State v. Reed, A06-1033.

• Decision Date: 23 August 2007
• Docket Number: No. A06-1033.,A06-1033.
• Citation: 737 N.W.2d 572
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Ronald Lindsey REED, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

737 N.W.2d 572

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Ronald Lindsey REED, Appellant.

No. A06-1033.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

August 23, 2007.

Melissa Sheridan, Assistant State Public Defender, Eagan, MN, Lawrence Hammerling, Deputy State Public Defender, Minneapolis, MN, for Appellant.

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Jeanne L. Schleh, Assistant Ramsey County Attorney, St. Paul, MN, for Respondent.

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

OPINION

ANDERSON, G. Barry, Justice.

Ronald Reed was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder for the 1970 shooting of St. Paul police officer James Sackett. On appeal, Reed raises 13 claims of error through counsel and in a pro se brief. We hold that none of the asserted errors requires reversal.

St. Paul police officer James Sackett was shot and killed while responding to a false emergency call on May 22, 1970. Shortly after midnight, a woman called the police to request a ride to the hospital for a woman in labor at 859 Hague Avenue in St. Paul. Sackett and his partner Glen Kothe were dispatched to 859 Hague and parked in front of the residence.

After Sackett knocked on the front door and received no response, Kothe walked to the back door and knocked on it. He heard a dog bark inside, and as he leaned over the back railing to warn Sackett about the dog, he heard a loud bang and saw a bright flash from the direction of the intersection in front of the house. Kothe heard a scream, and when he ran to the front of the house he discovered that Sackett had been shot. Kothe sought cover behind his squad car and radioed for assistance. Sackett was pronounced dead at the hospital as a result of a gunshot wound to the chest.

The ensuing investigation revealed that the shot that killed Officer Sackett did not come from inside 859 Hague and that no one there had called the police or been involved in the shooting. No weapon or shell casing was found in the area. The phone call was traced to a phone booth at Selby Avenue and Victoria Street. Further investigation and voice printing identified the caller as Constance Trimble (now Smith), Ronald Reed's girlfriend and mother to his child.

Trimble-Smith was indicted, tried, and acquitted of Officer Sackett's killing in 1972. She testified at her trial that she had been instructed to make the false emergency call as a pre-arranged signal to the St. Paul police to proceed to 859 Hague and bust Gerald Starling, an associate of Trimble-Smith and Reed, for possession of drugs. She denied knowledge of a plan to shoot a police officer. After her acquittal, Trimble-Smith was held in contempt of court and jailed for 25 days for refusing to disclose who told her to make the phone call. Trimble-Smith was the only person charged in Officer Sackett's death until 2005.

Ronald Reed was arrested on November 13, 1970, on an unrelated warrant. In his possession police found weapons and detailed plans for an airplane hijacking and hostage plot designed to win the release of Trimble-Smith, Larry Clark, and another individual from jail. Reed was later charged and convicted of an attempted bank robbery that took place in Omaha, Nebraska, on October 20, 1970. State v. Reed, 188 Neb. 815, 199 N.W.2d 707 (1972).

In 2002, the police re-opened the investigation into Officer Sackett's killing. Based on newly discovered evidence, Reed and Clark were indicted together for aiding and abetting each other and for conspiring with each other to kill Officer Sackett. The two cases proceeded together through pretrial proceedings until the state agreed to Reed and Clark's request for severance. Reed was tried first. Trimble-Smith testified that Reed drove her to the phone booth on May 22, 1970, directed her to make the 911 call, and told her what to say. She also told investigators and testified that after making the call, she and Reed went directly to Clark's residence at 882 Hague. Clark's residence is 102 yards from 859 Hague, where Officer Sackett was shot. Trimble-Smith and Reed remained at Clark's residence for five to seven minutes before going home. Their presence thus coincided with Sackett's shooting roughly 100 yards away.

Joseph Garrett testified that several days before the murder, St. Paul police made a traffic stop and confiscated a gun found in his possession. After a discussion, Garrett told the police officers to "watch the rooftops." Garrett was apprehended and questioned about this remark hours after Officer Sackett's killing. He told police that his "watch the rooftops" comment was a general comment made in anger and that he knew nothing about the killing. He was never a suspect in Officer Sackett's murder. Garrett provided no further information until the summer of 2005, when he told investigators that Reed attempted to recruit him in 1970 to help in "bringing down the first pig," which Garrett understood to mean killing a police officer. Garrett testified that he told Reed he would think about it and would let him know. He testified that he avoided Reed after that encounter and that he did not tell police about Reed's proposal earlier because he feared for his life. Garrett also testified that he and Reed were part of an organization called the Black United Front, at the meetings of which Reed advocated protecting "the community" from the police by whatever means necessary, including killing.

Donald Walker testified that in 1969 he attended meetings of the Inner City Youth League at which Reed and Clark would voice "hate talk about the government, the police, and the White Establishment." He also testified that on two occasions he transported a rifle for Reed and Clark in the trunk of his car. Walker, who was familiar with guns from his military service, testified that the rifle was a single-shot, bolt-action rifle larger than .22-caliber. Forensics determined that Officer Sackett was probably killed with a large caliber single-shot, bolt-action rifle.

John Griffin was involved in the Black Panther movement in the late 1960's. He testified that Reed advocated killing a police officer to put St. Paul "on the map" and possibly to get an official Black Panther chapter. Griffin also testified that at an encounter in the early 1980's Reed told Griffin that "when [Reed] put a bead on that officer * * * he felt powerful," but "when he seen the bullet hitting him, he said he never felt more fucked up in his life."

A jury convicted Reed of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and this appeal followed. Reed raises six issues through his counsel and an additional seven issues in his pro se brief. We address each in turn.

I.

Reed argues that the district court erred in overruling his objection to the court's subject matter jurisdiction. Reed asserts that under the law as it stood in 1970, the juvenile court had exclusive original jurisdiction over a 19-year-old who committed an offense.

Under the law as of May 1970, the juvenile court had "original and exclusive jurisdiction in proceedings concerning any child who is alleged to be delinquent, a juvenile traffic offender, neglected, or dependent, and in proceedings concerning any minor alleged to have been a delinquent or a juvenile traffic offender prior to having become eighteen years of age." Minn. Stat. § 260.111, subd. 1 (1969). A "child" was defined as an individual under 18 years of age. Minn.Stat. § 260.015, subd. 2 (1969). A "minor" was defined as an individual under 21 years of age. Minn Stat. § 260.015, subd. 9 (1969). Thus, there were two situations in which the juvenile court had exclusive jurisdiction: when an individual under 18 was alleged to be delinquent and when an individual under 21 was alleged to have been delinquent before turning 18. Reed was not subject to the juvenile court's exclusive jurisdiction under either prong of section 260.111, subd. 1, because he was over 18 at the time of the offense.¹ The district court therefore properly overruled Reed's objection to the court's subject matter jurisdiction.

II.

Reed argues that the district court erred in instructing the jury that it was not required to find that Reed aided and abetted or conspired with Clark. The grand jury indicted Reed and Clark for aiding and abetting one another and conspiring together to kill Officer Sackett. The state did not move to amend the indictment to include unnamed accomplices or co-conspirators.² Over Reed's objection, the district court instructed the jury on Count One that the state needed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that "the defendant, or someone being aided and abetted by the defendant, caused the death of James Sackett." The court added that Reed was guilty if he "aided, advised, hired, counseled or conspired with another or otherwise procured the commission of a crime by another person, whether or not that person is named in the indictment or even identified." On Count Two, the court instructed the jury, again over Reed's objection, that the state needed to prove that Reed "conspired with at least one other person to commit the crime of murder in the first degree. It makes no difference whether that person is named in the indictment. You do not have to find that the other person charged in the indictment was a member of the conspiracy." The jury returned general verdicts finding Reed guilty of aiding and abetting murder in the first degree and conspiring to commit murder in the first degree.

Reed argues that because he was indicted for aiding and abetting and conspiring with Clark, the state was required to prove, as an essential element of the offense, that Clark was Reed's co-conspirator and accomplice. Reed relies exclusively on a Rhode Island case for the proposition that the identity of an aider and abettor or co-conspirator named in an indictment becomes an essential element of the offense. See State v. DeSanto, 603 A.2d 744, 746 (R.I.1992) ("When, as here, the information specifically...