State v. Fardan

• Citation: 773 N.W.2d 303
• Decision Date: 22 October 2009
• Docket Number: No. A08-1425.,A08-1425.
• Parties: STATE of MINNESOTA, Respondent, v. Amani Jamalludin FARDAN, Appellant.
• Court: Supreme Court of Minnesota (US)

773 N.W.2d 303

STATE of MINNESOTA, Respondent, v. Amani Jamalludin FARDAN, Appellant.

No. A08-1425.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

October 22, 2009.

Steven P. Russett, Assistant Public Defender, St. Paul, MN, for appellant.

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, MN, Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Thomas A. Weist, Assistant County Attorney, Minneapolis, MN, for respondent.

OPINION

GILDEA, Justice.

Following a jury trial in Hennepin County District Court, appellant Amani Jamalludin Fardan was convicted of first-degree felony murder, second-degree felony murder, and first-degree aggravated robbery in connection with the death of Bernard Brown. Fardan was sentenced to life in prison. Fardan filed a direct appeal to this court, arguing that the district court erred by (1) admitting a statement made by Fardan in violation of his Miranda rights; (2) admitting Spreigl evidence; and (3) sentencing Fardan to a consecutive life sentence rather than a concurrent sentence. Fardan also argues that there was insufficient evidence to support his first-degree felony murder conviction. Lastly, Fardan asks that if we affirm his first-degree murder conviction, we vacate his other convictions. We affirm Fardan's first-degree felony murder conviction and modify his convictions by vacating the second-degree murder and first-degree aggravated robbery convictions involving Brown.

A. The Crime and Investigation

Sometime after 2 a.m. on October 10, 2005, at the corner of Broadway and Emerson in Minneapolis, a passerby heard a shout for help. The passerby found Bernard Brown lying on the ground. Brown said he had been shot; the passerby ran to a nearby pay phone and called the police. When police arrived, Brown was alive but nonresponsive. He died shortly thereafter from a gunshot wound to his abdomen.

Police found that Brown had a cell phone holder clipped to his belt and an earphone piece, but no cell phone. Based on telephone calls made from Brown's phone after his death, police identified 15-year-old Fardan as a suspect, along with Micah Brewer and Randall Graves. Two brothers, Joshua and Jeremy Jackson, were also arrested in connection with the crime, as was a man named Wanblee Jourdain.¹

The Jackson brothers both testified that they, Fardan, Brewer, and Jourdain gathered at Graves' house the evening of October 9, 2005, and discussed committing a robbery. In the early morning hours of October 10, the group drove around in three separate stolen vehicles looking for someone to rob. Jeremy drove a stolen gray Suburban and Brewer, Graves, and Fardan were passengers. Joshua followed driving a stolen white Buick. Jourdain followed in a stolen van. When they reached Emerson and Broadway, Jeremy parked the Suburban and Joshua parked behind him. Jourdain parked around the block.

Joshua testified that he saw Fardan and Brewer get out of the Suburban just as Brown was coming down the street. Joshua said that Fardan was carrying a small rifle, while Brewer had a baseball bat. Both had bandanas across their faces. Joshua said that, although he could not hear Fardan or Brewer, he heard Brown say "I ain't got nothing" as he threw a CD case to the ground and raised his arms. Fardan was standing about three to five feet away from Brown, pointing the rifle at Brown. Although Joshua was looking behind him when he heard a gunshot, he turned around to see Brown fall to the ground. Joshua saw Brewer pick up the CD case, but did not see anything else taken from Brown.

Jeremy testified that Graves got out of the car in addition to Brewer and Fardan. Jeremy heard Brown screaming "help," but did not hear a gunshot because the radio was on. But Jeremy said he saw Fardan shoot Brown, and saw Brown fall to the ground. Jeremy said he saw one of the boys take both the CD case and a cell phone from Brown.² After everyone returned to the Suburban, Jeremy and Joshua drove their respective stolen vehicles to where Jourdain had parked. Fardan, Brewer, and Graves then got in the stolen van with Jourdain. The Jacksons went home.

B. Fardan's Arrest and Statement

Police arrested Fardan at a friend's house on the night of October 14, 2005. Plain-clothes officers handcuffed him and placed him in an unmarked police car. Fardan's father, Suluki Fardan, arrived at the friend's house and briefly spoke to Fardan after Fardan was placed in the police car. Fardan was taken to Minneapolis City Hall, where he again saw his father on his way to an interrogation room. His father waited in the hallway for a couple of hours, until officers told him he might as well go home because Fardan was not going anywhere. Fardan testified at a pretrial hearing that before going inside City Hall, he had asked the arresting officers if his father could be present. Fardan was told that "he would be."

A videotape shows that Fardan was brought into the interrogation room at a little before 1:30 a.m., where he was alone for 1 hour and 53 minutes. During that time, Fardan was sleeping or resting; he also stood up, apparently in an effort to try to stay awake. The interrogation began around 3:25 a.m., and lasted approximately 52 minutes.

Two investigators came in to question Fardan. The investigators were not aware that Fardan's father was at the station and wanted to be present at the interview. Usually arresting officers will communicate such information to the interrogating officers, but that night the investigators and arresting officers never spoke, and no record exists of who the arresting officers were. Fardan did not request his father's presence during the interview, although he asked the interrogating officers at the very end of the interview if he could see his father "real quick." Fardan testified that he did not ask for his father during the interrogation because he had already asked for him and "was expecting [his father] to be there."

The investigators first took a DNA swab from Fardan. The officers told Fardan they were investigating events from October 10, 2005, and that they had already talked to many people about that night. One of the investigators then administered a Miranda warning. The investigator broke down the warning and specifically asked if Fardan understood each component. The investigators, however, did not tell Fardan that his statements could be used against him in adult court. Fardan indicated that he understood each component of the Miranda warning, and told the investigators they could ask him questions. The record reflects that Fardan had been read his Miranda rights once before, about three years before the night of the interrogation.

During the interrogation, Fardan admitted that he shot Brown, but said, "I didn't even want to." The investigator asked: "Any sense of remorse or do you just think it was an accident?" Fardan answered, "It was an accident." Fardan explained that "I was scaring him, the trigger kinda slipped." When asked what Fardan did to help Brown, Fardan said, "I prayed for him. That's all I could do."

Fardan also told the police that the gun that shot Brown was at Kyle Fairbank's house — Graves' cousin. Police contacted Fairbanks, who said that he had received the gun, wrapped in a jacket, from Fardan. Fairbanks said that he unwrapped and touched the gun after receiving it. Fairbanks had put the gun in a cousin's closet, where police found it.

The recovered gun was a .22 semi-automatic rifle. There were two latent fingerprints and a palm print on the gun; all of these prints belonged to Fairbanks. The butt stock of the rifle had been sawed off or broken off and black electrical tape had been wrapped around it. Evidence showed, however, that the electrical tape had not affected the function of the rifle; the firing mechanism was within the normal range, with a trigger pull that needed the normal amount of pressure to fire. The bullet recovered from Brown's body was not conclusively linked to the gun, although the bullet was consistent with a .22 bullet.

Fardan moved before and during trial to exclude his statement to police; the court denied both motions. The court, after examining the totality of the circumstances, found Fardan had made a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary waiver of his Miranda rights, and admitted his statement during trial. The statement came into evidence through the video tape police made while interrogating Fardan. The video of Fardan's interrogation was played twice for the jury.

C. Fardan's Trial and the Stipulation Evidence

On December 6, 2005, a Hennepin County grand jury indicted Fardan with one count of first-degree felony murder, Minn. Stat. § 609.185(a)(3) (2008); one count of second-degree felony murder, Minn.Stat. § 609.19, subd. 2(1) (2008); and one count of first-degree aggravated robbery, Minn. Stat. § 609.245, subd. 1 (2008), in connection with Brown's death. Fardan was also indicted with 15 other crimes committed against other victims later on the night of Brown's death. On January 26, 2006, the district court certified Fardan to be tried as an adult.

In a pretrial motion, Fardan asked to sever the three counts surrounding Brown's death from the other counts; the court granted the motion and severed the trial into two parts, with the trial for Brown's murder to be tried second. On October 3, 2007, in his first trial, a Hennepin County jury found Fardan guilty of 13 crimes and not guilty of 3 crimes. The district court convicted Fardan according to the jury's guilty verdicts and imposed a 486-month sentence, which the court of appeals upheld.³ State v. Fardan, No A08-0364, 2009 WL 1851404, at *11 (Minn. App. June 30, 2009), review granted and stayed (Minn. Sept. 16, 2009).

Fardan's murder trial began on May 5, 2008. The State moved to admit evidence of other offenses Fardan committed the night of Brown's murder to show intent to kill and the absence of accident. Over defense objection, the court admitted the evidence. After the court decided to admit the evidence, the...