the murders, James Jenkins sought financing or credit for the proposed operation from many lending institutions and cattle lessors, but credit was repeatedly denied. On September 28, 1983, Jenkins' final effort to negotiate the credit purchase of dairy cattle from a Long Prairie cattle dealer failed. Steven said his father blamed his inability to get credit on the 1980 bankruptcy and on banker Rudolph Blythe who, he believed, was giving him bad credit references. Susan Blythe, vice president of the bank and Rudolph's wife, confirmed that her husband had told prospective lenders about Jenkins' bankruptcy when they asked for a credit reference.

After being refused credit by the Long Prairie cattle dealer, James Jenkins telephoned Blythe at the bank and, posing as a potential buyer named Ron Anderson, arranged to meet Blythe at the old Jenkins' farm at 10:00 a.m. the next morning, September 29. Steven testified before the grand jury that his father told him, "we were going to go there and rob [Blythe] and scare him, scare the hell out of him." Steven understood the plan included him.

Steven and his father left home in their pick-up truck early the next day for the 10:00 a.m. appointment, with Steven driving. In the truck were four guns (a 12 gauge shotgun, a modified .410 shotgun, a .22 caliber pistol, and the gun later identified as the murder weapon, an M-1 semi-automatic rifle) some ammunition, two knives, three defused hand grenades and assorted military equipment, all belonging to Steven. Steven said he habitually stored the weapons in the cab of the pick-up truck with the exception of his M-1 rifle, which he kept in the corner of his room at night and took with him in the truck whenever he left the house.

The two arrived at their old farm at 8:30 a.m. and parked in the farmyard in front of the garage. A diagram of the farm is attached to this opinion as Appendix 1. James began removing the truck's front license plate. Steven took three guns from the truck, placing the .22 pistol on the seat, and the M-1 rifle and 12-gauge shotgun within reach on the hood of the truck. As James bent to remove the truck's rear license plate, father and son unexpectedly heard a car coming up the farm driveway. It was still long before 10:00 a.m., when Rudy Blythe was expected. Each, with a gun, ran and hid, Steven behind the garage. The location of James Jenkins during the ensuing incident was not determined at trial. Blythe's green station wagon pulled up the driveway and parked nose-to-nose with the Jenkins' white pick-up truck. Rudy Blythe and Toby Thulin got out of the car and began looking around, shouting "who is here?" Within minutes, a second car, driven by Susan Blythe, Rudy's wife, pulled into the farmyard. Susan had come to the farm to exchange cars with her husband. Rudy told her he thought the white truck belonged to the Jenkins. Susan stood for a few minutes next to her parked car talking with Toby Thulin. As she talked, she watched her husband walk past the station wagon, past the truck and along the west side of the garage toward a grove of trees that grew behind the building. She marked the most distant point of her husband's path by a ground depression that dropped from the end of the garage to the grove. She described seeing Rudy "walk down into a hole * * * I saw him kind of drop off." He did not appear to see anyone, however, and returned to where all three vehicles were parked. While Rudy had been investigating, Susan Blythe heard what she described as a "metallic, creaking kind of sound," a sound which she later identified as the rattle of old rain gutters, piled in the weeds behind the chicken house to the east and back of the garage, when someone stepped on them. When Rudy Blythe returned to the car, he told his wife to go get the sheriff because there were trespassers on the property. As Susan Blythe drove away towards the nearest town, she saw her husband once again in the garage-grove area and Toby, walking east away from the station wagon, looking around.

Steven maintained, in grand jury testimony admitted at trial, that he remained hiding behind the garage during these events and saw neither his father nor the victims until after the shootings, though he did hear somebody say "something about going to get the police" and one car leaving. Almost immediately after Susan Blythe drove away, however, three shots were fired at Blythe and Thulin at their car, killing Thulin instantly and wounding Blythe. Blythe fled towards the farmhouse front yard and the killer followed. Blythe was shot four times and fatally wounded as he tried to reach the road. He apparently died within a few minutes.

Steven and his father fled the farm immediately after the shootings. Paul Bartz, passing by the old Jenkins farm on County Road 7 at about 9:00 a.m., turned his truck around to investigate a flash of yellow, which turned out to be Blythe's jacket, in the ditch beside the road. He saw a white Chevy pick-up with a rear Texas license plate "screaming down the driveway." After leaving the farm, Steven and his father drove to Luverne, bought more ammunition, gasoline and a flashlight, and started for their home in Hardwick. On the road they encountered a Rock County deputy sheriff, Ronnal McClure, who turned around and began following them closely. Steven said his father told him to get out and shoot at the policeman. They turned the truck onto a gravel road, Steven got out with the M-1 rifle and shot three times at McClure's car as it passed the intersection. McClure lay down in the seat, accelerated past the intersection and was not hit. ³ Without returning home, Steven and his father drove into South Dakota and on to Texas, driving at night to avoid police detection. They arrived at Paducah, Texas on Saturday, October 1, 1983. On Sunday, October 2, Steven left his father at the abandoned farm where they were hiding and surrendered to Paducah police, saying he was wanted in connection with some murders in Minnesota. Sometime Sunday night James Jenkins shot himself in the head and died on a county road leading to the abandoned farm.

Steven was brought back to Minnesota in custody. After consulting with his attorney, and being fully advised of his rights by the state's attorney, he gave his version of the shooting and surrounding events to the grand jury. The grand jury returned a six count indictment, charging Steven with:

Count 1: the intentional, premeditated death of Rudolph Blythe, Minn.Stat. Sec. 609.185(1) (Murder in First Degree);

Count 2: the intentional death of Rudolph Blythe while committing or attempting to commit aggravated robbery, Minn.Stat. Sec. 609.185(3) (Murder in First Degree);

Count 3: the intentional death of Rudolph Blythe, Minn.Stat. Sec. 609.19(1) (Murder in Second Degree);

Count 4: the intentional death of Deems...