Lussier v. State, No. A–11–2023.

• Decision Date: 10 October 2012
• Docket Number: No. A–11–2023.
• Parties: Frank Duane LUSSIER, petitioner, Appellant, v. STATE of Minnesota, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

821 N.W.2d 581

Frank Duane LUSSIER, petitioner, Appellant,

v.STATE of Minnesota, Respondent.

No. A–11–2023.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Oct. 10, 2012.

Syllabus by the Court

1. A motion to withdraw a guilty plea made after sentencing must be raised in a petition for postconviction relief and the timeliness of the motion is treated the same as “the manner in which delays in filing petitions for postconviction relief are treated,” including the time limitations in Minn.Stat. § 590.01, subd. 4 (2010).

2. A grand jury transcript, which is part of the record and was admitted during a guilty plea hearing without objection, may establish a proper factual basis for a guilty plea.

3. The postconviction court did not err when it denied appellant's postconviction petition on the basis that the petition lacked substantive merit.

Affirmed.

David W. Merchant, Chief Appellate Public Defender, G. Tony Atwal, Assistant State Public Defender, St. Paul, MN, for appellant.

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, MN; and Timothy R. Faver, Beltrami County Attorney, Bemidji, MN, for respondent.

OPINION

PAGE, Justice.

On March 17, 2003, appellant Frank Duane Lussier fatally stabbed his wife, Sharlene. On April 8, 2003, he was charged by grand jury indictment with first-degree murder while committing domestic abuse, in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.185(a)(6) (2010). Lussier later pled guilty to the charged offense and was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. He did not appeal. He filed this postconviction petition, alleging that his guilty plea was invalid because it lacked a proper factual foundation. The State did not respond to Lussier's petition nor has it responded to Lussier's appeal to our court. The postconviction court denied relief on the ground that the petition was untimely and lacked substantive merit. We need not address the issues of whether Lussier's postconviction petition was untimely under Minn.Stat. § 590.01, subd. 4(a) (2010), or whether it fell within the interests-of-justice exception of Minn.Stat. § 590.01, subd. 4(b)(5) (2010), because the petition lacks substantive merit.¹ Having concluded that the petition lacks substantive merit, we affirm the postconviction court's denial of relief and decline to reach Lussier's other arguments.

The facts as discussed below are taken from the record developed at Lussier's plea hearing, which includes a transcript of the grand jury proceedings that resulted in Lussier's indictment. Lussier and Sharlene were married in 1993 and together they had one child. At the time of Sharlene's death, Sharlene, Lussier, their 11–year–old son, and Sharlene's two daughters and one son from previous relationships lived together in a downstairs apartment in Sharlene's mother's house.

Various witnesses testified before the grand jury regarding Sharlene's death. Sharlene's oldest daughter, J.M., who was eight months pregnant at the time of the murder, testified as an eyewitness to her mother's death. She testified that the circumstances leading up to Sharlene's death began in the basement apartment where they lived. According to J.M., Lussier was upset because J.M. and Sharlene were planning to go out of town. Lussier began raising his voice and arguing with Sharlene. While Sharlene and Lussier were sitting at the kitchen table, Lussier asked Sharlene if the marriage was over, to which Sharlene replied, “so what if it is.” Lussier began to punch Sharlene on her head and body and, at some point, J.M. jumped in front of her mother to block Lussier's blows. As a result, Lussier “grabbed [J.M.] by her hair [and] threw [J.M.] on the floor and started hitting [J.M.] on [J.M.'s] head.” Sharlene told Lussier to stop because J.M. was pregnant; in response, Lussier ceased hitting J.M. and began hitting Sharlene again. Eventually, Lussier “pulled out a bunch of knives” and began swinging at Sharlene and J.M. He looked for other knives and eventually “had the biggest knife in his hand.” Lussier told J.M. to get out of the way and made motions like he was going to stab her. Sharlene pushed J.M. out of the way and Lussier stabbed her. Lussier then cut his own neck. Other witnesses, who were in the house at the time, testified that when they came to the basement after the stabbing, they observed that Sharlene was still alive when they first saw her.

The grand jury heard a recording of a 911 call made by Sharlene's 12–year–old son on the day of Sharlene's death. In that call, Sharlene's son reported that his mother had been stabbed; that his mother was lying on the floor, “all bloody”; and that he had seen Lussier with a large butcher knife. When the police arrived, they found Sharlene lying on the basement floor, covered in blood. The police were told that Lussier had stabbed Sharlene and that he was in a room in the back of the house. A police officer went to that room and found Lussier sitting on the edge of a bed with a knife at his throat and attempting to cut himself. A recording taken from the officer's body microphone was played for the grand jury; the recording indicates that the officer observed Lussier bleeding, that the officer repeatedly instructed Lussier to put the knife down, and that Lussier said, “Just shoot me,” “I wanna die,” and “I hurt my wife.” Lussier was eventually taken into custody.

During the grand jury proceedings, multiple witnesses testified about previous incidents of domestic abuse committed by Lussier. J.M. testified that in 1995, Lussier pushed Sharlene down the stairs, and then grabbed Sharlene by her arms and dragged her into a van. Later that same day, Lussier argued with Sharlene and “dragged her up [the] stairs.” Also in 1995, Sharlene's sister observed Lussier smash a car window, grab Sharlene by her throat, and try to pull her out of the car. The grand jury also heard that on April 13, 1997, Sharlene sought medical attention for injuries she said she sustained because Lussier had hit her in the face, an incident for which Lussier was later convicted of felony third-degree assault. On August 4, 2002, the police received a report that Lussier had threatened Sharlene with a knife. Lussier was later convicted of gross misdemeanor domestic assault as a result of that incident. The testimony indicates that these were not isolated incidents of abuse. Sharlene's sister testified that there were “other times that I know she had stated that he was really violent with her and had forced sex on her and had bruises on her body.” Sharlene's best friend testified that Lussier “many times” would “become violent just in front of anybody.” The friend also testified that Lussier “was always very verbally abusive to [Sharlene].... [T]hat was almost daily.” Sharlene's mother testified that “all the time we had to rush out to her house ... when he would destroy the house” by “punch [ing] ... holes in the walls.”

During his guilty plea hearing, Lussier, answering questions put to him by his attorney, testified that on the afternoon of March 17, 2003, he argued with Sharlene and J.M., and that during that argument he hit Sharlene once. At some point, wanting to take his own life, he picked up a knife and put it to his chest. According to Lussier, when J.M. told him “No” and held onto his hands, he “lunged and pushed them away” resulting in Sharlene being stabbed. During his testimony, Lussier acknowledged that his actions at the time he stabbed Sharlene “showed an extreme indifference to human life.” He also acknowledged the 1997 and 2002 assault convictions. At the guilty plea hearing, the State moved to admit the grand jury transcript to supplement the factual basis for Lussier's plea. Lussier did not object to the motion, which the district court ultimately granted. After the transcript was admitted, the court asked Lussier's counsel the following question and received the following answer:

Q: And [Lussier] would agree ... that if this had gone forward to trial, that the witnesses at the trial would have testified much in accordance with the Grand Jury testimony?

A: Your Honor, he has not seen the Grand Jury transcript. But he has seen all the reports. And we have gone over in detail what the witnesses would say, what they saw, and how that affected his case. So we would agree with that.

Lussier did not object to his counsel's answer.

The record indicates that the district court intended to seek additional information from Lussier to establish the factual basis for the “extreme indifference to human life” element of first-degree domestic abuse murder. But after the court granted the State's motion to admit the grand jury transcript, there was no further discussion of the “extreme indifference” element. Subsequently, the court accepted Lussier's guilty plea and sentenced him to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

On February 7, 2011, Lussier, not having appealed, filed a pro se motion to withdraw his guilty plea. On May 19, 2011, he filed a petition for postconviction relief. Lussier did not request an evidentiary hearing. In the petition, Lussier argued that his guilty plea lacked a proper factual basis because the evidence did not establish two elements of the offense: “past pattern of domestic abuse” and “extreme indifference to human life.” According to Lussier's argument, the admission of the grand jury transcript was insufficient to establish these elements of the offense because “there was no on-the-record recitation of facts contained in the transcript that were relevant to the elements of the charged murder offense.” He further argued that he did not admit or affirm the facts contained in the grand jury transcript. As to timeliness, Lussier argued that his motion to withdraw his guilty plea was timely under James v. State, 699 N.W.2d 723 (Minn.2005). Lussier also argued that his motion was timely under the postconviction statute, Minn.Stat. § 590.01 (2010), because his claim is not frivolous and is in the interests of...