State v. Salyers

• Decision Date: 14 January 2015
• Docket Number: No. A13–0597.,A13–0597.
• Citation: 858 N.W.2d 156
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Tommy SALYERS, III, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

858 N.W.2d 156

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent

v.Tommy SALYERS, III, Appellant.

No. A13–0597.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Jan. 14, 2015.

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, James B. Early, Assistant Attorney General, Saint Paul, MN; and Jeffrey S. Naglosky, Koochiching County Attorney, International Falls, MN, for respondent.

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Michael W. Kunkel, Assistant Appellate Public Defender, Saint Paul, MN, for appellant.

OPINION

PAGE, Justice.

Appellant, Tommy Salyers, III, was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.165, subd. 1b(a) (2014) ; in possession of a firearm with no serial number, in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.667(3) (2014) ; and in possession of a short-barreled shotgun, in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.67, subd. 2 (2014). The conviction stemmed from law enforcement's discovery of a locked gun safe in Salyers' home containing three firearms. Salyers argued on appeal, among other things, that the State presented insufficient evidence that he constructively possessed the firearms in the locked safe.¹ The court of appeals affirmed. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm, although on different grounds.

The facts are taken from the evidence admitted at trial. The State called three witnesses, all officers with the Koochiching County Sheriff's Office, who participated in the search of Salyers' home. On September 7, 2012, the officers executed a warrant to search Salyers' International Falls home for numerous items of stolen property. The home was a two-bedroom, single-family residence. A no-trespassing sign posted on the home's garage was signed by two different individuals: Salyers and S.B.

At the time the deputies executed the warrant, neither Salyers nor anyone else was present. During their search, the deputies found a locked gun safe in a bedroom. One deputy described the safe as “basically a metal cabinet. It's built like a file cabinet that locks in two places. It's one thickness of sheet metal.” A key found in the bedroom fit the gun safe's lock, but would not turn the lock. Using a crowbar, two deputies easily pried open the gun safe.

Inside the gun safe were three firearms: a sawed-off shotgun with the serial number ground off; a full-length, 20–gauge shotgun; and a .22 caliber pistol. The safe also contained ammunition, a wooden box with “Tom and Sam” written on it, and a life insurance statement with “Kantor” on it. A coffee mug found in the bedroom near the safe contained a shotgun choke and additional ammunition; neither the choke nor the ammunition fit any gun found in the safe.

Subsequent to the search of Salyers' home, an officer interviewed S.B. According to S.B., she had previously lived in Salyers' home, but moved out a few days before the search. S.B. claimed ownership of the full-length, 20–gauge shotgun, as well as the gun safe itself. No evidence identified S.B. as the owner of the sawed-off shotgun or the pistol.

After the State rested its case, Salyers moved for a directed verdict, arguing that the State failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he had constructively possessed the guns in the safe. The trial court denied the motion. Salyers presented no evidence and the jury found him guilty of all counts.

Salyers appealed his conviction, challenging, among other things, the sufficiency of the evidence supporting possession. State v. Salyers, 842 N.W.2d 28, 32–33 (Minn.App.2014). Noting that “this issue is one of first impression in Minnesota,” the court of appeals “h[e]ld that a person possesses the readily accessible firearms inside a container under that person's control.” Id. at 35. Applying this rule to Salyers, the court of appeals determined that there was sufficient evidence to support Salyers' conviction. Id. In reviewing Salyers' conviction, the court of appeals declined to apply the heightened circumstantial-evidence standard of review, holding that the conviction was supported by direct evidence of Salyers' exclusive control over the gun safe. Id. at 34.

We granted review on Salyers' claim that the court of appeals erred in holding that “a person possesses the readily accessible firearms inside a container under that person's control.” In granting review, we directed the parties to address whether the heightened circumstantial-evidence standard of review applies to a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence of constructive possession.

I.

Salyers argues that the court of appeals created a specialized rule under the constructive-possession doctrine for the contents of a locked container that is inconsistent with existing law. Specifically, Salyers argues that the court of appeals' rule is inconsistent with the constructive-possession analysis from State v. Florine, 303 Minn. 103, 226 N.W.2d 609 (1975), because it focuses on ease of access to the container and its contents to the exclusion of other factors relevant to a defendant's exercise of “dominion and control” over the contents of a locked container. The issue of whether the court of appeals properly applied Minnesota's constructive-possession doctrine to possession of firearms inside a locked safe is a question of law that we review de novo. See State v. Ndikum, 815 N.W.2d 816, 818 (Minn.2012).

Possession of a firearm may be proved through actual or constructive possession. See State v. Loyd, 321 N.W.2d 901, 902 (Minn.1982). We have indicated that the purpose of the constructive-possession doctrine

is to include within the possession statute those cases where the state cannot prove actual or physical possession at the time of arrest but where the inference is strong that the defendant at one time physically possessed the [item] and did not abandon his possessory interest in the [item] but rather continued to exercise dominion and control over it up to the time of the arrest.

Florine, 303 Minn. at 104–05, 226 N.W.2d at 610. In Florine, we held that to establish constructive possession, the State must show either (1) that the prohibited item was found “in a place under defendant's exclusive control to which other people did not normally have access,” or (2) if the prohibited item was found “in a place to which others had access, there is a strong probability (inferable from other evidence) that defendant was at the time consciously exercising dominion and control over it.” Id. at 105, 226 N.W.2d at 611. We have consistently applied Florine's analysis as the test for constructive possession. See, e.g., State v. Lee, 683 N.W.2d 309, 316 n. 7 (Minn.2004) ; State v. Robinson, 517 N.W.2d 336, 340 (Minn.1994) ; State v. Wiley, 366 N.W.2d 265, 270 (Minn.1985) ; State v. Willis, 320 N.W.2d 726, 728–29 (Minn.1982).

The analysis required under Florine is “necessarily fact driven.” Comm'r of Revenue v. Fort, 479 N.W.2d 43, 46 (Minn.1992). Along the same lines, we have held that jury instructions regarding constructive possession are improper when they emphasize one factor to the exclusion of other relevant factors. For example, in State v. Olson, we held that the trial court's constructive-possession instruction was improper when it stated that “[t]he presence of a controlled substance in open view in a room ... permits the factfinder to infer knowing possession of the controlled substance by each person in close proximity to the controlled substance....” 482 N.W.2d 212, 215 (Minn.1992). We reasoned that such an instruction “was not a balanced instruction on the various relevant factors bearing on the jury's determination of the disputed possession issue but rather was one which singled out and unfairly emphasized one factor, one piece of the circumstantial evidence, bearing on that determination....” Id. at 216 ; see also State v. Flowers, 734 N.W.2d 239, 261–62 (Minn.2007) (holding that a jury instruction was erroneous because it stated that knowing possession “may be inferred if the firearm was in a place under [the accused's] exclusive control” but did not “instruct the jury that it was not required to accept that the inference [of knowledge] necessarily followed from the facts”).

By placing conclusive significance on whether a “person possesses the readily accessible firearms inside a container under that person's control,” the court of appeals unnecessarily narrowed the constructive-possession analysis we established in Florine. While ease of access is certainly one factor relevant to establishing constructive possession, it is not the sole factor or necessarily even the most important factor. Thus, we reject the court of appeals' “readily accessible” test for constructive possession of firearms inside a locked container. Instead, we reaffirm that all of the factors identified in Florine are relevant to determining constructive possession of the items within a container.

II.

Having determined that the court of appeals' emphasis on ease of access to the exclusion of other factors was inconsistent with our constructive-possession doctrine, we next consider whether the evidence was sufficient to support Salyers' conviction under the constructive-possession test set out in Florine. As an initial matter, there is a question as to the appropriate standard of review. In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence we generally “view the evidence in a light most favorable to the verdict to determine ‘whether the facts in the record and the legitimate inferences drawn from them would permit the jury to reasonably conclude that the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the offense of which he was convicted.’ ” Davis v. State, 595 N.W.2d 520, 525 (Minn.1999) (quoting State v. Moore, 481 N.W.2d 355, 360 (Minn.1992) ). We have determined, however, that a higher level of scrutiny is warranted if a conviction is based on circumstantial evidence.² See, e.g., State v. Al–Naseer, 788 N.W.2d 469, 473 (Minn.2010) ; State v. Andersen, 784 N.W.2d 320, 329–30 (Minn.2010). While Salyers does not assert that the circumstantial-evidence standard of...