State v. Blanche

• Decision Date: 26 May 2005
• Docket Number: No. A03-826.,A03-826.
• Citation: 696 N.W.2d 351
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Kawaskii BLANCHE, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

696 N.W.2d 351

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Kawaskii BLANCHE, Appellant.

No. A03-826.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

May 26, 2005.

Earl P. Gray, Mark D. Nyvold, St. Paul, MN, for Appellant.

Michael A. Hatch, State Attorney General, St. Paul, MN, Amy Klobuchar, David C. Brown, Hennepin County Attorney, Minneapolis, MN, for Respondent.

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

OPINION

ANDERSON, Paul H., Justice.

In 1999, appellant Kawaskii Blanche was convicted and sentenced in Hennepin County District Court for premeditated first-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of 11-year-old Byron Phillips. Blanche was also convicted and sentenced for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and a crime committed for the benefit of a gang. Blanche did not file a direct appeal, but more than three years after his conviction, he filed a petition for postconviction relief alleging numerous errors by the district court. He specifically alleged racial discrimination because the state used a peremptory challenge to strike a veniremember who appeared to be "Hispanic"; Confrontation Clause violations through the admission of statements by his codefendant in their joint trial; improper joinder of his trial with the trial of his codefendant; prosecutorial misconduct; ineffective assistance of counsel; and erroneous sentencing. The postconviction court denied Blanche's petition for relief. We affirm.

The Underlying Facts

At around 6:15 p.m. on June 2, 1996, 11-year-old Byron Phillips was playing with his cousin and a friend on the front porch of the friend's North Minneapolis home. While Phillips was playing, a bullet fired from a passing car hit him in the chest. Phillips died at the scene as a result of the shooting.

Phillips' cousin and friend both stated that the passing car was driven by an African American male, who appeared to be in his teens and who wore a baseball type cap. The cousin and the friend disagreed on other details about the driver and they could not remember how many other people may have been in the car. The cousin testified that the car was a full-size blue car with rust spots, but the friend testified that he had seen a full-size red car with rust spots. Neither of the boys was ever asked to identify any individuals or cars in a photographic line-up.

The police recovered ten 9-mm shell casings on a street just west of Phillips' home and some bullet fragments in the surrounding area. Bullets had hit nearby bushes and had gone through the wall of a garage. Forensic evidence showed that seven of the ten shell casings found at the scene had been fired from the same gun and matched shell casings found at the scenes of three recent shootings that had occurred in Minneapolis and Saint Paul on May 17, May 31, and June 1. Witness testimony indicated that these shootings were the result of a feud between two rival gangs: the "Bogus Boyz" and the "Shortys Taking Over" ("S.T.O.").

On May 17 in Saint Paul, Caylon Williams, a member of the Bogus Boyz, shot Richard Smaller. S.T.O. member Corey Scott shot Bogus Boyz member Robert Williams on May 31 in Minneapolis, but did not cause him serious injury. Robert Williams testified that he fired back at Scott with a gray 9-mm Smith & Wesson semi-automatic handgun that he had found in Caylon Williams' car. Robert Williams was admitted to the hospital with wounds to his face and right arm, and was released the next day. On June 1 in Minneapolis, Caylon Williams, while armed with the same gray 9-mm Smith & Wesson used by Robert Williams, was shot and seriously wounded by Scott. Blanche had been a passenger in Caylon Williams' car. When Caylon Williams was shot, Blanche took over as driver and drove Caylon Williams to the hospital. Robert Williams testified that later that same day, he, Blanche, and some others discussed killing Scott in retaliation for the shooting of Caylon Williams.

Around noon on June 2, Blanche, Montay Bernard, David Allen, and Robert Williams set out to visit Caylon Williams in the hospital. They were driving there in a maroon Nissan Maxima owned by Bernard's mother. Before going to the hospital, Blanche wanted to drive through a part of North Minneapolis near where Scott lived. As they drove through this neighborhood, the four spotted Scott walking down the sidewalk. Williams and Allen got out of the car in an attempt to go after Scott, but they were stopped by police officers responding to a call that there was a man in the area with a gun. The officers arrested Williams and charged him with being a felon in possession of a handgun. Allen was detained, but was released a short time later that day. Blanche and Bernard drove off when Williams and Allen were detained. Later that day, at approximately 6:15 p.m., Phillips was shot and killed.

The police investigation of Phillips' shooting led them to interview Blanche, but he was not charged at that time. The police had several leads, including the shell casings from the gang-related shootings, but the investigation stalled, and no one was charged with Phillips' murder.

More than a year after the shooting, in July 1997, a woman named Vanessa Gaines came forward with information about Phillips' shooting. Gaines had seen a billboard near her house with a picture of Phillips and a message which read: "You know who killed me. Why won't you help?" Gaines called the police, but hung up the first two times that she called. She testified that she eventually told the police that sometime between 6:00 and 9:00 p.m. on June 2, 1996, she saw her nephew Duan Gaines at her home, talking to Blanche and Bernard. She had not known Bernard's name on June 2, but she identified him at trial. She had recognized Blanche on June 2 because he would hang out with her nephew.

Gaines testified that she overheard the three men talking. She heard Blanche mention a shootout in North Minneapolis with S.T.O. gang members and state his belief that a little boy had been hit with a bullet because he saw the boy fall to the ground. She also saw that Blanche was carrying an automatic handgun. Later that same evening, she saw on the news that a little boy had been killed in a North Minneapolis shootout. At trial, Gaines admitted that she has several criminal convictions and had received reward money for the information that she provided, but she denied that the reward was the reason for her testimony.

In August 1997, Robert Williams told Minneapolis Police Detective David Zimmer that he knew something about the Phillips shooting. Robert Williams, who was incarcerated when he spoke to Zimmer, initially did not talk about Blanche's involvement in the shooting when he first spoke to Zimmer in June 1997. Later, Robert Williams contacted Zimmer through his friend, Caylon Williams, and requested that Zimmer come to see him. Robert Williams then implicated Blanche and Bernard in Phillips' murder, telling Zimmer that Blanche had said that he and a friend were "rolling over north [Minneapolis]" and bumped into Scott. According to Robert Williams, Blanche said that he only drove the car, that his friends started shooting at Scott, and that this was the incident where Phillips was killed. In return for his testimony, the state granted Williams immunity from being prosecuted for the Phillips shooting and the conspiracy to kill Scott.

After receiving the information from Vanessa Gaines and Robert Williams, the police arrested Blanche and Bernard for Phillips' murder. Both Blanche and Bernard were charged with first-degree murder under Minn.Stat. § 609.185(1) (2004), second-degree murder (drive-by shooting) under Minn.Stat. § 609.19, subd. 1(2) (2004), conspiracy to commit murder (Corey Scott) under Minn.Stat. § 609.175, subd. 2(2) (2004), and crime committed for the benefit of a gang under Minn.Stat. § 609.229, subd. 2 (2004). Allen was also arrested, but he was charged only with conspiracy to commit murder under Minn. Stat. § 609.175, subd. 2(2). On June 30, 1998, a grand jury indicted all three for the foregoing charges. The state then moved to join the trials of Blanche, Bernard, and Allen under Minn. R.Crim. P. 17.03 and Minn.Stat. § 631.035 (2004). Blanche, Bernard, and Allen each opposed a joint trial. The district court granted the state's motion to join the trials of Blanche and Bernard, but denied the state's request to join Allen's trial. Blanche and Bernard were tried together in March 1999.

Batson Motion

During jury selection, the state exercised a peremptory challenge against veniremember # 4. Noting that the veniremember appeared to be Hispanic and was the first member of a racial minority questioned, Bernard's counsel raised a Batson challenge, which Blanche's counsel joined. Defense counsel asserted that the state's exercise of the peremptory challenge was racially discriminatory.

The state justified its use of a peremptory challenge by arguing that veniremember # 4 was "evasive or unresponsive in a way which caused [the state] concern about [the veniremember's] attentiveness to some of the questions." The state also argued that the veniremember did not give direct or logical explanations about how he assessed credibility, and that the veniremember was "laboring over responses," causing the state concern about the veniremember's capacity to make credibility assessments. Defense counsel argued that the veniremember's service on two previous juries, including one the previous week, indicated that two other prosecutors had found that the veniremember had the capacity to make appropriate decisions.

The state countered that its concerns over the veniremember's capacity to make credibility assessments were race neutral. The state also argued that previously sitting on a jury does not mean that the prosecutors in those cases approved of this veniremember. Moreover, the state suspected that, when the veniremember served as a juror in a case the previous week, he and the jury had not appropriately...