State v. Rhodes

• Decision Date: 07 June 2001
• Docket Number: No. C3-98-1839.,C3-98-1839.
• Citation: 627 N.W.2d 74
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Thomas Daniel RHODES, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

627 N.W.2d 74

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Thomas Daniel RHODES, Appellant.

No. C3-98-1839.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

June 7, 2001.

Douglas W. Thomson, Melissa M. Fraser, Lisa Lodin Peralta, St. Paul, for appellant.

Michael Hatch, Minn. Atty. Gen, Thomas R. Ragatz, Asst. atty. Gen., St. Paul, Boyd Beccue, Kandiyohi County Atty., Willmar, for respondent.

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

OPINION

BLATZ, Chief Justice.

This case comes before us on appeal from appellant Thomas Rhodes' conviction for the first- and second-degree murder of his wife and the postconviction court's subsequent denial of postconviction relief. Appellant argues that he received ineffective assistance of counsel at trial,¹ that the district court erroneously admitted certain prejudicial evidence, and that the district court improperly denied appellant's request for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence. Appellant further contends that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction and that the postconviction court improperly denied his request for an evidentiary hearing and a new trial based on his ineffective assistance of counsel claim. We conclude that the district court did not err in admitting the disputed evidence, but remand for an evidentiary hearing on two of appellant's three postconviction ineffective assistance of counsel claims. Because we deem the record incomplete at this time, we decline to decide the other issues appellant has raised.

On the night of August 2, 1996, appellant and his wife Jane were vacationing with their two sons at the Northern Inn near Spicer, Minnesota. The inn is located at the southwest corner of Green Lake. Between approximately 11:15 and 11:30 p.m., the Rhodes left their sons in the inn room and drove the family jet boat onto the lake. Appellant told investigators that he drove the boat in a northerly direction from the dock by the inn, then stopped the boat and began watching the stars and "necking" with his wife.² At some point, he and Jane allegedly saw a boat with no lights driving wildly to their south. To escape the boat and "take a spin" before heading back, appellant drove further north at about 40 miles per hour.

As he was driving, appellant glanced to the left and saw Jane get up from her seat. She appeared to be looking for something, which appellant believed to be an earring. A clip-on earring was later found in the boat. Continuing north on the lake, appellant looked back again and "saw [Jane's] leg or her tennis shoes go over" the edge of the boat. It is undisputed that Jane was not wearing a life jacket and was not a good swimmer.

In a police interview 2 weeks after the drowning, authorities asked appellant what he did when Jane fell in the water. Appellant responded:

I went to grab for the throttle and—and missed it the first time. And then I pulled it back, started to turn, and then accelerated and went right back to where I thought—thought she was, and I couldn't see her. I stood up on the—the—the deck. And she's not by any means a good swimmer, so I got in the water to see if I could rescue her, and I couldn't find her.

According to appellant, he then got back in the boat and began zigzagging toward the south, then back to the north, searching for his wife. Not finding her or getting any response when calling her name, appellant drove toward shore. He parked his boat facing toward the lake, tied the boat to the dock, and grabbed a sweatshirt from the boat. Because Little Melvin's, a bar located in the building closest to the dock, appeared to be closing, appellant went back to the Northern Inn for help. However, the bouncer at Little Melvin's who saw appellant dock his boat and walk past Little Melvin's testified at trial that light was coming from the bar and a band was playing. In the bouncer's view, appellant did not seem agitated as he walked toward the inn.

At the inn, a desk clerk who described appellant as "emotionally distressed," incoherent, and "wet from head to toe," tried to understand appellant's story and eventually called 911. When Kandiyohi County Deputy Randall Kveene arrived, appellant told him, as he repeatedly told deputies in the following weeks, that he had been about 1,000 yards north of Little Melvin's when Jane went overboard. Despite this statement, appellant directed Kveene only 400-500 yards northeast of the dock after they boarded appellant's boat. When Kveene asked if the location was correct, appellant responded that the search should move a little farther north. Kveene and appellant searched the area within about 100 yards of the location appellant first identified until others joined the search 20 to 25 minutes later. At that time, another deputy asked appellant if they were in the right spot. After appellant responded affirmatively, the deputy marked a last-seen point.

After the unsuccessful search was called off for the night, appellant talked with Pastor Perry Wieland, a member of the local volunteer ambulance service who had been participating in the rescue efforts. Appellant's narrative to Wieland was consistent with what he had told law enforcement authorities, except Wieland believed that appellant said he was driving slowly, rather than quickly, when Jane went overboard.

The search resumed the next morning, August 3. Appellant again told the sheriff that the search party should move north. This time the search moved approximately 2,000-3,000 feet north. At about 1:00 p.m., fishermen found Jane's body in an area nine-tenths of a mile northwest of the last-seen point appellant had identified.

The recovery location was four-tenths of a mile or less from the locations where seven different shore witnesses had watched a person driving his boat in fast, erratic, figure-eight patterns at about the time Jane allegedly went overboard. Although none of the witnesses could identify the parties in the boat and five of the witnesses testified that they heard voices from the boat that sounded like people having fun, one of the witnesses heard a woman's voice say "Stop. No. It hurts." more than once. None of the witnesses recalled seeing more than one boat on the lake at the relevant times. Two witnesses identified the boat as a light-colored two-tone boat with an inboard motor, which matches the description of appellant's boat. Those two witnesses later saw a male driver circling the same boat, and one commented to the other that "[h]e acts like he's looking for something." After watching for a while, the two observed the boat head south down the shoreline at a slow pace.

To support a theory that appellant intentionally misdirected authorities so they would not discover Jane's body or any evidence that appellant intentionally drowned her, the state offered the testimony of Patrol Captain William Chandler of the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office. Chandler found it improbable that a body could sink in Green Lake, resurface, and then float nine-tenths of a mile in thirteen hours. He also thought it unlikely that the body could have remained afloat without a life jacket or, even if it did, that trained observers would overlook a body floating on the water. Chandler therefore identified a point near the location where the shore witnesses watched a boat being driven erratically as the likely place Jane went overboard. In response to Chandler's testimony, Dale Morry, a boating accident reconstructionist and former state boating administrator, testified for the defense that a body floating just beneath the water's surface could easily elude searchers, especially if wind and wake action caused the body to float a long distance.

Some of the most critical evidence supporting the state's theory was testimony from medical experts indicating that Jane's death was not accidental. The first medical expert who examined Jane's body was Dr. Lyle Munneke, a Kandiyohi County medical examiner. Upon examination, Dr. Munneke noted that bruising covered Jane's forehead and nose, left and right sides of her face, and the underside of her hairline to the top of her head. Dr. Munneke also observed a cut on the right side of her mouth.

In addition to the injuries Dr. Munneke observed, Dr. Michael McGee, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy, found hemorrhaging beneath the facial injuries. Dr. McGee believed that these injuries occurred while Jane was alive, and used a life-sized clay model of Jane's head to demonstrate that "a single blow" probably did not cause the damage to both sides of Jane's face. Dr. McGee answered in the affirmative when asked whether multiple strikes from a boat hull—possibly appellant's—could have caused the injuries. Dr. McGee also testified about Jane's other injuries. He stated that the laceration on the side of her mouth was premortem and could have occurred when a boat hit her mouth and stretched it to the point of tearing. Furthermore, he explained that postmortem abrasions on the backs of her hands and forehead may have been caused by her body sinking and scraping the bottom of the lake while floating face down.

Dr. McGee's testimony undercut appellant's theory that the drowning was accidental. Specifically, Dr. McGee noted paired injuries to the upper forearms that he classified as defensive wounds and soft tissue hemorrhages inside the neck region that did not have corresponding external marks. When asked about the neck trauma, Dr. McGee testified:

Q. Could that have been done by the hull of a boat?

A. I think not.

Q. Could that have been done with a hand, in particular a hand used thus in the V position?

A. I believe that is possible, yes.

Taken as a whole, Dr. McGee's testimony reinforced the state's theory that appellant forced his wife overboard. His testimony was also consistent with Chandler's testimony that because Jane's body resurfaced nine-tenths of a mile from the last-seen point, she probably sank to the lake bottom after drowning at a location...