Hoagland v. State, CX-93-104

• Decision Date: 17 June 1994
• Docket Number: No. CX-93-104,CX-93-104
• Citation: Hoagland v. State, 518 N.W.2d 531 (Minn. 1994)
• Parties: Leland M. HOAGLAND, petitioner, Appellant, v. STATE of Minnesota, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 531

518 N.W.2d 531

Leland M. HOAGLAND, petitioner, Appellant, v. STATE of Minnesota, Respondent.

No. CX-93-104.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

June 17, 1994.

Syllabus by the Court

1. Destruction of trial notes by court reporter and impossibility of reconstructing trial transcript, together with statements by trial judge and defense counsel which could mislead defendant as to process of perfecting an appeal, denies defendant a meaningful review of his conviction.

2. Defendant's eight-year delay in filing for postconviction relief weighs against grant of relief, but does not automatically waive defendant's right to have conviction meaningfully reviewed.

3. The state may avoid retrying a defendant by establishing undue prejudice. To do so, the state must show in specific detail how it would be unduly prejudiced by a new trial.

John M. Stuart, State Public Defender, Mark D. Nyvold, Sp. Asst. Public Defender, St. Paul, for appellant.

Hubert H. Humphrey, III, Atty. Gen., Hennepin County Attorney, Lisa A. Berg, Asst. County Atty., Minneapolis, for respondent.

Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc.

OPINION

PAGE, Judge.

This case arises from the postconviction court's denial, in part, of defendant Leland Mark Hoagland's 1991 petition for postconviction relief under Minn.Stat. ch. 590 (1992). In his petition, Hoagland sought to have his convictions reversed outright or to be granted a new trial based on the following grounds: first, the destruction of the trial court reporter's notes made review of the legality of his convictions impossible; second, the evidence presented at trial was legally insufficient for conviction for first degree murder; and third, his constitutional rights under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the United States Constitution and corresponding provisions of the Minnesota Constitution were violated. The petition also alleged ineffective assistance of counsel and made general allegations of a denial of due process. Finally, Hoagland sought to have one of his life sentences for first degree murder vacated under Minn.Stat. § 609.04. The court granted defendant's petition with respect to vacating one of his sentences under Minn.Stat. § 609.04 and denied the petition in all other respects. We hold that because Hoagland has been deprived of a meaningful review of his conviction he is entitled to a new trial, provided that a new trial would not unduly prejudice the state. Because the postconviction court did not reach the question of whether a new trial would be unduly prejudicial to the state, we vacate the postconviction court's denial of a new trial. We remand this case to the postconviction court for a determination of whether a new trial would be unduly prejudicial to the state.

Defendant was convicted of two counts of first degree murder in the death of blind, seventy-one-year-old Luella Larson in 1983. ¹ Minn.Stat. §§ 609.185(2), 609.185(3). This court described the crimes defendant and the others committed in State v. Goodridge, 352 N.W.2d 384, 386-87 (Minn.1984):

During the evening of November 19, 1982, defendant [Goodridge] socialized with three friends--Mitchell Pierce [sic-Peirce], Leland Mark Hoagland and Troy Palthen. The four drank beer and smoked marijuana at defendant's house in north Minneapolis. About 11:00 p.m., they ran out of beer and then began planning a burglary "to get some more liquor and * * * maybe some quick money." * * * The four left defendant's [Goodridge's] house about 11:45 p.m. and walked toward 2827 Humboldt Avenue North.

The victim, Mrs. Luella Larson, lived alone at that residence. Her husband had died only nine days earlier. She was 71 years old and totally blind. That evening, Mrs. Larson had gone to bed before defendant [Goodridge] and his friends [Hoagland, Peirce, and Palthen] arrived at her home.

When the four arrived at their destination, they initially tried to enter through the rear door, but found it locked. Palthen then discovered that the front door was unlocked and they all entered the house. Once inside, they found Mrs. Larson asleep in her bedroom. Pierce [sic] and Hoagland tied her up with a belt they found in the house. After ransacking the bedroom in an unsuccessful attempt to find cash, defendant [Goodridge] demanded that the victim reveal the location of her money. He admitted kicking and striking her when she failed to respond to his inquiries. He gave the following statement to the police:

I kicked her once in the mouth and once on the shoulder and I slapped her a few times and I hit her once in the mouth with my fist. Mark [Hoagland] was holding her mouth most of the time. Mitch [Peirce] kept yelling at me to hit her so she'd tell us where the money was. I wasn't beating her for fun but Mitch was. He was slamming his fist into her face and her blood was flying and he was yelling at her to tell him where the money was and he kept on hitting her. Mark [Hoagland] was beating her hard with his fist too.

At some point, Mrs. Larson was able to free an arm to reach for an alarm by her bed. Defendant [Goodridge] saw her reaching for the alarm and knocked her hand away. Hoagland then tied her up again. Sometime later, defendant rubbed saliva on Mrs. Larson's ring finger and removed her wedding rings.

Denying that he sexually assaulted the victim, defendant [Goodridge] described the following indignities to which she was subjected by the others:

Mitch [Peirce] and Mark [Hoagland] had her on the bed and they sexually assaulted her. I don't know exactly what they did but they had her on the bed and one of them was sticking his fingers in and out of her ass--I'm pretty sure that was Mitch because he was hollering "Fuck her in the ass," and telling her that we were going to kill her if she didn't tell us where the money was. He could have been sticking his fingers in her vagina too. Mitch had a little flashlight and he could have jammed that up her too, but I'm not sure about that. They had her panties down around her knees.

Approximately twenty minutes after entering the house, Mrs. Larson's assailants left, leaving her lying lifeless on the bed. * * * Along with the wedding rings, they obtained some steaks, beer, brandy, a gold watch, and about ten dollars.

See also State v. Peirce, 364 N.W.2d 801, 804-05 (Minn.1985).

Shortly after his arrest on November 25, 1982, Hoagland confessed to his involvement in the burglary and beating of Mrs. Larson, but denied that he sexually assaulted her. The jury convicted him of two counts of first-degree murder: murder while committing a burglary and murder while committing criminal sexual conduct. The convictions were not appealed.

In 1987, the trial court reporter destroyed the stenographic notes of Hoagland's trial. The notes had never been transcribed because Hoagland had not appealed his conviction. As a result, review of the full trial record is impossible. From 1983 until 1990 the state's Records Retention Schedule for District Court required criminal case notes for felonies and gross misdemeanors be retained for 20 years from the conclusion of the case. ² That mandate was violated when the trial court reporter destroyed the stenographic notes. In 1990 the trial judge passed away, making it virtually impossible to reconstruct the record.

At the postconviction hearing, Hoagland explained his failure to appeal his convictions as the result of misleading statements by the trial judge and his defense counsel at sentencing and his defense counsel's failure to explain his appeal rights. The allegedly misleading statement by the trial judge occurred when the trial judge said, "I know there will be an automatic appeal by the State Public Defender's Office or someone else." At the sentencing Hoagland's trial counsel made the following statement: "Your honor, inasmuch as this sentence is mandatory and inasmuch as this matter will probably be appealed, I don't see any merit in making any statement in view of the mandatory sentence, your honor."

As a consequence of these statements by the trial judge and defense counsel, Hoagland alleges that he believed his appeal was automatic and that he was not required to take any action to perfect the appeal. He further alleged that he never talked to other inmates or to any lawyer about the appeal and that he had no reason to inquire about the progress of his "automatic" appeal between 1983 and 1991. In an affidavit submitted at the postconviction hearing, Hoagland's trial counsel indicated that he "did not discuss the merits of an appeal and how one files an appeal and obtains appointed counsel" with Hoagland. Hoagland claims he first learned that he had to initiate an appeal when he went through reception and orientation when he was transferred to the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater in 1991. He then contacted the Public Defender's Office and petitioned for postconviction relief.

At Hoagland's postconviction hearing, the state offered evidence establishing that when Hoagland was incarcerated at the St. Cloud Reformatory and again five months later when he was transferred to the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Oak Park Heights, both institutions had an orientation policy of giving each new inmate a handout explaining appeal and postconviction rights and procedures. The state further established that Hoagland had been aware of Goodridge's and Peirce's appeals and knew that both had been decided.

While the postconviction court vacated one of Hoagland's life sentences, the court found Hoagland had not raised specific defects in the trial proceedings and so failed to establish reviewable error. Concluding that Hoagland deliberately chose not to appeal, the postconviction court did not consider whether the absence of a trial record deprived Hoagland of his right of review. The postconviction court also found that the evidence which was preserved in the appeals of Goodridge and Peirce amply supported Hoagland's conviction. In...