State of Minnesota v. Keith Richard Rossberg ( 2014 )

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN SUPREME COURT
A13-1241
Wright County Anderson, J.
State of Minnesota,
Respondent,
vs. Filed: August 6, 2014
Office of Appellate Courts
Keith Richard Rossberg,
Appellant.
________________________
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Karen B. Andrews, Assistant Attorney General, Saint
Paul, Minnesota; and
Thomas N. Kelly, Wright County Attorney, Buffalo, Minnesota, for respondent.
Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Rochelle R. Winn, Assistant
State Public Defender, Saint Paul, Minnesota, for appellant.
________________________
SYLLABUS
1. The district court erred by admitting Spreigl evidence without identifying a
precise disputed fact to which it was relevant, but the error was harmless.
2. The passage of time did not render evidence of the appellant’s relationship
with the victim irrelevant.
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3. The appellant failed to show that any error in admitting hearsay evidence of
the victim’s statements to the police affected his substantial rights.
4. The appellant’s pro se claims do not entitle him to relief.
Affirmed.
OPINION
ANDERSON, Justice.
This is appellant Keith Rossberg’s direct appeal from his conviction for first-
degree premeditated murder, see Minn. Stat. § 609.185(a)(1) (2012), for killing Devan
Hawkinson. Rossberg claims that he is entitled to a new trial because the district court
admitted evidence of his past conduct and relationship with Hawkinson. Rossberg argues
that the evidence was irrelevant and that it violated the Confrontation Clause because it
included testimonial statements that Hawkinson made to the police before his death.
Rossberg also raises a variety of other claims in his pro se briefs. Because any error in
admitting the evidence was harmless and none of Rossberg’s pro se claims merit relief,
we affirm.
I.
Before Hawkinson was murdered, he and Rossberg were friends for many years.
They lived close to each other in Annandale and Rossberg spent much of his time at
Hawkinson’s trailer home. In early 2006 Hawkinson introduced Rossberg to D.T., who
had grown up nearby and recently moved back to the area. Rossberg and D.T. began a
romantic relationship and D.T. moved in with Rossberg.
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D.T. moved out in 2008 and began renting a room in Hawkinson’s trailer, though
she remained romantically involved with Rossberg. Hawkinson’s friends and neighbors
believed that D.T. was engaged in a “love triangle” with Rossberg and Hawkinson. In
any case, the relationship between D.T. and Hawkinson upset Rossberg.
In September 2008, D.T. called the police to report that Rossberg might be
suicidal. When the police responded, Rossberg was not suicidal but said that he was
angry because he had caught D.T. cheating on him with Hawkinson. Later that night, the
police received a 911 call from Hawkinson’s phone. An officer went to Hawkinson’s
trailer and D.T. told him that Rossberg had been pounding on the door while she and
Hawkinson were inside. The officer found Rossberg and sent him home. According to a
neighbor this was not an isolated incident; Rossberg frequently came to Hawkinson’s
trailer and banged on the doors and windows if D.T. and Hawkinson did not let him in.
Rossberg was often angry about the situation with D.T. and Hawkinson. He told
his son that he would “beat the shit out of” Hawkinson or “fuck him up” if he got too
close to D.T. In October, while drinking with a friend, he asked for help beating up
Hawkinson and asked to borrow the friend’s machete to kill Hawkinson. The friend
dismissed this as “drunk talk,” but a police officer heard about the threats and checked in
on Hawkinson a few days later. Hawkinson said he was afraid that Rossberg might hurt
him, possibly with one of his many guns.
While D.T. was living with Hawkinson, Hawkinson’s friends and neighbors saw
him with black eyes on several occasions. Once, Hawkinson said that Rossberg had
“smacked” him after looking in a window and seeing him being “aggressive” with D.T.
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Another time, Hawkinson acted embarrassed and said he had gotten a black eye falling
down. Rossberg said he had “bop[ped]” Hawkinson because of how he treated D.T.
Late one night in November 2008, Hawkinson called the police and reported that
Rossberg was pounding on his door. Rossberg left before the police arrived, but
Hawkinson and D.T. said they did not want him to come back that night, so the police
found Rossberg at home and told him to stay away. The next evening, Hawkinson called
the police again because Rossberg was back and was yelling at him and D.T. Hawkinson
was particularly concerned this time because Rossberg had entered the trailer even
though Hawkinson thought the door was locked. According to D.T. and one of
Hawkinson’s friends, Rossberg knew where Hawkinson hid a spare key to his trailer.
Hawkinson again said that he wanted the police to make sure that Rossberg did not come
back. The police found Rossberg in his trailer and told him to stay away from
Hawkinson for the night.
About a month later, in mid-December 2008, D.T. again called the police to say
that Rossberg might be suicidal, this time because she thought she had heard a gunshot
from inside his trailer. After getting Rossberg’s permission to search his trailer, the
police found a loaded .22-caliber pistol under a pillow on the couch. The officer who
found the gun was unable to tell if it had been fired recently. The officer talked to
Rossberg, determined that he was not suicidal, and took no further action.
D.T.’s former husband began visiting her in August 2009. Once, while the former
husband was with D.T. and Hawkinson in Hawkinson’s trailer, Rossberg began pounding
on the door and yelling at them. Hawkinson warned the former husband not to go outside
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and to watch out for Rossberg because he owned guns. The next spring, D.T. moved
away to live with her former husband. Rossberg remained upset at Hawkinson. That fall,
he told a friend that he wanted to shoot Hawkinson with his .22.
On March 20, 2011, D.T. called Hawkinson to tell him that things were not
working out with her former husband and to ask about renting the room in his trailer
again. Hawkinson was happy and excited that D.T. was coming back and shared the
news with his friends. Rossberg, by contrast, was sad and complained to his cousin that
the situation with D.T. made him dislike Hawkinson.
On March 25, Rossberg called the police and reported that someone had broken
into his trailer and stolen his loaded .22-caliber pistol. He said that he had dead-bolted
his door, walked to town, and returned to find the door open. The officer saw pry marks
on the door and doorframe but thought that the damage looked too minor for a dead-
bolted door that had been forced open. Rossberg asked whether he would be liable if
anyone was hurt or robbed with his gun, which the officer found unusual. The officer
also found it unusual that Rossberg was able to recite the missing gun’s serial number
from memory despite not having any documentation for it. After speaking to the police,
Rossberg went to see his cousin. He acted nervous and repeatedly mentioned that his gun
had been stolen. He also brought up D.T. and Hawkinson, called them names, and got
angrier as he talked about them. He said he was tired of the situation and was planning to
move away.
Later the same evening, the daughter of one of Hawkinson’s neighbors stepped
outside her parents’ house to make a phone call and saw Rossberg arguing with
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Hawkinson in front of Hawkinson’s trailer. Someone in another neighbor’s house heard
loud, confrontational yelling coming from Hawkinson’s trailer. The next morning,
Hawkinson’s neighbors saw Rossberg walk to Hawkinson’s trailer twice. The second
time, Rossberg stood in Hawkinson’s driveway, looked toward the trailer for a few
minutes, and then walked away. The morning after that, March 27, Hawkinson’s
neighbor again saw Rossberg twice walk toward Hawkinson’s trailer, stop, look at it, and
then walk away.
That afternoon, one of Hawkinson’s friends went to Hawkinson’s trailer to have
coffee and watch television, as was his routine. He found the door locked and ringed in
soot and heard a smoke or fire alarm going off inside. When emergency responders
arrived, they found Hawkinson dead and partially burned, sitting in a chair in the living
room. The burners on the stove were open, releasing gas into the trailer. The fire
marshal determined that the fire that burned Hawkinson’s body had started in newspapers
piled at his feet and had gone out before the gas was turned on, because otherwise the gas
would have ignited. The fire marshal also found an extinguished candle on the
countertop near the stove and concluded that if it had been lit when the burners were
opened, it must have gone out before enough gas built up to ignite.
The medical examiner found six small entrance wounds in the back of
Hawkinson’s head and several bullet fragments inside. She concluded that Hawkinson
was killed by the gunshots before being burned. The wounds and bullet fragments were
consistent with a .22-caliber gun, and the police found six spent .22-caliber shell casings
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around Hawkinson’s body. Those casings were fired from the same gun as spent casings
that the police later found in Rossberg’s trailer.
The police found two handwritten notes in Hawkinson’s trailer. They read, “I’ll
Get you! ByE!” and “Your Dead! Bye!” A bear-like face was drawn on each note and
Rossberg’s son said that Rossberg drew similar faces on notes to him. A forensic
document examiner concluded that Rossberg “probably” wrote the notes.
Several months later, Rossberg was in custody at the Wright County jail. Another
inmate found an envelope addressed “To the Courts” tucked inside a magazine among the
generally accessible reading materials. The envelope contained a handwritten letter
purporting to be from an assassin hired to kill both Hawkinson and Rossberg. The
assassin claimed to have killed Hawkinson and asked for Rossberg to be released so that
the assassin could finish the job by killing him. The document examiner could only
perform a limited analysis of the letter because the handwriting seemed “careless” or
unnatural, but she found “indications” that Rossberg “may have” written it.
A grand jury indicted Rossberg for first-degree premeditated murder and second-
degree intentional murder. Before his jury trial, Rossberg moved to preclude the State
from offering evidence of his past bad conduct toward Hawkinson because it was
irrelevant. The district court held a hearing, carefully analyzed the proffered evidence,
excluded some incidents and details, and admitted others. Throughout the trial, the court
repeatedly instructed the jury about the limited purposes for which it was to use the
evidence of past conduct. The jury found Rossberg guilty of both counts, and the court
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convicted him of first-degree premeditated murder under Minn. Stat. § 609.185(a)(1) and
sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of release.
II.
Rossberg argues that the district court erred by admitting much of the evidence
about his past bad conduct. To prevail, Rossberg must show that the district court abused
its discretion by admitting the evidence and that the erroneous admission was prejudicial.
See, e.g., State v. Sanders, 775 N.W.2d 883, 887 (Minn. 2009). Because Rossberg does
not assert that admission of this evidence violated his constitutional rights, we consider
any error harmless unless it substantially influenced the jury’s verdict. Id.The evidence that Rossberg challenges is “[e]vidence of another crime, wrong, or
act,” Minn. R. Evid. 404(b), which is also known as “Spreigl evidence,” after State v.
Spreigl, 272 Minn. 488, 139 N.W.2d 167 (1965). This kind of evidence may not be used
to prove that a person acted a certain way because he or she had a certain character.
Minn. R. Evid. 404(b). It may, however, be admissible to prove other things, like
whether a person had a motive or opportunity to act a certain way, or planned or prepared
to do something. Id. Even then, its admission is subject to certain conditions. Id.Within this class of evidence of other bad acts, we have distinguished traditional
“collateral” Spreigl evidence, which concerns “an unrelated crime against another
person,” not the present victim, from “evidence that illuminates the history of the
relationship between an accused and a victim.” State v. McCoy, 682 N.W.2d 153, 159,
161 (Minn. 2004) (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted). The district court
expressly admitted some evidence as “Spreigl evidence”—meaning the first type—and
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some as “relationship evidence”—meaning the second—and Rossberg makes different
challenges to each. Accordingly, we address Rossberg’s arguments separately.
A.
The evidence that the district court admitted as collateral Spreigl evidence was
testimony about the 911 call from December 2008, in which D.T. reported thinking that
Rossberg might be suicidal because she had heard a gunshot in his trailer. One of the
requirements for admitting Spreigl evidence is that the district court “must identify the
precise disputed fact to which the Spreigl evidence would be relevant.” Angus v. State,
695 N.W.2d 109, 120 (Minn. 2005). In this case, the district court explained that
testimony about the 911 call was relevant to “whether or not Mr. Rossberg committed
this crime, and was in possession of the weapon used in the commission of this crime.”
Rossberg argues that the district court’s explanation failed to identify a “precise disputed
fact.” We agree.
The first part of the district court’s statement—“whether or not Mr. Rossberg
committed this crime”—simply states the ultimate issue of guilt; it does not identify a
“precise disputed fact.” The second part—“whether or not Mr. Rossberg . . . was in
possession of the weapon used in the commission of this crime”—does identify a specific
fact, but not one that was in dispute. Rossberg did not deny that he reported that his gun
was stolen a few days before Hawkinson’s murder, necessarily implying that he had
previously possessed it. The State suggests that the testimony about the 911 call was
relevant to the alleged fact that Rossberg “discharg[ed] the weapon in response to a
confrontation with [D.T.].” But we review “whether the . . . rationale cited by the district
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court provides a proper basis upon which to admit the . . . evidence,” State v. Fardan,
773 N.W.2d 303, 317 (Minn. 2009) (emphasis added), and the district court referred only
to whether Rossberg “was in possession of the weapon” and said nothing about
discharging the gun. Moreover, the State presented no evidence that Rossberg confronted
D.T. around the time of Hawkinson’s murder, so it is unclear why the alleged fact that
Rossberg once fired the gun after confronting D.T. would be relevant to whether he shot
Hawkinson with the gun. In short, because the “precise disputed fact[s]” identified by the
court were either not precise or not disputed, they did not support admission of Spreigl
evidence about the 911 call.
Even so, the district court’s error does not entitle Rossberg to a new trial, because
there is no “reasonable possibility that the wrongfully admitted evidence significantly
affected the verdict.” State v. Ness, 707 N.W.2d 676, 691 (Minn. 2006). At the outset,
we note that the court minimized the risk of prejudice by carefully and repeatedly
instructing the jury not to find Rossberg guilty based on his past conduct. Cf. Fardan,
773 N.W.2d at 320 (explaining that generally “[t]he jury is presumed to have followed
such instructions”). And to the extent the incident suggested anything about Rossberg
having a violent character, the violence was toward himself, not Hawkinson. In addition,
the testimony about the 911 call was not central to the State’s case. The State mentioned
the incident only as a single minor piece of the puzzle that was the ongoing relationship
between Rossberg, D.T., and Hawkinson.
More critically, the other evidence of Hawkinson’s guilt was overwhelming:
Rossberg made a specific threat to shoot Hawkinson with his .22-caliber pistol; the gun
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disappeared just days before it was used to kill Hawkinson; Rossberg acted suspiciously
when reporting the gun stolen; Rossberg repeatedly told his cousin that the gun had been
stolen while ranting about Hawkinson and D.T.; Rossberg probably wrote threatening
notes and left them in Hawkinson’s trailer; witnesses saw Rossberg arguing with
Hawkinson shortly before Hawkinson was killed; witnesses saw Rossberg approach
Hawkinson’s trailer around the time Hawkinson was killed; witnesses saw Rossberg
repeatedly walk out to look at Hawkinson’s trailer from a distance while the fire was
likely burning inside and the gas was turned on; the bullet fragments from Hawkinson’s
wounds were consistent with Rossberg’s gun; the shell casings from the scene of the
murder matched shell casings found in Rossberg’s trailer; and Rossberg might have
written the letter purporting to be from the assassin in an attempt to exculpate himself and
get out of jail. In short, given the other evidence that Rossberg killed Hawkinson, there is
no reasonable possibility that hearing that Rossberg may have shot his gun in his trailer in
2008 significantly influenced the jury’s decision to find him guilty of the murder of
Hawkinson more than 2 years later.
B.
The district court admitted testimony about the following incidents as evidence of
Rossberg’s relationship with Hawkinson: the two 911 calls from September 2008, in
which D.T. reported that Rossberg might be suicidal and that he was yelling and
pounding on Hawkinson’s door; Rossberg telling his son that he would hurt Hawkinson if
Hawkinson got too close to D.T.; Rossberg’s statements to his friend about wanting to
kill Hawkinson with a machete; Hawkinson’s neighbor seeing Rossberg repeatedly
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pounding on Hawkinson’s doors and windows; one of Hawkinson’s black eyes and
Rossberg’s admission that he caused it; the two 911 calls from November 2008 about
Rossberg yelling, pounding on Hawkinson’s door, and entering Hawkinson’s trailer; and
Rossberg’s statement in fall 2010 about wanting to shoot Hawkinson with his .22.
Rossberg does not challenge the admission of his 2010 statement about wanting to shoot
Hawkinson, but argues that the rest of the testimony was irrelevant and therefore
inadmissible, largely because it focused on events more than 2 years before Hawkinson’s
murder.
We use a fact-dependent “balancing process as to time, place, and modus
operandi,” rather than a strict cut-off, to determine when conduct that occurred before a
charged offense is no longer relevant. State v. Washington, 693 N.W.2d 195, 202 (Minn.
2005). Among the factors that we consider is whether “intervening acts tend to bolster
the prior act’s relevance and materiality.” Id. In this case, Rossberg’s acts in 2009 and
2010, in light of the events of those years, make the challenged evidence relevant. In
particular, the evidence from 2008 established the relationship between Rossberg,
Hawkinson, and D.T., which persisted until Hawkinson’s murder. Rossberg continued to
spend much of his time with D.T. at Hawkinson’s trailer until D.T.’s former husband
arrived in the summer of 2009. At that point, Rossberg followed the same pattern of
confrontational behavior that began in 2008 and simply expanded his focus to include the
former husband as well as Hawkinson. Even after D.T. moved away in 2010, Rossberg’s
relationship with Hawkinson remained strained and Rossberg again said he wanted to kill
Hawkinson. Accordingly, Rossberg’s conduct in 2008 was relevant because it provided
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necessary background and context to the development of the ongoing conflict between
Rossberg and Hawkinson that is central to understanding this case.1 Thus, the district
court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the testimony.
III.
In addition to the other Spreigl and relationship evidence, the district court
admitted testimony by D.T. and two police officers about two statements that Hawkinson
made to the police in the fall of 2008. The first statement was from October, when an
officer checked on Hawkinson’s welfare after learning that Rossberg had said he wanted
to kill Hawkinson with a knife. Hawkinson reportedly said that he knew that Rossberg
owned guns and was afraid that Rossberg would shoot him. The second statement was
from November, when Hawkinson called the police to report that Rossberg was in his
trailer yelling at him and D.T. Hawkinson reportedly told the officer that he was afraid of
Rossberg, that Rossberg had entered the trailer even though the door was locked, and that
he did not want Rossberg to come back. Rossberg argues that the hearsay testimony
about Hawkinson’s statements was inadmissible because it violated his rights under the
Confrontation Clause and because it was irrelevant. We address each argument in turn.
1
Rossberg also suggests that some portions of the testimony—he does not
specifically identify which—were irrelevant because they did not actually concern his
relationship with Hawkinson. We acknowledge that the connection between the
relationship and, in particular, the testimony about D.T. reporting that Rossberg might be
suicidal is thin. But in light of the other overwhelming evidence of Rossberg’s guilt, the
error, if any, in admitting that testimony was harmless.
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A.
In general, we will not consider a challenge to the admission of evidence “unless
. . . a timely objection or motion to strike appears of record, stating the specific ground of
objection, if the specific ground was not apparent from the context.” Minn. R. Evid.
103(a)(1). Rossberg did not object specifically under the Confrontation Clause or
specifically mention the Confrontation Clause in his brief to the district court, at the
pretrial hearing on the State’s proffered evidence, or at trial. And it was not “apparent
from the context” that the Confrontation Clause was the “specific ground” for Rossberg’s
challenge. Id. Rossberg challenged “the State’s introduction of any statements by Devan
[Hawkinson] . . . under Rule 807” (emphasis added), and his only argument against
admission of testimony about Hawkinson’s statements focused on Minn. R. Evid. 807,
the residual hearsay exception. Given Rossberg’s exclusive focus on Rule 807, it is
certainly plausible to read his challenge as based only on that Rule, so a Confrontation
Clause challenge was not apparent from the context of the objection. See State v. Brown,
792 N.W.2d 815, 820 (Minn. 2011) (determining whether a claimed ground for an
objection was apparent by considering whether there were other plausible grounds for the
objection in context).
Even though Rossberg failed to object specifically and preserve his challenge
under the Confrontation Clause, we can still “tak[e] notice . . . of plain errors affecting
substantial rights.” Minn. R. Evid. 103(d); see also, e.g., State v. Williams, 525 N.W.2d
538, 544 (Minn. 1994); cf. Minn. R. Crim. P. 31.02. Under the plain-error standard,
relief is available only if there is “(1) error, (2) that was plain, and (3) that affected the
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defendant’s substantial rights.” Brown, 792 N.W.2d at 820. If those conditions are met,
we “assess[] whether [we] should address the error to ensure fairness and the integrity of
the judicial proceedings.” State v. Griller, 583 N.W.2d 736, 740 (Minn. 1998).
In this case, we need not and do not consider whether the district court committed
error or whether any error was plain, because Rossberg has not shown that any violation
of the Confrontation Clause affected his substantial rights and thus he cannot obtain relief
under the plain-error standard. See Minn. R. Evid. 103(d); State v. Goelz, 743 N.W.2d
249, 258 (Minn. 2007) (“If a defendant fails to establish that the claimed error affected
his substantial rights, we need not consider the other factors.”). An error affects
substantial rights if there is a “reasonable likelihood” that it “substantially affected the
verdict.” State v. Strommen, 648 N.W.2d 681, 688 (Minn. 2002). This “heavy burden” is
not met here. See State v. Tscheu, 758 N.W.2d 849, 864 (Minn. 2008) (quoting Griller,
583 N.W.2d at 741).
The aspect of the challenged testimony that is most likely to have affected the
verdict is Hawkinson’s reported statement that Rossberg entered his locked trailer. That
fact was significant because it could support an inference that Rossberg had access to a
key to Hawkinson’s trailer, which would explain how Rossberg could have entered
Hawkinson’s trailer to kill him even though Hawkinson’s door was locked when his body
was found. But such an inference was not necessary, because the State presented
stronger evidence on that same point, in the form of undisputed testimony from D.T. and
one of Hawkinson’s friends that Rossberg knew where Hawkinson hid a spare key. In
light of that testimony, as well as the other overwhelming evidence of Rossberg’s guilt, it
15
is not reasonably likely that the indirect, cumulative evidence in Hawkinson’s statements
to the police substantially affected the jury’s verdict.
B.
Rossberg also argues that the testimony about Hawkinson telling the police that he
was afraid of Rossberg was irrelevant. Unlike Rossberg’s challenge under the
Confrontation Clause, this claim was fairly encompassed within Rossberg’s objection to
admission of the testimony “under Rule 807,” because Minn. R. Evid. 807 requires
evidence to relate to a “material fact.” Accordingly, we review it under the harmless-
error standard. See Sanders, 775 N.W.2d at 887.
A victim’s fear of a defendant can be relevant to the defendant’s guilt if the
defendant raises a defense that turns on the victim’s behavior. See State v. Blanchard,
315 N.W.2d 427, 432 (Minn. 1982). For example, if the defendant claims to have acted
in self-defense, the fact that the victim was afraid of the defendant might bear on whether
the defendant’s account is believable. Id. In the absence of such a defense, however,
“[o]rdinarily, a homicide victim’s state of mind is not relevant to whether the defendant
committed the crime.” State v. DeRosier, 695 N.W.2d 97, 105 (Minn. 2005). Here,
Rossberg did not raise any defense that had anything to do with Hawkinson’s behavior or
state of mind. Therefore, the evidence that Hawkinson was afraid of Rossberg was
irrelevant.
The district court’s error in admitting the testimony does not require reversal,
however, because it was harmless. Not only was the other evidence of Rossberg’s guilt
overwhelming, but the testimony about Hawkinson being afraid of Rossberg added little
16
to the undisputed testimony that Rossberg had struck, verbally harassed, and threatened
to kill Hawkinson and that Hawkinson had repeatedly sought police assistance to keep
Rossberg away from him. There is no reasonable probability that the additional evidence
that Hawkinson was afraid of Rossberg significantly affected the verdict. See Ness, 707
N.W.2d at 691; see also, e.g., Blanchard, 315 N.W.2d at 433 (holding a similar error
harmless when “[t]he state of mind evidence was merely cumulative” and “there was
overwhelming evidence of defendant’s guilt”).
IV.
Finally, Rossberg challenges his conviction on several grounds in his pro se
briefs.2 Some of Rossberg’s challenges are based on the evidence of his past conduct and
the alleged Confrontation Clause violation. Because Rossberg’s pro se briefs do not add
anything to his attorney’s arguments on those issues, we reject his challenges in light of
our analysis above. The rest of Rossberg’s challenges consist of factual assertions with
no support in the record and conclusory declarations detached from any legal reasoning.
2
In particular, we can identify the following claims in Rossberg’s pro se briefs: the
district court judge should have recused herself; the district court judge allowed the
prosecutor to commit misconduct; the prosecutor interviewed witnesses before the trial
without police present; the prosecutor inflamed the jury’s passions or biases; the
prosecutor revealed his personal feelings about Rossberg’s guilt; the State relied on
evidence that was obtained illegally; the testimony about Hawkinson’s statements to the
police violated the Confrontation Clause; the State used evidence of Rossberg’s past
conduct to attack his character and show a propensity to commit crimes; the district court
failed to instruct the jury on how to properly consider the evidence of Rossberg’s past
conduct; Rossberg’s sentence was based on false or unreliable information about his past
conduct; the district court should have sentenced Rossberg for second-degree murder
rather than first-degree murder because it is less serious; Rossberg should have been
given a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense; and the errors at
Rossberg’s trial, taken cumulatively, were not harmless.
17
Rossberg also makes several legal pronouncements with no explanation of how they
relate to his case. We treat such unsupported claims as waived and do not consider them
“unless prejudicial error is obvious on mere inspection.” Kaehler v. Kaehler, 219 Minn.
536, 537, 18 N.W.2d 312, 313 (1945); accord, e.g., State v. Krosch, 642 N.W.2d 713,
719 (Minn. 2002). Because the only errors that we can discern in Rossberg’s trial were
harmless, Rossberg’s pro se challenges do not entitle him to relief.
V.
For the forgoing reasons, we affirm Rossberg’s conviction.
Affirmed.
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