State v. Manthey

• Decision Date: 30 March 2006
• Docket Number: No. A04-2468.
• Citation: 711 N.W.2d 498
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Ardelle Hope MANTHEY, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

711 N.W.2d 498

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v.Ardelle Hope MANTHEY, Appellant.

No. A04-2468.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

March 30, 2006.

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Mark D. Nyvold, St. Paul, MN, for Appellant.

Mike Hatch, Attorney General, Thomas Ragatz, Asst. Attorney General, St. Paul, MN, Thomas Murtha, Aitkin County Attorney, Aitkin, MN, for Respondent.

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

OPINION

MEYER, Justice.

Ardelle Hope Manthey was found guilty by an Aitkin County jury of first-degree premeditated murder of her husband and sentenced to life in prison.On direct appeal, Manthey asks for a new trial, arguing that she was denied her constitutional rights to due process and a fair trial by the admission of hearsay and other prejudicial evidence.She also asserts that the district court erroneously denied her motions for a mistrial based on jury knowledge of her custody status.Finally, she argues that the district court violated her right to be present at all stages of trial when the court discussed with counsel and answered a question from the jury during deliberations.We affirm Manthey's conviction because we conclude there was no plain error in the admission of unobjected-to testimony, no abuse of discretion in the court's decision to give a curative instruction instead of granting a mistrial, and no clear error in the court's post-trial finding that Manthey was present in the courtroom when the court answered a question from the jury.

Francis Manthey was shot and killed in the early morning hours of March 5, 2003, in a basement bedroom of his home in Hill City, Minnesota.The time of death was estimated by the assistant Aitkin County medical examiner to be around 3 a.m.He was shot at close range in the back of the head and upper arm with a handgun he owned and kept loaded at his bedside.No fingerprints were recovered from the gun and DNA testing showed only the presence of Francis' DNA on the gun.

The investigation into his murder proceeded for more than a year before the state charged Francis' wife, Ardelle Hope Manthey, with first-degree premeditated murder.The state's theory of the case was that Manthey was in debt because of her passion for gambling and the motive for taking her husband's life was to collect on a life insurance policy, Francis' retirement account, and sole title to the family home.

The state developed evidence of Manthey's gambling activities, introducing volumes of financial information, including ATM withdrawal records, bank account records, and casino activity logs.Manthey regularly gambled at casinos and cashed checks or used ATM's at casinos and elsewhere.Bank records showed that during the four years before Francis' murder, Manthey periodically cashed several checks a day at a casino.The state argued that the financial records show that Manthey was gambling far more than the one gambling event per week she admitted, and was spending far more than she was receiving in Social Security payments.

According to the state, Manthey had used her own retirement account to pay off creditors and was regularly paying overdraft and returned check fees.Manthey's bank cancelled her cash card in late 2002 for excessive withdrawals without sufficient funds.At the time of Francis' death, the Mantheys had three judgments against them for unpaid credit card debt.Francis had an IRA account, but Manthey did not have access to it when Francis was alive.

The state presented testimony that Manthey concealed her gambling losses from her husband.Manthey once took a trip to Las Vegas without Francis' knowledge.Lisa Casper, Manthey's daughter, testified that she knew her parents had financial problems, and that Manthey borrowed money from her and her siblings to gamble.Casper also testified that Manthey borrowed against the family home and concealed it from Francis.

Francis was 69 years old at the time of his death and had been married to Manthey for almost 52 years.An accidental death insurance policy named Manthey as beneficiary and included a provision that the face value would be reduced by half after Francis turned 70 in July 2003.The state argued that the timing of Francis' death in March 2003 was intended to maximize the payout on the insurance policy.

Manthey also was the beneficiary of Francis' retirement account and would receive more than $75,000 after his death.Manthey would also inherit the family home.Lisa Casper testified that Manthey took $300 out of sympathy cards she had received after Francis' death, but never bothered to read those cards.

After Francis' death in March 2003, Manthey paid off her credit-card debt, paid for a grandchild's school tuition, bought a gravestone for herself and Francis, bought a car, furnished a new apartment for herself, and paid her grandsons to help her move.Casino records showed an increase in Manthey's gambling activity immediately after Francis' death; Manthey explained that she gambled after Francis' death to "escape."Manthey's monthly Social Security checks increased after Francis' death from $614 to $975 (total Social Security income for the couple went down, though, from $1,469 to $975).

The state established through circumstantial evidence that Manthey had exclusive access to the house the night her husband was murdered.There were no indications of a break-in—the basement door had not been forced, the windows were untouched, the rooms were not ransacked, and none of the watches or guns that Francis collected were found to be missing.

Donald Larson, who delivered the newspaper to the Mantheys, testified that the morning of the murder when he went by the Manthey home at approximately 4:35 a.m., he saw a light on in both the basement and main floor, which was unusual.Manthey first called for help at approximately 7 a.m. when she telephoned her neighbors, George Casper and his mother.

When Casper arrived at the Manthey home after the murder, he checked on Francis in the basement bedroom and found him lying on the floor.He touched Francis' arm and noticed his body was cold.Casper then left the Manthey home through the main entry door and ran to the nearby home of Daniel Kingsley, a trained emergency responder.Casper returned to the Manthey home and Kingsley arrived minutes later.According to Kingsley, when he walked toward the Manthey residence the only tracks he saw in the snow were made by Casper when he walked to Kingsley's house and back to the Manthey house.Kingsley tried to enter the house through the basement door, but it was locked.

Casper unlocked the basement door for Kingsley.Kingsley examined the body and then made a phone call to the police.He and Casper then discovered Francis' wallet lying at the bottom of the basement stairs; Manthey said she had not seen it when she first went downstairs and discovered Francis.No cash was found in the wallet, though Manthey testified that she had cashed Francis' Social Security check two days before his death and had given him $600 in cash.

Other evidence indicated that almost 100 internet visits or searches related to the word "poison" had been conducted on the computer at the Manthey residence; records of some of the searches had been deleted.

Manthey testified in her own defense and denied having killed her husband.She theorized that Francis was killed by an intruder.She had placed a quilt over the grate between the first floor, where she slept, and the basement so that the lights on the first floor would not disturb Francis.On the morning of the murder, she went downstairs, straightened a blind on the basement door that was crooked, locked the door, picked up a flashlight that had fallen off a shelf, checked the corn stove heater, then noticed Francis' body, but did not touch him.She testified that she knew he was dead when she saw him lying next to his bed.She theorized that the killer was an intruder who needed money and used Francis' gun to kill him when he woke up.She explained that she had not heard the gunshots because the previous night she had taken two Percocet pain pills and, as a result, had experienced the best night's sleep she had in a while.A Bureau of Criminal Apprehension toxicology report confirmed that Manthey had taken Percocet on March 4-5, 2003.

Manthey knew that Francis kept a loaded gun at his bedside.Francis had shown her how to shoot the gun the summer before his death, though she testified that she had never actually fired it.Manthey claimed that she was not physically capable of shooting the murder weapon because she had chronic pain in her dominant right wrist and shoulder, and the gun was too heavy for her to lift.A surgeon who operated on her shoulder and another doctor who operated on her wrist/thumb in July 2003 testified that the surgeries were designed to relieve severe pain.

The defense produced evidence that those who knew Francis knew that he carried hundreds and even thousands of dollars in cash, that he stashed cash in his freezer at home, and that he kept numerous guns in the house.A person from the community testified that she saw a stranger at the home of one of the Mantheys' grandsons the night before Francis was killed.She said the man kept his hat pulled over his face and that after he left she never saw him again.Donald Larson, the newspaper carrier, testified that he saw a stranger about five blocks from the Mantheys' house at around 5 a.m. on March 5.Larson told police about the individual.

Manthey voluntarily gave the police a number of statements and cooperated throughout the investigation even after police told her several weeks after Francis' death that they believed her to be "involved in this" and read her a Miranda warning.¹She voluntarily gave police blood and urine samples on the day of the murder.During the time of the investigation into the murder, she called the lead investigator on the case twice to let him know that she was going out of town...