Rainer v. State, C7-96-1807

• Decision Date: 10 July 1997
• Docket Number: No. C7-96-1807,C7-96-1807
• Citation: 566 N.W.2d 692
• Parties: Joseph Leander RAINER, Petitioner, Appellant, v. STATE of Minnesota, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 692

566 N.W.2d 692

Joseph Leander RAINER, Petitioner, Appellant, v. STATE of Minnesota, Respondent.

No. C7-96-1807.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

July 10, 1997.

Syllabus by the Court

1. An anonymous and uncorroborated letter is not a sufficient basis on which to grant postconviction relief.

2. Claims that the Department of Corrections' deduction of room and board costs from inmate wages violates the constitution are not properly brought as a basis for postconviction relief.

Joseph Rainer, Stillwater, pro se.

Hubert H. Humphrey, III, Minnesota Attorney General, St. Paul, Walter M. Kaminsky, Sherburne County Attorney, Thomas N. Price, Assistant Sherburne County Attorney, Elk River, for Respondent.

Considered and decided by the court en banc without oral argument.

OPINION

TOMLJANOVICH, Justice.

This is an appeal from the denial of a second petition for postconviction relief. Petitioner Joseph Leander Rainer was convicted of first-degree murder in May 1986 for the shooting death of Marla Forrest. Rainer challenged his conviction on direct appeal and we affirmed his conviction. State v. Rainer, 411 N.W.2d 490 (Minn.1987) ("Rainer I "). Rainer then sought habeas relief in federal district court, which the court denied. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently affirmed the denial. Rainer v. Department of Corrections, 914 F.2d 1067 (8th Cir.1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1099, 111 S.Ct. 993, 112 L.Ed.2d 1077 (1991).

In July 1991, Rainer filed his first petition for postconviction relief, arguing that he was denied effective assistance of counsel and that newly discovered evidence warranted a new trial. The trial court denied Rainer's petition and we affirmed the denial. State v. Rainer, 502 N.W.2d 784 (Minn.1993) ("Rainer II ").

Rainer subsequently filed a second petition for postconviction relief, which is the subject of this appeal. The trial court again denied Rainer postconviction relief and we hold that the postconviction court properly denied the relief.

We stated the facts of this case in Rainer I, 411 N.W.2d 490 (Minn.1987):

Defendant and Marla Forrest had known each other since the summer of 1983 when Forrest began taking her car to defendant's gas station. The two spent time together and defendant wanted to get married, but Forrest was not prepared to make a commitment. Within the last two weeks before the shooting Forrest told friends that she planned to terminate the relationship.

On October 27, 1984, Forrest went to defendant's house so that he could replace the engine in her car. Her 9-year-old son Tobi went along. During the afternoon Forrest and defendant talked and drank beer, while Tobi amused himself. Forrest sounded normal and cheerful when her father telephoned and she told him that she would use defendant's car to get home. At one point during the afternoon Tobi heard an argument between Forrest and defendant.

At the end of the afternoon as Forrest was leaving, defendant walked her out to the car. According to the account of the incident defendant gave the police, he picked up a single shot 12-gauge shotgun that he had left lying in the breezeway, tucked it under his arm, and it accidentally fired, hitting Forrest in the back. He said that he had been shooting squirrels that morning and had left the gun in the breezeway and that he picked it up to get it out of the mist. Defendant's former wife, Maxine, testified that defendant made a habit of keeping his guns loaded. Tobi said that the gun was not in the breezeway but in the living room, leaning against the wall near the gun case. Defendant's tenant said that he did not remember seeing a gun in the breezeway when he walked through the breezeway in the early afternoon.

Medical evidence indicated that Forrest was shot in the back from one to two feet away at a downward angle of between 10 and 20 degrees. The wound was 44 1/2 inches from Forrest's bare feet, and her boots added another 1 3/4 to 2 inches. Defendant measured between 47 3/8 inches and 53 inches from stocking foot to armpit (measurements at different times yielded different results); his boots added another 1 3/4 inches. The downward angle and the measurements of the two bodies were relevant to the question of whether the gun was under defendant's arm when it went off, as he claimed, or whether it was at his shoulder, a normal position for intentional firing, as the state hypothesized.

Expert testimony concerning the gun established that the gun required cocking before firing, though it had no other safety device, and that a moderate to heavy amount of force was needed for pulling the trigger. The gun would not discharge without the trigger being pulled when it was tested by dropping it or striking it with a rubber mallet when it was cocked. No tests were made concerning pulling the gun along clothing, though the expert agreed that the gun could be cocked by catching it on clothing. The expert did not comment on whether the trigger could be pulled by drawing it across clothing.

Rainer I, 411 N.W.2d at 493-95.

In this second petition for postconviction relief, Rainer primarily raises two substantive claims: (1) that he was entitled to a new trial based on newly discovered evidence contained in an anonymous letter, and (2) that his inmate wages were wrongfully withheld in violation of due process, double jeopardy, ex post facto, and equal protection. ¹

Our review of a postconviction proceeding is limited to a determination of whether there is sufficient evidence to sustain the postconviction court's findings. Scruggs v. State, 484 N.W.2d 21, 25 (Minn.1992). We will not disturb a postconviction court's decision absent an abuse of discretion. Id.

First, Rainer argues that he is entitled to postconviction relief based on an anonymous letter, which reads as follows:

Mr. Rainer, I heard you were going back to court on something that you are in prison for. I am not going to have this on my mind forever. You don't belong there. The girl's son was 8 or 9 years old. They told him to say the gun was in the house. Something about you killed an animal outside, and had the shells some place in a car garage and you were stupid to leave a loaded gun outside. I heard they shaved some hammer off the gun so you can't say it caught on all the clothes you had on. Can't you tell someone about this wrongdoing. I can't tell you who I am. I will be in hot water, but you don't belong there.

Without an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied postconviction relief, holding that the letter was not reliable and that it would be unlikely to produce an acquittal or a more favorable result. We have held that an evidentiary hearing is not required unless the petitioner alleges such facts which, if proved by a fair preponderance of the evidence, would entitle him or her to the requested relief. Roby v. State, 547 N.W.2d 354, 356 (Minn.1996); Hanley v. State, 534 N.W.2d 277, 278 (Minn.1995). Furthermore, the allegations raised in the petition must be more than argumentative assertions without factual support. Roby, 547 N.W.2d at 356; Hodgson v. State, 540 N.W.2d 515, 516 (Minn.1995).

When determining whether to grant a new trial based upon newly discovered evidence, a defendant must prove the following: (1) that the evidence was not known to the defendant or his/her counsel at the time of the trial; (2) that the evidence could not have been discovered through due diligence before trial; (3) that the evidence is not cumulative, impeaching, or doubtful; and (4) that the evidence would probably produce an acquittal or a more favorable result. Hodgson, 540 N.W.2d at 517, Race v. State, 504 N.W.2d 214, 217 (Minn.1993).

In Rainer's affidavit submitted to the trial court on the issue of the anonymous letter, he asserted that the prosecution's expert disassembled the gun and filed down the hammer on the gun without the notification by the prosecution. However, the only factual support Rainer provides is the anonymous and uncorroborated letter.

The letter is not a...