State of Minnesota v. Scott Joseph Arnes ( 2017 )

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2016).
STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A15-2093
State of Minnesota,
Respondent,
vs.
Scott Joseph Arnes,
Appellant.
Filed January 30, 2017
Affirmed
Ross, Judge
Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-14-35982
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and
Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Elizabeth R. Johnston, Assistant
Hennepin County Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)
Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Roy G. Spurbeck, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)
Considered and decided by Schellhas, Presiding Judge; Cleary, Chief Judge; and
Ross, Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
ROSS, Judge
After Scott Arnes fought with B.L.S. in a restaurant parking lot, B.L.S. said he saw
Arnes walking around B.L.S.’s Mercedes Benz. Police arrived and found numerous recent
scratches on B.L.S.’s car, which led to charges and a jury finding that Arnes committed
first-degree damage to property. Arnes argues on appeal that the district court’s admission
of allegedly vouching testimony requires us to reverse his conviction. Because the district
court did not plainly err by failing to sua sponte strike the testimony or give a curative
instruction, we affirm.
FACTS
After the state charged Arnes with felony first-degree damage to property, a jury
heard the following account.
Late one night in May 2014, B.L.S. went to the Red Rooster restaurant in Long Lake
to speak with his daughter, an employee. Arnes and a bartender found B.L.S. and his
daughter outside and interrupted their conversation. Arnes became violent and hit B.L.S.
and walked away. Moments later, B.L.S. saw Arnes walking around B.L.S.’s Mercedes
Benz, and he told Arnes to get away.
The jury heard recordings of 9-1-1 calls, which suggested a different version. Arnes
reported to the emergency dispatcher that he had just been assaulted by a “psychopath”
who “drug [his daughter] out [of the restaurant] like he was about to assault her.” Arnes
said, “[B.L.S.] definitely beat the crap out of me” and “just . . . started punching at me.”
The jury learned that officers arrived shortly after Arnes’s call. Officer William
Mathews spoke with Arnes first. Officer Mathews noticed that Arnes had several injuries.
The officer noticed that Arnes smelled like an alcoholic beverage and seemed drunk. While
Officer Mathews took Arnes’s statement, Officer Todd Peterson took B.L.S.’s statement.
He noticed fresh scratch marks “consistent with being keyed or something similar” on
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B.L.S.’s car’s trunk, hood, and sides. He also saw a red substance partially smeared on the
hood. Officer Peterson told Officer Mathews what he saw, and Mathews in turn asked
Arnes about the damage. Arnes denied being anywhere near the car except immediately
after his row with B.L.S. when, according to him, he went near only to photograph B.L.S.’s
license plate. Officer Mathews examined Arnes’s car keys and found no paint residue. A
crime scene investigator arrived and collected evidence, including a sample of the red
substance on the car and fingerprints. Police arrested Arnes.
The following exchange took place when the prosecutor directly examined Officer
Peterson:
Q: [D]id you ask [Arnes] at all about the scratches on the car?
A: Yes, I did.
Q: And what was his response?
A: He denied any involvement. He did say that the altercation
was on the driver’s side, but he said he was never near the
hood of the car.
Q: Did you have a chance to look at [Arnes] up close at all that
night?
A: Very briefly . . . [W]hen I spoke to him he was quite upset,
and I did tell him I didn’t believe him.
Q: What, if anything, did you notice about his demeanor that
night?
A: He was kind of ranting that . . . that he was the one that got
beaten up, he had nothing to do with it. His speech was
slurred. He was quite upset.
The crime scene investigator described a photograph and the red substance depicted
in it (which turned out to be blood), saying that it looked “like a transfer pattern where
something with blood on it came in contact with the vehicle.” The investigator could not
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say how the blood got on the hood. But DNA tests matched the blood from the car with
Arnes’s blood.
The jury found Arnes guilty of criminal damage to property exceeding $1,000. The
district court sentenced him to 13 months in prison but stayed execution of the sentence for
three years conditioned on probationary terms. Arnes appeals.
DECISION
Arnes takes issue with this part of the trial exchange that the prosecutor had with
Officer Peterson:
Q. Did you have a chance to look at [Arnes] up close at all that
night?
A. Very briefly . . . [W]hen I spoke to him he was quite upset,
and I did tell him I didn’t believe him.
Arnes did not object to the exchange during the trial. Nor did he ask the district court to
strike the testimony or instruct the jury to treat the testimony in any particular way. But he
argues now on appeal that the officer’s statement constitutes impermissible vouching
testimony and that its admission requires us to reverse his conviction. He is wrong.
Arnes’s failure to object at trial constrains our review. We ordinarily review a
district court’s evidentiary rulings for an abuse of discretion. State v. Burrell, 772 N.W.2d
459, 465 (Minn. 2009). But we review unobjected-to error under the plain-error
framework. State v. Griller, 583 N.W.2d 736, 740 (Minn. 1998). On appeal, the defendant
must prove that an error occurred, that the error was plain, and that the error affected his
substantial rights. Id. If he succeeds in meeting each of these elements, we then will
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consider whether reversal is necessary to ensure the fairness and integrity of the judicial
proceedings. Id.
Plain Error
Arnes asserts that the officer’s testimony unfairly commented on Arnes’s credibility
and constitutes plain error. He begins in the wrong place. An error is “plain” if it is clear
or obvious, such as when the error contravenes case law, a rule, or a standard of conduct.
State v. Ramey, 721 N.W.2d 294, 302 (Minn. 2006). An alleged trial error is not plain error
unless it is “so clear . . . and so prejudicial to the defendant’s right to a fair trial, that the
defendant’s failure to object—and thereby present the trial court with an opportunity to
avoid prejudice—should not forfeit his right to a remedy.” State v. Manthey, 711 N.W.2d
498, 504 (Minn. 2006). Arnes argues specifically that Officer Peterson’s testimony was
plainly impermissible, essentially vouching for the credibility of B.L.S.’s testimony against
Arnes. Arnes correctly observes that one witness cannot vouch for the credibility of another
witness. State v. Ferguson, 581 N.W.2d 824, 835 (Minn. 1998). But this is the wrong place
to begin the plain-error analysis.
Our plain-error analysis does not primarily consider the alleged impropriety in the
challenged testimony; it primarily considers the alleged impropriety of the district court’s
response to the allegedly improper testimony. The real question here is not whether
permitting the testimony constitutes plain error, but whether the district court’s failure to
sua sponte strike the testimony or instruct the jury on it was plain error. See State v. Vick,
632 N.W.2d 676, 687 (Minn. 2001). Arnes’s argument does not point us to the right
question, and the answer does not favor him. A district court’s failure to sua sponte strike
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testimony or instruct the jury about it is generally not reversible error. Vick, 632 N.W.2d
at 687; see also State v. Taylor, 869 N.W.2d 1, 18 (Minn. 2015) (concluding district court
did not plainly err in failing to provide sua sponte limiting instruction on prior-felony
impeachment). A district court’s sua sponte action risks depriving the defendant of the
potential strategic advantages of not objecting. See State v. Washington, 693 N.W.2d 195,
204–05 (Minn. 2005) (disagreeing with proposition that the district court must or should
interfere with potential trial strategies by acting sua sponte because it would risk
highlighting or enforcing rights the defendant chose to waive); Manthey, 711 N.W.2d at
505 (noting that courts are not required or advised to make such affirmative intrusions into
proceedings and concluding that plain error did not occur). The solution in these situations
might be much worse than the supposed problem.
We add that, although the proper question is whether the district court’s failure to
act sua sponte was plain error, Arnes would fare no better if we followed the course of his
argument that the testimony itself was error. The challenged statement, “I did tell [Arnes]
I didn’t believe him,” was the officer’s restatement of what he told Arnes at the scene in
the midst of his investigation, not his declaration that he in fact did not believe Arnes or
his declaration about the truth of someone else’s testimony. The state rightly emphasizes
State v. Vance, 714 N.W.2d 428 (Minn. 2006), State v. Lindsey, 632 N.W.2d 652 (Minn.
2001), and State v. Tovar, 605 N.W.2d 717 (Minn. 2000). These cases all address the
admission of evidence that in one way or another contained investigatory statements that
implied that the defendants were lying. Vance summarizes for us, “When police interviews
with a defendant are admitted, statements by police during the interviews are generally
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admissible to give context to the defendant’s statements.” 714 N.W.2d at 443. It does not
appear that the challenged testimony was plainly vouching testimony.
But we need not decide whether the officer’s testimony was vouching testimony
because, even if it was, Arnes has not demonstrated that the district court’s failure to sua
sponte strike or instruct on the testimony was plain error. The alleged vouching testimony
was brief and not pursued or otherwise highlighted. It was, at most, a slight so mild that
Arnes’s counsel might reasonably choose to ignore it so as not to magnify it. The district
court, similarly, might have reasonably chosen to ignore it so as not to deprive Arnes’s
counsel of that reasonable choice. We see no error, let alone plain error, in the district
court’s choice not to impose an uninvited remedy.
Effect on Substantial Rights
Even if we assume that the officer gave impermissible vouching testimony and that
the district court’s failure to remedy the impermissible testimony sua sponte was plain
error, Arnes clearly fails on the third prong of plain-error analysis. This is because the
district court’s failure to act sua sponte did not possibly affect Arnes’s substantial rights.
An error affects substantial rights if there is a reasonable likelihood that it substantially
affects the verdict. State v. Robertson, 884 N.W.2d 864, 876 (Minn. 2016). Defendants
bear the heavy burden of persuasion on this prejudice element. Griller, 583 N.W.2d at 741.
Arnes asserts that the state’s case was not overwhelming, and he reminds us that, in
harmless-error analysis, we consider the strength of the evidence supporting the conviction.
Arnes raises a variety of potential weaknesses in the state’s case against him: no witness
saw him damage the car; police found no paint residue on his keys; “it is counter-intuitive
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that [he] would damage the car and then call police”; the crime scene investigator could
not say how his blood got on the car; and another employee was also angry with B.L.S.
Arnes’s ultimate conclusion is that “[i]f the jury was looking for some concrete fact to
show that [he] committed the offense, it well might have utilized the experienced officer’s
opinion that [he] was not truthful.”
Arnes’s argument that the officer’s statement prejudiced his defense fails because
the officer stated what was already obvious to the jury. We infer that the jury was already
aware that the officer did not believe Arnes’s denials about not having been near the car.
We need not speculate to understand that, even without hearing the statement, the jury
knew that the officer did not believe Arnes’s denials; after all, the officers arrested Arnes
after he spoke with them—an act that must have been preceded by their not believing
Arnes’s denials. The jury learned nothing from the statement that it did not already know
from the circumstances.
The officer’s statement was unsolicited, brief, and not highlighted by the prosecutor.
It did nothing to bolster the prosecution or prevent Arnes from emphasizing the weaknesses
in the state’s case against him. And the district court did instruct that the jury is the sole
judge of credibility, diminishing any negative impact from the challenged testimony.
Arnes’s speculation that the jury “might well have” relied on the officer’s statement
does not constitute a reasonable likelihood that it did. We conclude that there is no way
that either the challenged testimony or the district court’s failure to sua sponte strike that
testimony substantially affected the verdict.
Affirmed.
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