State v. McInnis

Decision Date11 August 2021
Docket NumberA20-0492
Citation962 N.W.2d 874
Parties STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Jquan Leearthur MCINNIS, Appellant.
CourtMinnesota Supreme Court

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, Saint Paul, Minnesota; and Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Nicole Cornale, Assistant County Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for respondent.

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Rachel F. Bond, Assistant Public Defender, Saint Paul, Minnesota, for appellant.

OPINION

ANDERSON, Justice.

Appellant Jquan Leearthur McInnis was convicted of two counts of first-degree premeditated murder for the deaths of Gustav (Gus) Christianson, an adult, and J.R., an infant. On each count, McInnis was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of release after 30 years. Because the sentences were imposed consecutively, however, McInnis would not be eligible for release for at least 60 years. McInnis was 17 years old when he committed the offenses.

McInnis challenges his convictions and sentences on several grounds. First, he argues that his statement to police should have been suppressed because he unambiguously invoked his constitutional right to remain silent during the police interrogation. Second, McInnis argues that the evidence supporting his conviction for the murder of the infant is insufficient because the State failed to prove that he had an intent to kill when he fired the gunshot that killed the infant. And finally, McInnis challenges the imposition of consecutive sentences.

Although we agree that McInnis's statement to police should have been suppressed, we conclude that the failure to do so by the district court was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. In addition, we conclude that the evidence presented by the State was sufficient to prove that McInnis had an intent to kill when he fired the gunshot that killed the infant. Finally, we conclude that the court did not abuse its discretion by imposing consecutive sentences. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of conviction.

FACTS

Gus Christianson and an infant were shot and killed while sitting in a car in Minneapolis. The State charged McInnis with two counts of first-degree murder. Before trial, McInnis moved to suppress his confession to police because his constitutional right to remain silent had been violated. The district court denied his motion. McInnis waived his right to a jury trial and agreed to a court trial on stipulated evidence, pursuant to Minn. R. Crim. P. 26.01, subd. 3. Based on the evidence and arguments submitted by the parties, the district court made the following findings of fact.

C.R., the child's father, drove a car to a Minneapolis house and parked in a driveway with an alley directly behind his car. Inside of the vehicle were C.R., C.R.’s girlfriend, their infant child, Christianson, and another woman. C.R.’s girlfriend and the other woman left the car and entered the house. C.R., Christianson, and the child remained inside of the car, except for a short time in which C.R. and Christianson got out to smoke. C.R. sat in the driver's seat, Christianson sat directly behind him in the back seat, and the child was buckled into a rear-facing car seat on the passenger side of the back seat.

Around the same time, McInnis was the passenger in a vehicle driven by D.A. As the two men drove past C.R.’s parked car, McInnis told D.A. to pull over a few blocks away. McInnis left the vehicle wearing a blue hoodie and headed toward C.R.’s parked car.

McInnis walked down the alley, approached C.R.’s parked car from behind, and walked up to Christianson, who was sitting in the back seat with the door open. Without saying a word, McInnis shot Christianson six times with a handgun through the open door. All of the bullets entered Christianson's chest from the left side, with at least two bullets passing through his left arm.

McInnis then turned back towards the alley. As he began walking away, McInnis fired a final gunshot into the back of C.R.’s parked car. The gunshot entered the left side of the rear window at an angle, just above a white baseball hat that was sitting on the back window ledge behind Christianson. The bullet shattered the window, continued on, and struck the infant. Both Christianson and the infant died of their injuries.

After the shooting, many witnesses gave statements to police. C.R. told police that he saw a black male in a blue shirt with the hood pulled up over his head come down the alley. He then heard someone walk to the open car door where Christianson was sitting and, without speaking, begin shooting. C.R. told police that the same person ran away in the alley moments later and that he heard Christianson exclaim that he had been "hit."

Another witness, M.S., observed the shooting from a park across the street from the driveway. She told police that she saw a black male wearing a blue hoodie walk down the alley. M.S. claimed that the driver left the parked car and argued with the person wearing the hoodie. The person wearing the hoodie then opened the rear driver's side door of the parked car, leaned into the back seat, and started shooting. She also stated that someone from inside the car shut the door and that the person wearing the hoodie walked to the rear of the parked car, fired one more round through the back window, and ran away in the alley.1

Two paramedics were responding to a nearby medical emergency call at the time of the shooting. A video recording from the ambulance shows both paramedics visibly reacting to the sound of gunshots. The paramedics told police that, after hearing the gunshots, they observed a black male in a blue hoodie running in the alley with the hood up.

A.B., who lived nearby, observed McInnis, wearing a white T-shirt but no hoodie, leap over her back gate and run through her yard around the time of the shooting. When officers walked the route from the scene of the shooting toward A.B.’s house, they found a blue hoodie in a garbage can in an alley.

The police also interviewed D.A., who explained that McInnis had a dispute with Christianson over $250. D.A. also told police that McInnis had asked him to pull over a few blocks away from where C.R.’s car was parked shortly before the shootings and that McInnis admitted to him later that day that he had "hit" a baby and left his blue hoodie behind.

McInnis's girlfriend told police that McInnis said he regretted killing the baby but "don't regret killing that dude."

In addition to witness statements, police gathered various physical and forensic evidence. The police recovered surveillance footage from a parking ramp camera that showed the vehicle driven by D.A. pull up on a residential street shortly before the shooting. The camera recorded McInnis leaving D.A.’s vehicle wearing a blue hoodie with the hood down and walking southbound through the yards of two houses. The Minneapolis Shot Spotter system recorded multiple gunshots at the location where C.R. was parked, and the first 911 call related to this incident was received one minute after the shooting occurred. The surveillance camera at the parking ramp later recorded McInnis run from the direction of A.B.’s house toward the car that D.A. was driving and enter the car while wearing a white T-shirt but no hoodie. Id. The car pulled away a short time later.

An autopsy revealed that Christianson was struck in the chest by six bullets, two of which passed through his arm; the infant was struck in the chest by one bullet. Using trajectory rods, police determined the probable path of the final gunshot fired by McInnis, which passed through the back window of the car and struck the infant.

Two days after the shooting, McInnis was arrested and questioned by police. Initially he denied knowing anything about the shootings or even knowing Christianson. McInnis claimed that, at the time of the shooting, he was with his girlfriend. When confronted with facts that contradicted his story, McInnis eventually confessed that he had committed the murders.

McInnis explained that he was angry with Christianson for stealing $250 in connection with the sale of a gun. He admitted that, on the day of the shootings, he saw Christianson while riding with D.A. and asked D.A. to pull over a few blocks away. McInnis told police that he left D.A.’s car with his gun, cut through several back yards, and came down the alley toward Christianson. He then walked up to Christianson, shot him without speaking, and fired a final gunshot through the rear window of the car before running back up the alley. McInnis admitted taking off the hoodie and throwing it in a garbage can as he fled the scene of the shootings.

McInnis described the killings to police in this way: "Boom, I walked up on the car and I—I—I hit ‘em like four or five times—boom, and then when I, right before I ran off I threw one more through the window—bam—and then I ran off." He told police that he had no intention of killing Christianson; he only intended to "holla" at Christianson and beat him up. McInnis claimed that he was aiming at Christianson's legs when he fired the gunshots and that he did not know an infant was in the car.

The district court found McInnis guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. 2

Because McInnis was a juvenile at the time of the shooting, and because the State was seeking a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, the court held a Miller hearing and determined that McInnis was not "irreparably corrupt."3 Accordingly, the court declined to impose a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of release and instead imposed two consecutive sentences of life imprisonment, each with the possibility of release after 30 years. McInnis appealed his convictions and sentences to us.

ANALYSIS
I.

McInnis first argues that his convictions must be reversed because the district court failed to suppress his confession to police. According to McInnis, his confession was obtained in violation of his constitutional right to remain silent...

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  • State v. Hassan
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Minnesota (US)
    • July 13, 2022
    ..."some appreciable passage of time between a defendant's formation of the intent to kill and the act of killing." State v. McInnis , 962 N.W.2d 874, 890 (Minn. 2021) (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). This additional requirement makes the offense of first-degree premedita......
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    ...'some appreciable passage of time between a defendant's formation of the intent to kill and the act of killing.' State v McInnis, 962 N.W.2d 874, 890 (Minn, 2021) (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). additional requirement makes the offense of first-degree premeditated mur......
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    ...the basis on which the [fact-finder] rested its verdict and determine what effect the error had on the actual verdict." State v. McInnis, 962 N.W.2d 874, 886 (Minn. 2021) (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). For an error to be harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, the verdic......
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    ...the programs for which he applied. Intent is a state of mind; it is frequently proven with circumstantial evidence. State v. McInnis, 962 N.W.2d 874, 890 (Minn. 2021); Reed v. State, 925 N.W.2d 11, 20 n.5 (Minn. 2019). To prove intent, it is permissible for the jury to "infer that a person ......
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