This opinion will be unpublished and

may not be cited except as provided by

Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2014).

STATE OF MINNESOTA

IN COURT OF APPEALS

A15-0726

John Mark Hentges, petitioner,

Appellant,

vs.

State of Minnesota,

Respondent.

Filed November 30, 2015

Reversed and remanded

Smith, Judge

LeSueur County District Court

File No. 40-CR-09-786

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, St. Paul, Mark D. Nyvold, 

Special Assistant Public Defender, Fridley, Minnesota (for appellant)

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Brent Christian, LeSueur County Attorney, Le Center, Michelle M. Zehnder Fischer, 

Special Assistant County Attorney, St. Peter, Minnesota (for respondent) 

Considered and decided by Connolly, Presiding Judge; Smith, Judge; and Minge, 

Judge.



 

 

 Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to 

Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.
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U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N

SMITH, Judge

We reverse and remand the summary denial of appellant’s postconviction petition 

because the postconviction court abused its discretion when it determined that appellant’s 

claims were Knaffla-barred by virtue of his previous direct appeal being dismissed under 

the fugitive-dismissal rule. 

FACTS

In March 2011, a jury found appellant John Hentges guilty of nonsupport of child. 

Hentges failed to appear at his sentencing hearing, so the district court issued a warrant

for his arrest. Hentges was later arrested on the warrant, and the district court then 

scheduled a second sentencing hearing. Even though Hentges was in jail at the time, he 

refused to attend the hearing. The district court then scheduled a third sentencing 

hearing, but Hentges again refused to attend. Without Hentges’s attendance, the district 

court imposed a stayed sentence of one year and one day and placed Hentges on 

probation for five years. 

In April 2012, Hentges’s probation officer filed a probation-violation report, and 

based on that report, the district court issued another warrant for Hentges’s arrest. Two

weeks later, Hentges appealed his conviction. Subsequently, Hentges’s probation officer 

filed a supplemental probation-violation report, alleging at least two more probation 

violations. The district court held a hearing for the violations, but Hentges again failed to 

appear. The district court then issued another warrant for Hentges’s arrest, which 

remained active while his appeal was pending. 
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In January 2013, we denied the state’s motion to dismiss Hentges’s appeal under 

the fugitive-dismissal rule because the doctrine had not been adopted in Minnesota. The 

state petitioned the Minnesota Supreme Court for further review, and the supreme court 

granted review. In April 2014, the supreme court issued its opinion in State v. Hentges, 

in which it adopted the fugitive-dismissal rule and ordered this court to dismiss Hentges’s 

direct appeal if he did not surrender to law enforcement within ten days. 844 N.W.2d 

500, 506, 508 (Minn. 2014). Although Hentges eventually turned himself in, he missed 

the mandated deadline, and we dismissed Hentges’s appeal. 

Hentges then petitioned for postconviction relief. Later, Hentges’s sentence on his

original conviction was vacated because of his absence at the sentencing hearing. 

Consequently, the postconviction court found Hentges’s postconviction petition moot and 

dismissed the petition. The district court then resentenced Hentges and discharged him

from probation. 

On November 14, 2014, Hentges filed another petition for postconviction relief. 

The postconviction court denied Hentges’s petition, finding that Hentges’s petition was 

barred because he had already directly appealed the same issues in the appeal dismissed 

under the fugitive-dismissal rule. 

D E C I S I O N

We review a summary denial of a petition for postconviction relief for an abuse of 

discretion. Riley v. State, 819 N.W.2d 162, 167 (Minn. 2012). “A postconviction court 

abuses its discretion when its decision is based on an erroneous view of the law or is 

against logic and the facts in the record.” Id. (quotation omitted).
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The main thrust of Hentges’s argument is that his claims are not barred under State 

v. Knaffla, 309 Minn. 246, 243 N.W.2d 737 (1976), because his appeal was dismissed 

and not decided on the merits. We agree. “The Knaffla rule provides that when a 

petition for postconviction relief follows a direct appeal of a conviction, all claims raised 

in the direct appeal and all claims of which the defendant knew or should have known at 

the time of the direct appeal are procedurally barred.” Buckingham v. State, 799 N.W.2d 

229, 231 (Minn. 2011). 

Hentges correctly notes that Knaffla-barred cases invariably involve an appeal that 

has been fully considered and decided. See id. at 232-33 (determining that petitioner’s 

claims were Knaffla-barred where the direct appeal had proceeded to conclusion and the 

petitioner raised issues in his postconviction petition that were raised or should have been 

raised on direct appeal); White v. State, 711 N.W.2d 106, 109 (Minn. 2006) (same); 

Hanley v. State, 534 N.W.2d 277, 279 (Minn. 1995) (same); see also Carney v. State, 692 

N.W.2d 888, 891 (Minn. 2005) (stating the rule as “[w]hen a direct appeal has been taken 

and litigated . . . , all matters raised during that appeal . . . will not be considered upon a 

subsequent petition for postconviction relief” (emphasis added)). And Hentges correctly 

notes that our supreme court has declined to hold that postconviction claims are Knafflabarred where the postconviction petitioner previously filed a direct appeal but then later 

stipulated to its dismissal. See Rairdon v. State, 557 N.W.2d 318, 322 (Minn. 1996). 

Under our caselaw, we are strained to see how Hentges’s postconviction claims 

are Knaffla-barred. Hentges’s direct appeal was not “taken and litigated” because we 

dismissed that appeal before issuing a decision on the merits. See Carney, 692 N.W.2d at 
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891 (emphasis added). Moreover, given that our supreme court has previously held that a 

stipulated dismissal will not give rise to a subsequent Knaffla-bar, we cannot conclude 

that the dismissal of Hentges’s appeal under the fugitive-dismissal rule should lead to a 

different result. See Rairdon, 557 N.W.2d at 322. 

Hentges also argues that the Minnesota Supreme Court’s opinion in Hentges does 

not provide a basis for finding his postconviction claims Knaffla-barred. We agree. Our 

supreme court’s decision was limited to “adopt[ing] the fugitive-dismissal rule and 

hold[ing] that appellate courts have the discretion to dismiss an appeal brought by a 

fugitive.” Hentges, 844 N.W.2d at 506. Nothing in that language suggests that such a 

dismissal leads to a postconviction petitioner’s claims being Knaffla-barred. Nor do the 

rationales supporting our supreme court’s adoption of the fugitive-dismissal rule support 

the postconviction court’s decision. In adopting the fugitive-dismissal rule, the supreme 

court cited favorably the rationales of unenforceability and waiver because 

“unenforceability and waiver or abandonment . . . are consistent with general principles 

of law that we have applied elsewhere.” Id. at 506. 

After Hentges submitted to law enforcement, the connection between his fugitive 

status and the rationales supporting the dismissal of his appeal dissipated. No longer 

could a court be concerned about unenforceability because Hentges was no longer at 

large. See id. at 505 (“The first rationale, unenforceability, rests on a concern that, if an 

appellate court rules against a fugitive, the court’s judgment will be unenforceable for as 

long as the fugitive is at large.”). In fact, this rationale “favors reinstating the appeals of 

former fugitives . . . .” Id. The waiver rationale is similarly unavailing. The essence of 
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the waiver rationale is that a defendant, via the choice to be a fugitive, “waived or 

abandoned through his or her conduct the right to invoke the authority of the court.” Id.

at 506. But, as with the unenforceability rationale, the connection to the waiver rationale 

waned when Hentges submitted to law enforcement before filing his postconviction 

petition. See Ortega-Rodriguez v. United States, 507 U.S. 234, 246-47, 113 S. Ct. 1199,

1207 (1993) (noting a lack of connection between the waiver rationale and the fugitivedismissal rule where the appeal was filed after the fugitive was returned to custody). 

We conclude that the postconviction court abused its discretion in finding

Hentges’s postconviction claims Knaffla-barred. Although we agree with the 

postconviction court that Hentges is seeking “yet another bite at the apple,” Minnesota 

precedent compels us to conclude that, in the absence of a direct appeal on the merits, 

Hentges’s claims are not Knaffla-barred. We therefore reverse and remand. 

Reversed and remanded.