Court Opinion

ID: 9656895
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:06:35.576994+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:37.823464
License: Public Domain

KLAPHAKE, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. Although there is no federal constitutional right to an appeal, “a convicted defendant is entitled to at least one right of review by an appellate or postconviction court.” Hoagland v. State, 518 N.W.2d 531, 534 (Minn.1994) (quotation omitted). In particular, post-conviction statutory remedies exist so that fundamental issues of constitutional or statutory violations can be reviewed, even where a direct appeal has not been had. State v. Knaffla, 309 Minn. 246, 252, 243 N.W.2d 737, 741 (1976).
This court has unequivocally stated that a defendant may not waive the right to appeal from a sentencing decision. Ballweber v. State, 457 N.W.2d 215, 218 (Minn.App.1990). We are now facing the issue we avoided in State v. Williams, 664 N.W.2d 432 (Minn.App.2003), review denied (Minn. Sept. 24, 2003). In Williams, we upheld defendant’s waiver of his right to raise a specific evidentiary issue related to a charge that was dismissed during his jury trial. Id. at 434. We noted, however, that we were not faced “with a waiver of the right to appeal made as part of a plea bargain, which commentators have criticized on due-process grounds.” Id. Issues of fairness and voluntariness of waiver are raised when a defendant seeks to bargain with a prosecutor who controls the charges brought against the defendant or, as here, dangles sentencing incentives to entice a defendant to forego his or her right to appeal. Appellant here raised issues beyond sentencing; although the stipulation may have satisfied any sentencing irregularity, it did not address what may be legitimate issues.
This court has also stated that certain issues, such as ineffective assistance of counsel, should properly be raised in a postconviction proceeding, because “[o]n direct appeal, the record may not be adequately developed to permit proper review of the ineffective assistance of counsel claim.” Harris v. State, 470 N.W.2d 167, 169 (Minn.App.1991). When we permit a waiver of a defendant’s right to appeal and to a postconviction review, we risk foreclosing appellate review of issues that may not be fully developed at the time of waiver. I would therefore reverse the district *873court’s dismissal of appellant’s petition for postconvietion relief.