State v. Edmondson
| Decision Date | 07 December 2015 |
| Docket Number | A14-2166 |
| Parties | State of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Alexander Kenton Edmondson, Appellant. |
| Court | Minnesota Court of Appeals |
This opinion will be unpublished and may not be cited except as provided by Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2014).
Affirmed
Hennepin County District Court
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and
Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Jean E. Burdorf, Assistant County Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)
Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Steven P. Russett, Assistant Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)
Considered and decided by Schellhas, Presiding Judge; Rodenberg, Judge; and Reilly, Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
Appellant Alexander Kenton Edmondson challenges his conviction of first-degree burglary (assault), arguing that the district court's jury instructions (1) omitted an element of the crime; (2) erroneously defined "assault;" and (3) violated appellant's right to a unanimous verdict. We affirm.
Appellant appeals his conviction of assaulting his ex-girlfriend, S.M., inside her mother's apartment. S.M. lived with her mother in the upper-floor apartment of a triplex apartment building. The apartment building also contains a main-floor apartment and a basement unit. For approximately one year, appellant and S.M. lived with S.M.'s mother in the upper-floor apartment. The couple later moved into the basement unit for six months. Appellant and S.M. broke up a few months prior to the incident, but appellant continued to live in the basement unit.
On May 24-25, 2014, appellant and S.M. were involved in three separate domestic disputes at the residence and police officers were called on each occasion. The first incident happened at approximately 8:45 p.m., when a neighbor heard appellant and S.M. arguing and fighting outside, and called the police. The police arrived and questioned both S.M. and appellant. S.M. told the police officers she did not need police protection and the officers left. S.M. drove appellant to his mother's home.
Appellant returned to the apartment building later that night. At approximately 11:30 p.m., the neighbors on the main level of the apartment building heard appellant and S.M. fighting in the back hallway. S.M. was screaming and "telling [appellant] 'you got to get out of here.'" The neighbor opened her apartment door and saw that appellant "had [S.M.] by the hair and she was crying." The neighbor initially attempted to intervene, but appellant and S.M. went upstairs. S.M. later called the police whenappellant "didn't calm down." Appellant left the apartment and ran down an alley when the police officers arrived. S.M. returned to her mother's upstairs apartment, locked the door, and fell asleep.
An hour later, S.M. awoke and heard appellant banging on the apartment door. S.M. was nervous and scared because she did not want appellant in her mother's apartment. S.M.'s mother was out of town for the weekend and appellant did not have permission to be in the apartment when she was away. Appellant entered the apartment without permission, prompting S.M. to run into the bathroom, lock the bathroom door, and call the police. Appellant stopped banging on the door and S.M., believing that appellant had left the apartment, came out of the bathroom. Appellant was standing by the door in the back hallway. He began chasing S.M. and grabbed her by her wrists and her arms. S.M. ran down the stairs from her apartment toward the main floor. S.M. banged on her neighbor's door and yelled that appellant "broke into [her] mom's house." The neighbor let S.M. inside her apartment and described S.M. as "crying and hysterical."
Minneapolis police officers arrived within five minutes of the emergency call. A police officer observed that S.M. had "marks on her neck that looked a lot like finger marks," as well as fresh bruise marks and scratches on her arm. The police officers determined that appellant assaulted S.M. and placed him under arrest. The state charged appellant with one count of felony burglary in the first degree in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.582, subd. 1(c) (2014). A jury trial was held and the jury returned a guilty verdict.The district court committed him to the commissioner of corrections at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in St. Cloud for a period of 36 months. This appeal followed.
Appellant raises three issues on appeal. First, appellant argues the district court erred in instructing the jury on the elements of first-degree burglary. Next, appellant claims the district court erred in its instruction on the definition of assault. Lastly, appellant contends the district court erred in its jury-unanimity instruction. We address each argument in turn.
Appellant claims the district court committed reversible error by failing to provide a specific jury instruction on the elements of first-degree burglary (assault). The parties disagree on the proper standard of review on appeal. Appellant claims he properly objected to the instruction at trial and argues the harmless-error standard applies while the state argues appellant did not object and the plain-error analysis applies. We determine appellant objected to the jury instruction during the pre-instruction conference, and therefore conclude that the harmless-error standard applies.
"[W]hen a defendant timely objects to a jury instruction, we apply the harmless-error analysis to determine whether the error requires reversal." State v. Watkins, 840 N.W.2d 21, 27 n.3 (Minn. 2013); State v. Lee, 683 N.W.2d 309, 316 (Minn. 2004). "A jury instruction is erroneous if it materially misstates the applicable law." State v. Koppi, 798 N.W.2d 358, 362 (Minn. 2011). "[W]hen an erroneous jury instruction eliminates a required element of the crime this type of error is not harmless beyond a reasonabledoubt." State v. Hall, 722 N.W.2d 472, 479 (Minn. 2006). Appellant bears the burden of showing the error and any resulting prejudice. State v. Kuhnau, 622 N.W.2d 552, 556 (Minn. 2001).
We first address whether the district court erred in its instruction to the jury on the first-degree felony burglary (assault) charge. The state charged appellant under subdivision 1(c), which provides that:
Whoever enters a building without consent and with intent to commit a crime, or enters a building without consent and commits a crime while in the building . . . commits burglary in the first degree . . . if . . . the burglar assaults a person within the building or on the building's appurtenant property.
Minn. Stat. § 609.582, subd. 1(c).
Appellant claims the statute creates a temporal element requiring the state to prove that appellant either intended to commit a crime when he entered the building or committed a crime "while in the building." Appellant argues subdivision 1(c) also creates a location element requiring the state to prove that appellant committed a crime while in the building and, in addition, assaulted a person "within the building or on the building's appurtenant property." Appellant claims the district court's jury instruction required the jury to find the location element but "completely omitted the temporal element." We disagree, and determine that no error occurred.
In a harmless-error analysis, the reviewing court reviews jury instructions in their entirety "to determine if they fairly and accurately reflect the law of the case." State v. Johnson, 699 N.W.2d 335, 339 (Minn. App. 2005). The district court followed thepattern jury instruction for first-degree burglary and instructed the jury, in relevant part, that:
See 10A Minnesota Practice, CRIMJIG 17.04 ().
Here, the district court instructed the jury that it "must consider these instructions as a whole and regard each instruction in light of all the others." The jury heard testimony that police officers were called to the residence on three separate occasions. S.M. testified she did not want appellant in her mother's apartment. During the third incident, appellant walked into S.M.'s mother's upstairs apartment without permission. S.M. locked herself in the bathroom and begged appellant to leave. When S.M. left thebathroom, appellant chased her and grabbed her wrists and her arms. From this evidence, the jury could reasonably conclude that appellant entered the building without consent and assaulted S.M. within the building. The law requires only that "the charge as a whole convey to the jury a clear and correct understanding of the law of the case." Johnson, 699 N.W.2d at 339 (quoting Barnes v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 233 Minn. 410, 421, 47 N.W.2d 180, 187 (1951)). We hold that the district court's jury instruction conveyed a "clear and correct understanding" of the law and was not erroneous. Id.
Appellant also argues the district court failed to distinguish between an assault committed inside S.M.'s apartment unit and an assault committed in the apartment-building's common stairway. Appellant claims that because he was not barred from the common areas of the apartment...
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