Lussier v. State

• Decision Date: 10 September 2014
• Docket Number: No. A14–0312.,A14–0312.
• Citation: 853 N.W.2d 149
• Parties: Frank Duane LUSSIER, petitioner, Appellant, v. STATE of Minnesota, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

853 N.W.2d 149

Frank Duane LUSSIER, petitioner, Appellant

v.STATE of Minnesota, Respondent.

No. A14–0312.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Sept. 10, 2014.

Frank Duane Lussier, Rush City, MN, pro se.

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

Considered and decided by the court without oral argument.

OPINION

STRAS, Justice.

Frank Duane Lussier appeals the postconviction court's denial of his second petition for postconviction relief. Because we conclude that each of the claims raised by Lussier is either procedurally barred or fails on the merits, we affirm.

I.

On March 17, 2003, Lussier stabbed and killed his wife, Sharlene. Lussier was charged by grand-jury indictment with, and pleaded guilty to, first-degree murder while committing domestic abuse, Minn.Stat. § 609.185(a)(6) (2012). As part of the factual basis for the plea, Lussier admitted that, during an argument with Sharlene and her daughter, he struck Sharlene at least once. According to Lussier, he then picked up a knife intending to take his own life, but instead unintentionally stabbed Sharlene during a struggle over the knife.

To supplement the factual basis for Lussier's guilty plea, the State moved to admit the grand-jury transcript. Lussier did not object and the district court granted the State's motion. The court then asked Lussier whether he agreed that, “if this had gone forward to trial[,] the witnesses at the trial would have testified much in accordance with the Grand Jury testimony?” Defense counsel stated that Lussier agreed with the court's statement, explaining that, although Lussier had not personally seen the grand-jury transcript, Lussier had reviewed the police reports. Counsel further stated that the two of them had discussed what the witnesses had seen, what they would say at trial, and how the testimony would affect Lussier's case. Finally, counsel read a statement from Lussier, which essentially said that he did not mean to kill Sharlene and intended only to kill himself. The court accepted Lussier's guilty plea, convicted him, and sentenced him to life imprisonment with the possibility of release. Lussier did not file a direct appeal from his conviction or sentence.

In 2011, Lussier filed a pro se motion to withdraw his guilty plea, in which he asserted that enforcing his guilty plea was manifestly unjust because the plea was not accurate, intelligent, or voluntary.See Perkins v. State, 559 N.W.2d 678, 688 (Minn.1997) ; see generally Minn. R.Crim. P. 15.05, subd. 1 (“At any time the court must allow a defendant to withdraw a guilty plea upon a timely motion and proof to the satisfaction of the court that withdrawal is necessary to correct a manifest injustice.”). Several months later, with the assistance of counsel, Lussier supplemented his motion to withdraw his guilty plea by filing his first petition for postconviction relief. In the petition, he argued that neither the guilty-plea hearing nor the grand-jury transcript established a factual basis for finding “a past pattern of domestic abuse” or “an extreme indifference to human life”—two elements of first-degree murder while committing domestic abuse, see Minn.Stat. § 609.185(a)(6). According to Lussier, the plea was inadequate because “there was no on-the-record recitation of facts contained in the [plea-hearing] transcript that were relevant to the elements of the charged murder offense,” and he never admitted or affirmed the facts from the grand-jury transcript.

The postconviction court denied relief and Lussier appealed. We affirmed the postconviction court's denial of Lussier's first petition and motion to withdraw his guilty plea. Lussier v. State, 821 N.W.2d 581, 590–91 (Minn.2012). We concluded that Lussier's claim failed on its substantive merits because the grand-jury transcript, which the district court properly admitted to supplement the factual basis for Lussier's guilty plea, was sufficient to support Lussier's conviction of first-degree murder while committing domestic abuse. Id. at 589.

Lussier then filed the present postconviction petition, his second, in which he alleged two claims. First, he restated his claim that his guilty plea was inaccurate.¹ Second, he claimed that the attorney who represented him on his first postconviction petition provided ineffective assistance of counsel by failing to request an evidentiary hearing.

The postconviction court denied Lussier's second petition without an evidentiary hearing. The court concluded that Lussier's renewed challenge to his guilty plea is procedurally barred because the claim had been previously raised and decided in his first petition for postconviction relief. The court also concluded that Lussier's ineffective-assistance-of-postconviction-counsel claim did not require an evidentiary hearing because the facts alleged in the petition were either undisputed or irrelevant. Specifically, the court explained that it was undisputed that (1) the claim in the first petition was whether the facts developed at the plea hearing established the elements of “an extreme indifference to human life” and “a past pattern of domestic abuse,” and (2) postconviction counsel did not request an evidentiary hearing on that claim. The court further explained that any factual dispute regarding whether Lussier intended to kill his wife was irrelevant to the accuracy of his guilty plea because an extreme indifference to human life, not an intent to kill, was required for the charged offense. Based on the undisputed facts, the postconviction court denied Lussier's ineffective-assistance-of-postconviction-counsel claim because Lussier could not show that postconviction counsel had performed unreasonably or that counsel's performance had prejudiced him.

On appeal, Lussier argues that the postconviction court abused its discretion when it denied his second petition for postconviction relief without an evidentiary hearing.See Reed v. State, 793 N.W.2d 725, 729 (Minn.2010) (reviewing the denial of postconviction relief for an abuse of discretion). He therefore asks us to remand to the postconviction court with instructions to hold an evidentiary hearing. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the postconviction court did not abuse its discretion.

II.

The first question presented by this case is whether the postconviction court abused its discretion when it concluded that Lussier's challenge to his guilty plea is procedurally barred.

In State v. Knaffla, we held that, once a direct appeal has been taken, “all matters raised therein, and all claims known but not raised, will not be considered upon a subsequent petition for postconviction relief.” 309 Minn. 246, 252, 243 N.W.2d 737, 741 (1976). We have extended the Knaffla rule to claims that were, or should have been, raised in a previous postconviction petition.² Jones v. State, 671 N.W.2d 743, 746 (Minn.2003).

In his second petition for postconviction relief, Lussier claimed that his guilty plea was inaccurate because it lacked an adequate factual basis. There is no dispute that Lussier raised an identical claim in his first postconviction petition. Lussier, 821 N.W.2d at 583. As a result, Lussier's claim is “undoubtedly Knaffla -barred because we expressly considered and rejected [an] identical argument[ ],” Buckingham v. State, 799 N.W.2d 229, 232 (Minn.2011), in an appeal from the denial of Lussier's first postconviction petition. See Jones, 671 N.W.2d at 746 (holding that all matters raised in a previous postconviction petition, and all claims known but not raised, will not be considered in a subsequent petition for postconviction relief). Accordingly, because the Knaffla rule applies, the postconviction court did not abuse its discretion when it denied the petition without an evidentiary hearing based on its conclusion that Lussier's guilty-plea claim is procedurally barred.

III.

The second question presented by this case is whether the postconviction court abused its discretion when it summarily denied Lussier's claim that postconviction counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to request an evidentiary hearing in connection with his first petition.³ According to Lussier, his postconviction attorney should have requested an evidentiary hearing because there were material facts in dispute. In addressing Lussier's argument, we address questions of law de novo, review the postconviction court's factual findings for clear error, and evaluate the postconviction court's ultimate decision to deny relief for an abuse of discretion. See McDonough v. State, 827 N.W.2d 423, 426 (Minn.2013).

In his first postconviction petition, Lussier claimed that his guilty plea lacked an adequate factual basis on the “past pattern of domestic abuse” and “extreme indifference to human life” elements of the charged offense. Lussier's postconviction counsel did not request an evidentiary hearing. In his second postconviction petition, Lussier contends that the decision not to request an evidentiary hearing constituted ineffective assistance of counsel because there were material facts in dispute with respect to the accuracy of his plea. More specifically, he contends that there was a factual dispute regarding whether he “intended to hurt anyone but himself.”

A postconviction court is “required to hold an evidentiary hearing and make findings of fact and conclusions of law ‘[u]nless the petition and the files and records of the proceedings conclusively show that the petitioner...