State Of Minn. v. Larson, No. A05-118.
| Citation | 788 N.W.2d 25 |
| Decision Date | 02 September 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. A05-118. |
| Parties | STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Robert Vincent LARSON, Appellant. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Minnesota (US) |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED.
Syllabus by the Court
1. The district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to grant a continuance so that additional DNA testing could be completed because such testing was unlikely to materially affect the outcome of the trial.
2. The district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting into evidence the fact that several other suspects voluntarily submitted to DNA testing because Larson opened the door for such testimony by questioning various witnesses on whether the State had taken a DNA sample and implying that the State had not been thorough in its investigation of alternative perpetrators.
3. The district court erred in ruling that evidence of Larson's refusal to voluntarily submit to DNA testing was admissible. But this error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
4. The district court's rulings regarding alternative perpetrator evidence did not prevent Larson from presenting a complete defense because the evidence Larson now argues should have been admitted either was admitted or did not have an inherent tendency to connect the alternative party to the crime.
5. Any error in declining to order the police to authenticate transcripts Larson created from police interviews with witnesses was harmless because Larson had ample opportunity to impeach the State's witnesses using the tape recordings of the interviews and the police reports prepared from the interviews.
6. Because the co-conspirator statements admitted at Larson's trial arose in discussions among friends and acquaintances, those statements were non-testimonial and their introduction did not violate Larson's Confrontation Clause rights.
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, MN; and Susan Gaertner, Ramsey County Attorney, Mark Nathan Lystig, Assistant County Attorney, St. Paul, MN, for respondent.
Craig E. Cascarano, Cascarano Law Office, Minneapolis, MN; and Deborah A. Macaulay, Macaulay Law Offices, LLC, St. Paul, MN, for appellant.
On April 21, 2004, Robert Larson was indicted for first-degree murder in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.185(1) (2008), aiding and abetting first-degree murder in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.05 (2008), second-degree murder in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.19, subd. 1(1) (2008), and aiding and abetting second-degree murder in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.05, for his role in the death of Thomas John Cady, Jr. Robert Larson and his sister, Jamie Larson, were both indicted for their involvement in the killing, and they were tried separately. 1 The jury found Larson guilty of first- degree murder and he received a mandatory life sentence. Larson filed a direct appeal, but his direct appeal was stayed pending postconviction proceedings. After the district court denied Larson's petition for postconviction relief, Larson's direct appeal was reinstated.
The evidence at trial established that the body of Cady was found on November 28, 2003, in a ditch just off Edgerton Street in Ramsey County. Cady appeared to have been strangled to death using zip strips and the death was ruled a homicide. The zip strip used to strangle Cady had a locking mechanism that allowed tightening, but not release. Cady's truck was located near the crime scene. In investigating Cady's death, police investigators determined that Jamie and Cady were boyfriend and girlfriend at the time of Cady's death.
The investigators also determined that, during the early morning hours of the day of the murder, Larson, Jamie, and Cady went to a hotel to see friends who were at the hotel and using drugs. Larson, Jamie, and Cady first went to the room where Dan Iacarella, who is a cousin of Larson, and two friends, J.S. and D.G., were. D.G. testified that Cady started waving around his gun and that Iacarella pushed the gun away from his face. According to D.G., Jamie and Cady left the room and later Jamie came back alone with Cady's gun. After Jamie came back into the room, D.G. testified that she and Larson discussed possibly putting Cady to sleep with a sedative and then using a zip strip or duct tape on his hands and neck.
J.S. testified that Jamie and Larson said that Cady was in his truck sleeping and that J.S. looked out the window and saw him there. According to J.S.'s testimony, Larson and Jamie were angry at Cady because he “had been hitting Jamie” and they talked about tying him up with zip strips and killing him. After this conversation, Jamie, then Larson, and then Iacarella individually left the room. J.S. testified that Iacarella had zip strips in his truck in the hotel parking lot that night and she believed that Larson obtained zip strips from Iacarella's truck.
Ramon Andujar was in another room of the same hotel. He testified that Jamie came into his room in the early morning hours of November 28. She was angry at Cady for beating her and she had Cady's gun. Andujar testified that he believed Jamie asked Andujar to help her kill Cady because she thought he might want revenge for a recent “incident.” During that incident, Cady had pulled a gun on Andujar and demanded $1,400 that Cady claimed Andujar owed to one of Cady's friends. Andujar testified that he told Jamie that he was not interested in getting revenge on Cady. He testified that Jamie said Andujar and Iacarella were “a bunch of pusses” and told Andujar that “her and her brother will take care of it.” Andujar testified that Jamie left the room and a few minutes later, he went to try to stop her, but he was unsuccessful. He testified that he saw Jamie and Larson leave the hotel and walk toward the parking lot, and saw Larson pull a zip strip from his sweater and make a choking motion with it.
J.S. testified that she also watched Larson and Jamie leave the hotel. She testified that she saw Jamie driving Cady's truck and Larson getting in the back seat behind Cady, who was sleeping in the front passenger's seat. Another man who had been in the hotel room with Andujar when Jamie came in testified that he saw Jamie get into the driver's side of Cady's truck.
After Jamie left, Andujar testified that he went to the other hotel room and got Iacarella because he thought Iacarella might be able to stop Jamie and Larson. Andujar and Iacarella then got in Andujar's Trailblazer and followed Cady's truck, which Jamie was driving. Andujar testified that, as he was following the truck, he saw Cady appear to “kind of wake up” and face the driver. Around that time, Cady's truck left the highway and Andujar followed it.
Once off the highway, Andujar said he lost Cady's truck briefly when it made a sudden turn. When he took his Trailblazer back to the area where he had lost Cady's truck, he saw Jamie walking toward his Trailblazer and picked her up. Jamie then directed Andujar where to go to pick up Larson. Larson got into the Trailblazer in the back seat behind the driver. Andujar testified that Larson complained that he had “hurt his arm, or his hand, or his ankle.” Andujar said he did not look for Cady.
Andujar drove back to the hotel, stopping to drop Jamie off at a White Castle to pick up Larson's truck and stopping at a SuperAmerica for Iacarella and Larson to go inside. Larson got out of the Trailblazer at SuperAmerica and Andujar left Larson there. This portion of Andujar's testimony was corroborated by footage from video surveillance cameras from the White Castle and the SuperAmerica.
Later that morning, Iacarella and then Larson returned to the room where D.G. was staying. D.G. described Larson as “breathing heavy” and said that Larson “had blood on his knuckles and he was washing them.” Although Iacarella and Larson told D.G. that Larson had been beaten up by Cady, D.G. testified that there was no sign that Larson had been beaten up.
The State introduced evidence of a number of statements that both Jamie and Larson made following Cady's death, admitting their involvement in the crime. Shortly after the killing, Jamie stopped by the apartment of J.H., whom she had recently become romantically involved with, and told him “she had taken care of [Cady].” J.H. testified that he saw Larson that same day and Larson told J.H. that “he had put a zip strip around [Cady's] neck and he had pulled it tight, and ... [Cady] woke up and jumped out of the truck, and [Larson] went out after him.” Jamie also told J.S. more details about the killing. J.S. testified that Jamie said “when they were driving that [Larson] slipped the zip strip around [Cady's] neck to scare him, and then [Cady] woke up and there was a struggle, and somehow they fell out of the truck.”
In addition to the testimony of the various witnesses, the State also introduced forensic evidence corroborating the testimony of the witnesses and linking Larson to Cady's murder. The State introduced evidence that Larson's DNA was extracted from blood found on the inside door handle of the rear driver's side door of Andujar's Trailblazer. This corroborated Andujar's testimony that when he picked Larson up from the roadside, Larson climbed into the back seat behind the driver. The State also presented evidence of fingerprints within Cady's truck that were consistent with J.S.'s testimony that Jamie entered the driver's door and Larson entered the back seat passenger's door. The State also introduced evidence that Larson's hands were badly scratched and that these injuries were consistent with the scratches that would be anticipated from applying enough force to the locking mechanism of a zip strip to strangle someone. Moreover, the injuries on Cady's body were consistent with falling out of a moving vehicle, lending credence to the reports by J.H. and J.S. of Jamie and Larson's descriptions of the killing.
At trial, Larson presented two witnesses. The first was Larson's employer who testified that it would have been...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Banks
...for prosecutor to argue that defendant's refusal to provide consent to search constituted evidence of his guilt); State v. Larson , 788 N.W.2d 25, 32-33 (Minn. 2010) (error to allow the introduction of defendant's refusal to consent to DNA testing as evidence of guilt); State v. Jennings , ......
-
State v. Ferguson
...perpetrator to the commission of the charged crime.’ ” State v. Nissalke, 801 N.W.2d 82, 99 (Minn.2011) (quoting State v. Larson, 788 N.W.2d 25, 36–37 (Minn.2010)). This foundational requirement “ ‘avoid[s] the use of bare suspicion, and safeguard[s] a third person from indiscriminate use o......
-
State v. Hill
...testing or the fact that E.W. and H.R. voluntarily provided DNA samples in either opening or closing statements. See State v. Larson, 788 N.W.2d 25, 32–33 (Minn.2010) (finding that the district court's erroneous ruling that the State could address the defendant's refusal to voluntarily subm......
-
State v. Nissalke
...seeks to admit has an “inherent tendency to connect the alternative perpetrator to the commission of the charged crime.” State v. Larson, 788 N.W.2d 25, 36–37 (Minn.2010) (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). The “purpose of this foundational requirement is to avoid the use......