State of Minnesota v. James Patrick Jones ( 2016 )

This opinion will be unpublished and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
A15-1848
State of Minnesota,
Respondent,
vs.
James Patrick Jones,
Appellant.
Filed September 6, 2016
Affirmed
Johnson, Judge
Cass County District Court
File No. 11-CR-14-216
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Karen B. Andrews, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul,
Minnesota; and
Christopher J. Strandlie, Cass County Attorney, Walker, Minnesota (for respondent)
Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Roy G. Spurbeck, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)
Considered and decided by Johnson, Presiding Judge; Halbrooks, Judge; and Reilly,
Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
JOHNSON, Judge
James Patrick Jones was convicted of being an ineligible person in possession of a
firearm. Before trial, Jones moved to dismiss the charge, arguing that being convicted of
that offense would violate his right to due process on the ground that the state had led him
to believe that he could lawfully possess a firearm after he completed probation for a prior
juvenile adjudication. The district court denied the motion, reasoning that the state did not
mislead Jones with respect to his ineligibility to possess a firearm. We affirm.
FACTS
On February 3, 2014, a conservation officer stopped a vehicle in the city of Cass
Lake. Jones was one of five persons in the vehicle. The officer detected the odor of burnt
marijuana coming from the vehicle, which led to searches of the vehicle and the persons in
the vehicle. An officer found, among other things, marijuana and a pistol. Jones admitted
to the officer that the marijuana and the pistol belonged to him.
The state charged Jones with (1) being an ineligible person in possession of a
firearm, in violation of Minn. Stat. § 624.713, subd. 1(2) (2012), and (2) the petty
misdemeanor offense of possession of a small amount of marijuana, in violation of Minn.
Stat. § 152.027, subd. 4(a) (2012).
The state’s allegations concerning count 1, the possession-of-a-firearm offense, are
based on the fact that Jones, when he was a juvenile, was adjudicated delinquent for
committing felony theft of a firearm, in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.52, subds. 2(1), 3(1)
(2010). See Minn. Stat. § 624.713, subd. 1(2) (2010) (providing that persons adjudicated
delinquent for certain crimes are ineligible to possess a firearm). At the time of Jones’s
juvenile adjudication in May 2012, the district court in that case placed him on probation.
Jones signed a probation agreement that imposed 12 conditions on his probation. The fifth
condition states, “I will secure advance approval from the Probation Officer if at any time
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I wish to . . . [o]wn or carry firearms or other weapons, including knives; and, absolutely
no pistols or handguns.” In May 2013, Jones’s probation officer informed the district court
that Jones had complied with the terms of his probation, and the probation officer
recommended that the case be closed. In June 2013, the district court issued a one-sentence
order, stating, “Pursuant to the above request, the jurisdiction in this matter is terminated.”
In April 2014, Jones moved to dismiss count 1 of the complaint. He argued that the
probation agreement and discharge order in his juvenile case led him to believe that he was
eligible to possess a firearm after he completed his period of juvenile probation. Jones
submitted those two documents with his motion papers as exhibits but did not offer any
testimony at the hearing on the motion. In July 2014, the district court denied the motion.
In its memorandum, the district court stated that “the Court does not find that [the probation
agreement] creates an affirmative representation that Mr. Jones may possess a firearm.”
In June 2015, the district court found Jones guilty on both counts after a court trial.
In August 2015, the district court sentenced Jones to 60 months of imprisonment on count
1. Jones appeals.
DECISION
Jones argues that the district court erred by denying his pre-trial motion to dismiss
count 1 of the complaint. Specifically, he argues that his conviction on count 1 violates his
right to due process because the state led him to believe that he could possess a firearm
after he completed his juvenile probation.
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution forbids the state from depriving a person of life, liberty, or property “without
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due process of law.” U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. The Minnesota Constitution includes
the same text. Minn. Const. art. I, § 7. The United States Supreme Court has held that the
principle of due process prohibits a state from “convicting a citizen for exercising a
privilege which the State clearly had told him was available to him.” Raley v. Ohio, 360
U.S. 423, 438, 79 S. Ct. 1257, 1266 (1959). Similarly, our supreme court has stated that
due process “does not permit those who are perceived to speak for the state to mislead
individuals as to either their legal obligations or the penalties they might face should they
fail to satisfy those obligations.” McDonnell v. Commissioner of Pub. Safety, 473 N.W.2d
848, 854 (Minn. 1991).
In addition, the right to due process prohibits the state from informing a person that
he is eligible to possess a firearm if he is not so eligible. In Whitten v. State, 690 N.W.2d
561 (Minn. App. 2005), the defendant was convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm
due to a prior conviction, in violation of Minn. Stat. § 624.713, subds. 1(b), 2 (1998).
Whitten, 690 N.W.2d at 563. At the time of his prior conviction, the defendant had signed
a probation agreement that stated, “any person who has been convicted as a felon cannot
lawfully own, use or possess a firearm until the conviction is expunged, set aside, pardoned
or until civil rights are restored.” Id. at 562. When the defendant completed his probation,
the district court issued a discharge order that stated that he “was discharged from probation
and restored to all civil rights and to full citizenship with full right to vote and hold office
the same as if said conviction had not taken place.” Id. The discharge order included a
check-box that, if checked, would have indicated that the defendant was not entitled to
possess a firearm until ten years after the restoration of his civil rights, but the box was not
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checked. Id. at 563. In fact, the law did not permit the defendant to possess a firearm for
ten years, even though he was discharged from probation and had his civil rights restored.
See Minn. Stat. § 624.713, subds. 1(b), 2. On appeal, the defendant argued that his
conviction violated his right to due process. Whitten, 690 N.W.2d at 565. We agreed,
reasoning that “[t]he state cannot indicate that a person has the right to possess firearms
when all his civil rights are reinstated, tell him all his civil rights are reinstated, and then
tell him that he should have known he could not possess a firearm.” Id. at 566.
Accordingly, we vacated the conviction. Id.
In this case, Jones cites Whitten and requests the same relief. He contends, “The
State’s documents regarding Appellant’s probation were vague and confusing and did not
properly apprise Appellant of the permanent suspension of his firearm rights.” He also
contends that “there is no mention of restrictions of Appellant’s right to own or possess
firearms” in the district court’s discharge order.
Jones’s contentions do not resemble the reasoning of Whitten. In Whitten, the
defendant prevailed on appeal because his probation agreement and the district court’s
discharge order affirmatively misled him to believe that he was permitted to possess a
firearm after he was discharged from probation. 690 N.W.2d at 562-63. But in the portions
of his brief quoted above, Jones contends that his probation agreement and discharge order
are silent as to whether he may possess a firearm. The omission of such information is not
a violation of the right to due process because there is no constitutional right to notice that
one is prohibited from possessing a firearm. See State v. Grillo, 661 N.W.2d 641, 645
(Minn. App. 2003), review denied (Minn. Aug. 5, 2003).
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Jones also contends in other portions of his brief that the state affirmatively misled
him. Specifically, he contends that “the State misled [him] as to his firearm rights” and
that he “reasonably relied on the State’s omissions and affirmative misrepresentations to
him, which caused him to believe that he could lawfully possess a firearm.” His most
specific example of an affirmative misrepresentation is his contention that the probation
agreement implies that he would be permitted to possess a firearm after completing
probation because it says that he may do so during his probationary period if he has the
permission of his probation officer.
The factual record before the district court on Jones’s pre-trial motion to dismiss
simply does not reveal any affirmative misrepresentations of the type that were present in
Whitten. The critical distinction between this case and Whitten is that the probation
agreement in Whitten made a statement about the defendant’s rights after the completion
of the defendant’s probation, but the probation agreement in this case does not make any
statement about what Jones may or may not do after completing probation. The district
court’s discharge order is even more innocuous. It states merely that Jones no longer is
subject to the jurisdiction of the court. The order says nothing whatsoever about firearms
or the restoration of Jones’s civil rights. And the order does not include a misleading
unchecked box, as in Whitten. See 690 N.W.2d at 563. Thus, unlike Whitten, in which
there were affirmative misstatements that the defendant could possess a firearm after
completing probation, there is no such affirmative misstatement in the record that was
before the district court at the time of Jones’s motion to dismiss.
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In sum, the district court did not err by denying Jones’s pre-trial motion to dismiss
count 1 of the complaint.
Affirmed.
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