State v. Lampkin

• Decision Date: 25 July 2022
• Docket Number: A20-0361
• Citation: 978 N.W.2d 286
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Rarity Shemeire Abdul LAMPKIN, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Court of Appeals

978 N.W.2d 286

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent,
v.
Rarity Shemeire Abdul LAMPKIN, Appellant.

A20-0361

Court of Appeals of Minnesota.

Filed July 25, 2022

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and Kathryn M. Keena, Dakota County Attorney, Heather Pipenhagen, Assistant County Attorney, Hastings, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Michael McLaughlin, Assistant Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Johnson, Presiding Judge; Worke, Judge; and Ross, Judge.

ROSS, Judge

Rarity Lampkin responded to his girlfriend's attempt to physically prevent him from leaving their shared apartment building by pulling her from the exit door and causing her to fall. The jury found Lampkin guilty of domestic assault, rejecting his self-defense claim. Lampkin appeals from his conviction, arguing that the state failed to prove all the elements of the assault charge and that the district court incorrectly instructed the jury on self-defense. We hold that the evidence supports the assault elements. But we also hold that the district court erroneously instructed the jury that Lampkin could use reasonable force to "resist an assault against the person" because the law of self-defense justifies a person to use force more broadly to resist any "offense against the person" and the facts could support Lampkin's contention that he used reasonable force to resist his girlfriend's unlawful attempt to detain him—arguably false imprisonment. We nevertheless affirm Lampkin's conviction

978 N.W.2d 289

because the error was not plain in light of caselaw.

FACTS

Rarity Lampkin lived in an Inver Grove Heights apartment with his pregnant girlfriend, whom we will call Jane for her privacy. Jane was eight months’ pregnant in October 2018, when the two argued. Lampkin left the apartment but returned the next morning to collect his safe. Fearing that Lampkin would never return if he left with the safe, Jane physically prevented him from leaving. The confrontation escalated and Jane's 12-year-old daughter dialed 9-1-1 to report, "My dad is fighting my mom .... He came here to get his safe and then they just started, like, fighting." Lampkin forced his way out of their third-floor apartment, and Jane followed him down the stairs to the building's exit door.

A surveillance camera captured the struggle on video beginning when the couple approached the exit door. It depicts Jane physically preventing Lampkin from leaving. It shows her pulling at him, pushing him, and using her body to block him from getting out the door with the safe. Jane finally grabbed the door's crossbar, pulling it to keep the door closed and latched while she maintained her blocking position between the door and Lampkin, who was behind her and still struggling to get out.

The video then shows the moment that became the primary focus of the trial. Lampkin took hold of Jane's shoulders from behind and pulled her backwards, wresting her hands from the crossbar and causing her to fall to the floor. Lampkin picked up the safe and left the building.

Inver Grove Heights police officers arrived, and paramedics took Jane to the hospital. She told one officer that "she had been pushed down by her boyfriend." She told her physician that Lampkin pushed her down twice, once in the apartment and once at the door. Neither Jane nor her unborn child suffered significant injury. The state charged Lampkin with domestic assault under Minnesota Statutes section 609.2242, subdivision 1(2) (2018), which was a felony because he had been previously convicted of domestic assault. Minn. Stat. § 609.2242, subd. 4 (2018).

At trial Jane took "all responsibility for what happened to [her] child's father." Despite her earlier statements that Lampkin pushed her to the floor, she testified that her fall was an accident. She said that she hit Lampkin first, trying to keep him from leaving, and that Lampkin did not fight back but was just "trying to ... run out the door" with the safe. She told the jury that she was hanging onto the crossbar of the door to keep Lampkin from opening it when she "just went down."

The district court instructed the jury on self-defense, defining the term to mean "that the person used reasonable force ... to resist an assault against the person ...." The jury rejected Lampkin's self-defense argument and found him guilty. The district court convicted Lampkin and sentenced him to 21 months in prison.

Lampkin appeals.

ISSUES

I. Is the evidence sufficient to prove Lampkin's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?

II. Did the district court plainly err by incorrectly instructing the jury on self-defense?

ANALYSIS

Lampkin asks us to reverse his assault conviction. He argues first that the state offered insufficient evidence to prove his guilt. He argues second that the district

978 N.W.2d 290

court incorrectly instructed the jury on self-defense. For the following reasons, we hold that the evidence was sufficient to prove his guilt but that the district court erroneously instructed the jury. The improper instruction was not a plain error, however, and so we will not reverse Lampkin's conviction.

I

We first address Lampkin's assertion that the state failed to prove his guilt. We consider claims of insufficient evidence by reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the guilty verdict. State v. Hayes , 831 N.W.2d 546, 552 (Minn. 2013). We review evidence supporting the verdict to decide whether a reasonable jury could conclude that the evidence establishes the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt as to each element of the offense. State v. Hokanson , 821 N.W.2d 340, 353 (Minn. 2012). Lampkin focuses only on the mental-state element of his domestic-assault conviction. To prove that Lampkin committed domestic assault, the state had to prove that Lampkin "intentionally inflict[ed] or attempt[ed] to inflict bodily harm" on Jane. Minn. Stat. § 609.2242, subd. 1(2). Intent is almost always proved by circumstantial rather than direct evidence. State v. McAllister , 862 N.W.2d 49, 53 (Minn. 2015). And we review circumstantial evidence in a two-step inquiry: we first identify the circumstances proved, assuming the jury believed the inculpatory evidence and disbelieved any exculpatory evidence; and second, we determine whether the rational inferences from those circumstances are consistent only with guilt. Hayes , 831 N.W.2d at 552–53. The evidence of Lampkin's mental state meets that standard.

The evidence sufficiently supports the jury's finding that Lampkin intended the act that caused bodily harm. The intent element of the statute requires that the state prove that Lampkin did not act accidentally or involuntarily. State v. Dorn , 887 N.W.2d 826, 830–31 (Minn. 2016) ; State v. Fleck , 810 N.W.2d 303, 309–10 (Minn. 2012). Two witnesses testified that Jane reported soon after the incident that Lampkin pushed her down. Although Lampkin's argument focuses on the part of the incident captured in the video recording, the jury also received evidence that Lampkin pushed Jane to the floor inside their apartment. Jurors observed both Lampkin and Jane during the trial and were free to draw inferences of intent from Jane's daughter's contemporaneous description of the event in her emergency call to police...