Rairdon v. State
| Decision Date | 12 December 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. C8-95-2552,C8-95-2552 |
| Citation | 557 N.W.2d 318 |
| Parties | John Albert RAIRDON, Petitioner, Appellant, v. STATE of Minnesota, Respondent. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
1. Filing but failing to pursue a direct criminal appeal does not waive a petitioner's right to postconviction relief.
2. A nine-year delay in seeking postconviction relief weighs against the petitioner.
3. Under the plain error standard, instances of alleged prosecutorial misconduct, which were not the subject of defense objections at trial, are insufficient to vacate the petitioner's convictions for first- and second-degree murder.
4. Under the harmless error standard, an instance of alleged prosecutorial misconduct is insufficient to vacate the petitioner's convictions for first- and second-degree murder.
5. Evidence of a third person's collateral bad acts offered to raise a reasonable doubt as to the petitioner's guilt was properly excluded at trial for lack of foundation.
6. Severe aggravating circumstances justified a double durational departure for the petitioner's first- and second-degree intrafamilial sexual abuse sentences, and consecutive sentencing as to each abuse sentence and as to the petitioner's mandatory life sentence for first-degree murder.
Melissa Sheridan, Asst. State Public Defender, St. Paul, for appellant.
Paul R. Kempainen, Asst. Atty. Gen., St. Paul, Waldemar B. Senyk, Otter Tail County Atty., Fergus Falls, for respondent.
Heard, considered and decided by the court en banc.
In 1986, appellant John Albert Rairdon pleaded guilty to first- and second-degree intrafamilial sexual abuse, Minn.Stat. §§ 609.3641, subd. 1(2)(e), 609.3642, subd. 1(2)(e) (1984), and was subsequently convicted of first- and second-degree murder, id. §§ 609.185(2), 609.19(1). Rairdon now seeks postconviction relief in two forms: reversal of his murder convictions and remand for a new trial, and reduction of his intrafamilial sexual abuse sentences. He argues that his murder convictions were tainted by prosecutorial misconduct and by exclusion of evidence that he believes linked his stepson to the crime. Rairdon also asserts that the circumstances of his sexual misconduct were not so severe as to justify durational departures and consecutive sentencing. The postconviction court denied Rairdon's petition, concluding that any prosecutorial misconduct--which was largely not the subject of objection at trial--was harmless, that the evidence regarding Rairdon's stepson lacked foundation, and that the trial court's stated grounds for departure were sufficient. The postconviction court noted further that Rairdon's nine-year delay in seeking relief weighed against him. We affirm.
According to the testimony at trial, John Rairdon routinely and habitually sexually abused his daughter, Sarah, once or twice a month from the time she was 6 or 8 years old until shortly before her death at age 13. The sexual abuse mostly involved masturbation of Rairdon by Sarah, but also included vaginal penetration, cunnilingus, and fellatio. Two months before her death, Sarah told her father that she did not want to have sex with him anymore. Their sexual relations ceased, despite Rairdon's continued advances. On May 19, 1985, Rairdon again attempted to convince Sarah to have sex with him, but she refused. The next day, Sarah disappeared.
Sarah was last seen on May 20 near Underwood 1 at about 6:15 p.m., walking east on County Road 122 toward her home, about 4 miles away. Sarah apparently stayed after school, but she declined a ride home because she thought her father would pick her up. Rairdon was employed as a farm tire repairman and he was fixing a tractor tire in a field one and one-half miles south of Underwood until 6:30 p.m., or perhaps later. Rairdon checked out at his place of work, approximately 20 minutes away from the field, at about 7:30 p.m.
Sarah had not returned to her home by 8:00 p.m. when Rairdon arrived home. Marilyn Rairdon (Sarah's stepmother), her daughter Julie, and her 16-year-old son, Jeff Barry, eventually left home to search for Sarah at school, arriving there around 10:00 p.m. Rairdon stayed behind, but then left shortly after Marilyn and returned home shortly after she did. A community effort to find Sarah was organized, in which Rairdon publicly participated.
Sarah's body was found seven weeks later over 20 miles from Fergus Falls on the bank of a dry creek bed where it apparently had been washed from a culvert. The body was mostly decomposed, although a circular hole in the leathered skin of the abdomen was visible, as was a small hole in the front of Sarah's shirt.
Although suspicion originally involved Jeff Barry, Rairdon's stepson, by early August, after police learned that Rairdon had been sexually abusing Sarah, the investigation began to focus on him. He initially admitted to the abuse, but denied killing Sarah; he also said that he could not remember events at the time of her death. In the following days, in a series of interviews with law enforcement and medical personnel, Rairdon said that:
* it was possible that he had killed her;
* that some reflectors near the site of the discovery of the body made him uneasy;
* that if he had killed her, he would have picked her up, tried something, killed her and then disposed of her body when his wife went to look for her;
* that he could have killed Sarah, but he was not sure;
* that a vacant white farmhouse had something to do with the events of the day on which she disappeared;
* that he remembered driving in the area where she would have been walking home from school;
* that he did not kill her, but that his wife and stepson may have helped him dispose of the body;
* that he killed her and that a tire awl in his truck might have blood on it.
On August 14, 1985, a criminal complaint was prepared charging Rairdon with murder and intrafamilial sexual abuse. 2 The complaint stated that Rairdon picked up his daughter on May 20 and killed her. Rairdon was given the complaint in his jail cell, and he indicated that it was true to his knowledge. Rairdon also said that he no longer thought that Marilyn or Jeff were involved. 3
Rairdon's motion for a change of venue was granted on November 1, and the trial was moved to Washington County. Rairdon then pleaded guilty to first- and second-degree intrafamilial sexual abuse on January 27, 1986, and Rairdon's murder trial began the next day.
The state's theory was that Rairdon had picked Sarah up in his truck, taken her to a deserted farmhouse nearby, murdered her, and then returned later in the evening to dispose of her body. The state relied heavily on Rairdon's prior statements to prove that he killed Sarah in a rage of sexual frustration. The state also called two expert forensic witnesses, who testified as to the possible cause of death and the relationship between the hole in Sarah's abdomen and the size of an awl found in Rairdon's tool box. Medical personnel who had interviewed Rairdon before his arrest testified that Rairdon's memory lapses seemed selective and more voluntary than involuntary. Another witness testified that she had seen a Midland Co-op farm tire service truck in the vicinity of a vacant white farmhouse near County Road 122 sometime between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m. on May 20, 1985. 4
The defense offered alternative theories. A medical examiner testified that holes in Sarah's body were consistent with decomposition, that the hole in Sarah's abdomen was too far lateral to indicate that a major blood vessel was ruptured by a weapon, and that the physical evidence seemed inconclusive regarding the cause of death. A psychiatrist and a psychologist testified that they had not seen evidence that Rairdon was feigning memory loss during psychological examinations.
John Rairdon testified in his own defense, claiming that he could not remember what he did on May 20 between leaving the tire repair job and arriving at his employer's shop in Fergus Falls. Rairdon explained that even though he could not remember killing Sarah, he considered the possibility that he had committed the crime due to police suggestions, his trust in the police officers, and his guilt over the sexual abuse. He claimed that during the investigation he became convinced that he was the killer and created a story that satisfied the officers' demands, but that he later decided he could not plead guilty because he could not remember. He did admit that he had sexually abused Sarah for a period of five years and that, in the months before her death, she had begun to refuse his sexual advances.
After two weeks of testimony, the jury found Rairdon guilty of both murder charges. The court imposed a mandatory life sentence for first-degree murder, a 90-month consecutive sentence for first-degree intrafamilial sexual abuse, and a 50-month consecutive sentence for second-degree intrafamilial sexual abuse.
Rairdon filed a notice of appeal in the court of appeals in June of 1986, but on July 7, 1986, Rairdon's counsel signed a stipulation with the state to dismiss the appeal. The stipulation was filed on July 9, and the court of appeals dismissed the appeal. On April 3, 1995, nine years after his conviction, Rairdon petitioned for postconviction relief. The postconviction court denied Rairdon's petition and the notice of appeal was ultimately transferred to this court.
Our review is limited to an examination of whether there is sufficient evidence in the record to sustain the postconviction court's findings. The postconviction court's decision will not be disturbed absent an abuse of discretion. Scruggs v. State, 484 N.W.2d 21, 25 (Minn.1992). In the postconviction court, Rairdon had the burden of proving the facts alleged in his petition by a fair preponderance of the evidence. See Minn.Stat. § 590.04, subd. 3 (1994).
As an initial matter, we are asked to consider whether Rairdon has waived his right to...
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