Francis v. State, A05-190.
| Decision Date | 05 April 2007 |
| Docket Number | No. A05-190.,No. A06-940.,A05-190.,A06-940. |
| Parties | Michael C. FRANCIS, petitioner, Appellant, v. STATE of Minnesota, Respondent. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
John Stuart, State Public Defender, Ann McCaughan, Assistant Public Defender, Minneapolis, MN, for Appellant.
Michael C. Francis, Bayport MN, Appellant Pro Se.
Mike Hatch, Attorney General, St. Paul MN; and Michael Richardson, Assistant Hennepin County Attorney, Minneapolis MN, for Respondent.
Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc.
Appellant Michael C. Francis was convicted and sentenced in Hennepin County District Court for the crimes of first-degree premeditated murder for the death of Pamela Ragland and attempted first-degree premeditated murder for the injury of Marvin Pate. On appeal, Francis claims that the evidence was insufficient to support the convictions and that he was deprived of a fair trial. We affirm.
On May 24, 2004, at approximately 10:50 p.m., Marvin Pate and his girlfriend, Pamela Ragland, were sitting in Ragland's car which had been parked on the east side of the 3300 block of Portland Avenue, a one way southbound street in South Minneapolis. Pate got out of the car and was standing by the open front passenger door, talking to Ragland, who was in the driver's seat. He noticed a blue Chevrolet Tahoe approach from the north and watched as it stopped in front of him. He looked at the Tahoe, trying to see who was driving, and saw Francis in the driver's seat. Pate then saw Francis, who was 3 or 4 feet away from Pate, raise a gun and begin firing. Pate realized he had been shot, tried to grab the door, and fell to the ground, first to his knees and then face down. As Pate lay on the ground, he saw the Tahoe, with specialty tire rims and exhaust pipes, speeding away.
Law enforcement officers and medical responders arrived within minutes. When asked who shot him, Pate replied, "It was a blue truck." In the ambulance en route to the hospital, when again asked who shot him, Pate said that it was "Mike." Pate had been shot in the hip, abdomen, and back, and underwent emergency surgery. Ragland was shot once in the head and died a few hours later. In police interviews at the hospital and later at his home, Pate said that "Mike" shot him, that Mike drove a blue Tahoe with specialty rims, that he and Mike had argued over those rims sometime in February of 2004, and that Mike had threatened him. Pate gave police a physical description of Mike and later identified appellant Michael Francis as the shooter from a photographic lineup.
During the investigation, the police received a date- and time-stamped videotape from a private surveillance company with a camera trained on the intersection of 31st Street and Portland Avenue. The tape showed an image of a blue Tahoe turning from 31st onto Portland shortly before the shooting. The police obtained the license plate number for a blue Tahoe that matched the description given by Pate. The Tahoe was registered to the mother of Francis's girlfriend who lived relatively close to the area of the shooting. The vehicle was subsequently stopped, towed, and searched pursuant to a warrant. Francis was driving the vehicle when it was stopped.
Francis was indicted by grand jury for first-degree premeditated murder, Minn. Stat. § 609.185(a)(1) (2006); first-degree intentional drive-by shooting murder, Minn.Stat. § 609.185(a)(3) (2006); attempted first-degree premeditated murder Minn.Stat. § 609.17, subd. 1 (2006); and attempted first-degree intentional drive-by shooting murder, Minn.Stat. § 609.17, subd. 1 (2006). At trial, in addition to the evidence of Pate's identification of Francis as the shooter, the state presented evidence of Francis's cell phone records which showed frequent use in the hour before the shooting, a 15-minute gap around the time of the shooting, and then the resumption of cell-phone use. The records also indicated that calls placed from Francis's cell phone shortly before the 15-minute gap were processed through the cell-site tower located within the general area of the shooting. A Portland Avenue resident testified that after hearing gunshots on May 24, 2004, he saw an SUV with a blue glow on the dashboard pass by his home. On examination at the forensic garage, Francis's Tahoe was found to have an aftermarket stereo system that would emit a blue light. Forensic evidence indicated that the victims were shot with a .44-caliber revolver, "one of the bigger caliber handguns."
Francis testified on his own behalf and denied shooting either Pate or Ragland. Although he could not recall exactly what he was doing on the evening of May 24, 2004, he testified that his "routine" between 9:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. on a school night was to pick up his girlfriend at her mother's home in South Minneapolis and drive with her to his home in St. Louis Park or to meet her in St. Louis Park. He denied threatening Pate and said that the argument over tire rims "never took place." He had no idea why Pate would identify him as the shooter. Francis also elicited testimony from an auto mechanic familiar with his Tahoe to cast doubt on evidence that his vehicle was involved in the shooting.
The jury found Francis guilty as charged. He was sentenced to 180 months for the attempted first-degree premeditated murder of Pate and a consecutive mandatory life term for the first-degree premeditated murder of Ragland. Proceeding pro se on appeal,1 Francis argues that the identification evidence was insufficient to support the verdicts and that he was deprived of a fair trial by prosecutorial misconduct, evidentiary errors, incomplete jury instructions, lack of effective assistance of counsel, and other improprieties at trial. He also asserts the improper denial of an evidentiary hearing on his postconviction claims.
Francis contends that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury's verdicts. In reviewing a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, "[o]ur responsibility extends no further than to make a painstaking review of the record to determine whether the evidence, direct and circumstantial, viewed most favorably to support a finding of guilt is sufficient to permit the jury to reach that conclusion." State v. Ellingson, 283 Minn. 208, 211, 167 N.W.2d 55, 57 (1969).
Francis initially argues that the victim's identification of him as the shooter was uncorroborated and unreliable. Assessing the credibility of a witness and the weight to be given a witness's testimony is exclusively the province of the jury. State v. Bliss, 457 N.W.2d 385, 390 (Minn.1990). Here there was legally sufficient evidence of identity, including the victim's testimony, the surveillance videotape, cell phone records, and evidence of animosity. Francis also contends that the evidence was insufficient to establish premeditation and intent to kill Ragland, apparently challenging the application of transferred intent to first-degree premeditated murder. But "[p]remeditation will transfer with intent if the perpetrator premeditated the murder of an intended victim but accidentally killed an unintended victim." State v. Hall, 722 N.W.2d 472, 477 (Minn.2006).
Prosecutorial Misconduct. Francis contends that he is entitled to a new trial because the prosecutor engaged in serious misconduct at trial. As a general rule, we reverse only if the misconduct, when considered in light of the whole trial, impaired the defendant's right to a fair trial. State v. Swanson, 707 N.W.2d 645, 658 (Minn.2006).
Francis initially claims that the prosecutor elicited inadmissible evidence. On direct examination, the chief investigating officer made reference to receiving help from a gang-unit officer and to the retrieval of Francis's photograph from a computer-system's arrest records. It is improper for a prosecutor to ask questions that are calculated to elicit or insinuate an inadmissible and highly prejudicial answer. State v. Henderson, 620 N.W.2d 688, 702 (Minn.2001). The prosecutor has a duty to brief the state's witnesses to avoid referring to inadmissible evidence. See State v. Ray, 659 N.W.2d 736, 745 (Minn.2003). The district court found the elicitation of the objectionable comments inadvertent and provided curative instructions to the jury.
Francis asserts that the prosecutor improperly cross-examined a witness for the defense. On cross-examination of a defense character witness who had testified about Francis's character as non-violent, the prosecutor inquired into specific acts of violence. When the defense introduces evidence of good character, on cross-examination the prosecutor may inquire "into relevant specific instances of conduct." Minn. R. Evid. 405(a). The purpose of allowing inquiry into specific acts on cross-examination is to test the knowledge and credibility of the witness. U.S. v. Monteleone, 77 F.3d 1086, 1089 (8th Cir.1996). In cross-examination under Rule 405, "the whole process must be carefully regulated," including careful limiting instructions "as to the limited purposes for which any cross-examination of defense character witnesses is permitted," as well as the denial of
inquiry into past incidents under [Rule 403] if probative value seems substantially outweighed by the risk of unfair prejudice—by the risk, for example, that the jury will draw the one forbidden inference that the incidents prove propensity, hence behavior in the case at hand, rather than taking them as affecting the weight to be accorded to the testimony of the character witness.
1 Christopher B. Mueller & Laird C. Kirkpatrick, Federal Evidence § 121 (2d ed.1994). Here, the district court confined the prosecutor's cross-examination of the defense character witness to the scope of the direct examination and also provided limiting instructions to the jury.
Francis also claims that the prosecutor engaged in misconduct in closing argument by referring to Francis's drug dealing...
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