Court Opinion

ID: 9655314
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:06:03.6528+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:17.723422
License: Public Domain

*286MEYER, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. While I concur with the majority’s conclusion that Richardson was not entitled to claim defense of others, I cannot agree that it was harmless error to exclude evidence about the nature of the past, violent relationship between Van Der Molen and Nichols. I believe this evidence was relevant to Richardson’s state of mind on the question of premeditation and should have been allowed for that purpose. I would conclude that the error was not harmless because the exclusion of this relevant evidence allowed the state to unfairly characterize the relationship between Van Der Molen and Nichols and denied Richardson his right to a fair trial.
At trial, the state presented the following story through Nichols’ testimony. Richardson and Nichols had a brief marriage filled with incidents of violence. When Nichols decided to leave Richardson, he became very possessive and jealous, telling her that if she did not stay with him, she would die. In spite of Richardson’s threats, Nichols left him and sought help from a local domestic violence shelter, and moved into a transitional housing unit. Nichols testified that after filing a restraining order against Richardson, she called Van Der Molen and told him that “I didn’t expect [Van Der Molen] to come to my rescue again but that we had gotten away from [Richardson].” According to Nichols, this was the second time that Nichols had asked Van Der Molen to “rescue” her from Richardson, the first occurring in October of 2000. During cross-examination, when asked why she had called Van Der Molen, Nichols testified:
Because I always called Robert. * * * When things went wrong in any situation throughout the years, I always called Robert. And I called him because I was scared and because I wanted to get out of there, I wanted him to come and protect me like he always protected me.
(Emphasis added.) Nichols then testified that she and Van Der Molen made plans for Van Der Molen to come for her and the children and bring them back to Iowa. The evening of January 10, 2001, Richardson came to the apartment, shot the locks off of the downstairs door, and then shot Van Der Molen twice.
The state’s version of the events leading up to Van Der Molen’s death was that Richardson had driven by Nichols’ apartment, saw Van Der Molen’s car, became extremely upset, and then premeditated Van Der Molen’s death to ensure that Nichols would never return to Van Der Molen. As the state explained in its closing argument,
[i]f [Richardson] couldn’t have Heather Nichols, nobody could. And certainly not Heather’s ex-husband Robert Van Der Molen. So the Defendant put two bullets through Robert Van Der Molen’s head to make darn sure he couldn’t have her. Bob Van Der Molen didn’t know what he was in for that day. He came to Two Harbors because of a desperate phone call from his ex-wife. She had nobody to turn to except for the one steady reliable presence in her and the kids’ lives.
(Emphasis added.)
The defense sought to present a significantly different version of the events leading up to Van Der Molen’s death through the following offer of proof. On the evening of January 10, Nichols flagged Richardson down and told him that Van Der Molen had come up from Iowa with a gun, and that she was afraid that Van Der Molen was going to hurt her and the children. Nichols asked Richardson to come to the apartment that evening to get her and the children away from Van Der Mol*287en. Nichols and Richardson agreed to meet later that evening. When they met, Nichols gave Richardson a gun and asked him to buy shells for it. She told Richardson she was afraid of what Van Der Molen might do to her and the children. After buying the shells, Nichols and Richardson agreed that Richardson would come to the apartment that evening for the purpose of rescuing her from Van Der Molen. When Richardson arrived that evening, he found the downstairs door locked, and as agreed, he shot the locks off the door so that he could enter and retrieve Nichols and the children. According to the defense, there was never any intent to kill Van Der Molen and, therefore, no premeditation, because when Richardson came to the apartment he had not intended to use the gun against Van Der Molen.
According to the defense, Richardson was at the apartment solely because Nichols had asked Richardson to come and save her from Van Der Molen. Although Richardson had never met Van Der Molen, Nichols had told Richardson that Van Der Molen had abused the children, abused her, and threatened to kill or strangle her.
Richardson was prepared to testify about his understanding of the violent relationship between Van Der Molen and Nichols, and his attorney was prepared to argue that the killing was not premeditated. The defense was also prepared to question Nichols about what she had told Richardson about Van Der Molen’s violent past. The defense offered evidence that Van Der Molen had been charged with or convicted of domestic abuse against Nichols on multiple occasions, and that Nichols had restraining orders against Van Der Molen. In particular, the defense sought to admit the following:
Nichols was charged with domestic assault against Van Der Molen in Montezuma, Iowa, in 2000.
Van Der Molen was convicted in 1996 of misdemeanor domestic abuse against Nichols. In the police report regarding this incident, Nichols told police that she was afraid of Van Der Molen and that when he gets out of jail he will kill her. Van Der Molen was arrested for misdemeanor domestic abuse in Dakota County in 1999. The Lakeville Police Department had a number of records on Van Der Molen and Nichols from 1999, alleging violations of protection orders, and domestic assault incidents.
Van Der Molen was charged with two incidents of domestic assault against Nichols in 1996 and 1998 based on the handwritten notes on court records from the Marion County Clerk of Court in Knoxville, Iowa.
Marion County Clerk of Court records contain numerous charges against Van Der Molen for interference with official acts, harassment, domestic abuse, assault, and violation of no contact order. An emergency (ex parte) order for protection dated September 7, 2000, in Lake County District Court entitled “Heather L. Nichols v Robert L. Van Der Molen.”
Despite an offer of proof for this evidence, the district court refused to admit any evidence with respect to what Richardson knew about Van Der Molen and Nichols’ relationship when he arrived at the apartment on January 10, 2001, even though the defense explained that “the only purpose of most of this evidence, pri- or evidence, * * * goes to show my client’s state of mind, which is the reason or at least is the basis upon which he went to the apartment.” The court restricted Richardson’s ability to testify, apparently believing that without a self-defense claim, the evidence was irrelevant. Without the self-defense theory, the court stated: “I don’t know that there’s any other theory *288that under those circumstances that you could get that evidence in.” The court never explained why the proffered evidence was inadmissible to attack the state’s proof that Richardson premeditated the murder.
The majority applies a harmless error analysis and concludes that even though the district court’s restrictive ruling may have been an abuse of discretion, the error was harmless because even under Richardson’s version there was “overwhelming evidence of premeditation.” I would conclude that the district court’s exclusionary ruling reaches the level of constitutional error and calls for a heightened standard of review; i.e., whether the exclusion of evidence was “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Juarez, 572 N.W.2d 286, 290 (Minn.1997). The error is not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt where “there is a reasonable possibility that the [error] complained of might have contributed to the conviction.” Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967).
Under both the United States and Minnesota Constitutions, every criminal defendant has the right to “be treated with fundamental fairness and ‘afforded a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense.’ ” State v. Richards, 495 N.W.2d 187, 191 (Minn.1992) (quoting California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 485, 104 S.Ct. 2528, 81 L.Ed.2d 413 (1984)). This includes the opportunity to be heard, as well as the right to offer the testimony of witnesses so that the defense can present its version of the facts to the jury for the jury to decide the truth. See State v. Quick, 659 N.W.2d 701, 712-13 (Minn.2003); Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 690, 106 S.Ct. 2142, 90 L.Ed.2d 636 (1986) (concluding that this opportunity would be empty “if the State were permitted to exclude competent, reliable evidence bearing on the credibility of a confession when such evidence is central to the defendant’s claim of innocence”).
It is “fundamental that criminal defendants have a due process right to explain their conduct to a jury.” State v. Brechon, 352 N.W.2d 745, 751 (Minn.1984). Even though this right is limited by rules of evidence, we have concluded that “the defendant’s constitutional right to give testimony regarding his intent and motivation is very broad.” State v. Buchanan, 431 N.W.2d 542, 550 (Minn.1988). “Courts must scrutinize with the greatest care any restrictions on a defendant’s testimony offered in * * * defendant’s own behalf as to his or her intent and the motivation underlying that intent lest we jeopardize the federal and state constitutional right to a fair trial.” Brechon, 352 N.W.2d at 752 (Wahl, J., concurring). The right to give testimony on one’s own behalf has sources in several provisions of the Constitution. Rock v. Arkansas, 483 U.S. 44, 52, 107 S.Ct. 2704, 97 L.Ed.2d 37 (1987). The Supreme Court has found the right to testify under “the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee that no one shall be deprived of liberty without due process of law”; the Compulsory Process Clause of the Sixth Amendment, which encompasses the defendant’s right to call witnesses and the right to call himself as a witness; and the Sixth Amendment, which provides an accused the fundamental “right to present his own version of events in his own words.” Rock, 483 U.S. at 51-52,107 S.Ct. 2704.
By virtue of the court’s evidentiary rulings, the defendant was unable to fully and meaningfully present his own version of events, which afforded Nichols the opportunity to unfairly describe Van Der Molen as the person who had always “rescued” her from bad situations. Richardson chose not to testify when it became clear *289that his claim that he did not intend to kill Van Der Molen would be unbelievable without the opportunity to place it within a meaningful context. As the defendant himself noted to the district court, without the opportunity to fully challenge Nichols’ story, his claim that he went to rescue Nichols from Van Der Molen was completely lacking in believability, and he was unfairly prevented from telling his whole story. The unfairness of the evidentiary ruling was intensified by the closing argument of the state, to the effect that Van Der Molen was “the one steady reliable presence in her and the kids’ lives.”
In sum, the effect of the district court’s ruling was to deprive Richardson of the right to cast reasonable doubt on the state’s case, despite the fact that the prosecution’s key witness opened the door to the evidence. I believe we can fairly say that there was a reasonable probability that the exclusion of evidence tending to establish Richardson’s state of mind may have contributed to the jury’s verdict, in a case where the difference between first-degree murder and second-degree murder is entirely based on the defendant’s state of mind. I would reverse Richardson’s murder conviction and grant him a new trial.