State of Minnesota v. Randy Joseph Fellman ( 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This opinion will be unpublished and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
A16-0836
State of Minnesota,
Respondent,
vs.
Randy Joseph Fellman,
Appellant.
Filed January 3, 2017
Affirmed
Ross, Judge
Goodhue County District Court
File No. 25-KX-02-001364
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and
Stephen N. Betcher, Goodhue County Attorney, Erin L. Kuester, Assistant County
Attorney, Red Wing, Minnesota (for respondent)
Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Richard A. Schmitz, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)
Considered and decided by Ross, Presiding Judge; Schellhas, Judge; and Jesson,
Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
ROSS, Judge
The state filed criminal charges against Randy Fellman for sexually abusing
multiple boys orally and giving children drugs, after which he pleaded guilty to first-degree
criminal sexual conduct, two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct, and
contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Consistent with the plea agreement, the district
court sentenced Fellman to 216 months in prison and imposed two consecutive periods of
conditional release. Fellman moved to correct his sentence, arguing that consecutive
conditional-release terms are unauthorized by law. The district court construed the motion
as a postconviction petition and denied it as Knaffla-barred. We affirm because Fellman’s
challenge is a postconviction petition subject to Knaffla.
FACTS
The state charged Randy Fellman by amended complaint with fifteen criminal
counts for sexually assaulting multiple boys and providing marijuana to children between
1992 and 2002. He reached a plea agreement with the state in December 2002 and signed
a plea petition acknowledging that he understood the agreement and that he was waiving
his trial rights. His attorney and the prosecutor examined him, covering the charges, the
rights he was waiving, the sentencing implications, and the factual basis for his plea. The
prosecutor established Fellman’s understanding of his sentence this way:
Q: And you understand the terms of the plea agreement, is that
true?
A: Yes I do.
Q: Do you understand that you will be receiving a sentence of
216 months, commitment to the Commissioner of Prisons if the
Judge accepts the terms of the plea agreement?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you understand that you would be serving a minimum
of 144 months in prison, do you understand that?
A: Yes.
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[Questions concerning supervised release.]
Q: Do you also understand that under the terms of the plea
agreement, you will be subject to something called condition
[sic] release?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you understand that the conditional release period is
separate from the supervised release period of time?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you understand that that’s a specific term for registered
sex offenders[?] By entering your guilty plea, if the Judge
accepts that, you will be a sex offender under the law, do you
understand that?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you understand that the terms of your conditional release
period, pursuant to the plea agreement, would be 10 years have
[sic] conditional release?
A: Yes.
Fellman pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, two
counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct, and one count of contributing to the
delinquency of a minor. The district court accepted the plea. It sentenced Fellman in
February 2003, establishing, among other things, that the sentence included “ten years of
conditional release.”
Fellman moved in February 2004 to modify his conditional-release term, arguing
that he committed some of his offenses before the conditional-release statute became
effective and that consecutive conditional-release terms are not permitted. But Fellman
withdrew the motion “after discovering that the [department of corrections] did not
aggregate the purported five-year consecutive conditional release terms when it
implemented Fellman’s sentences.” Fellman petitioned for postconviction relief in
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February 2005, challenging the sentencing departures in light of the then-new sentencing-
jury requirement for aggravated sentences as announced in Blakely v. Washington, 542
U.S. 296, 124 S. Ct. 2531 (2004). The district court denied Fellman’s postconviction
petition and we affirmed in an order opinion. Fellman v. State, No. A05-0961 (Minn. App.
Mar. 2, 2006) (order op.), review denied (Minn. May 16, 2006).
Fellman moved to correct his sentence in February 2016, arguing that the district
court must reduce the conditional-release term from ten years to five years. The district
court denied his motion, treating it as a Knaffla-barred postconviction petition. Fellman
appeals.
DECISION
Fellman challenges the district court’s denial of his motion by contesting how the
district court characterized it. The district court characterized the motion, which Fellman
filed under Minnesota Rule of Criminal Procedure 27.03, as a statutory petition for
postconviction relief. Then it denied the motion as barred under the Knaffla rule that
prohibits challenges that were (or could have been) raised before. We generally review a
district court’s denial of a postconviction petition for an abuse of discretion. Riley v. State,
819 N.W.2d 162, 167 (Minn. 2012). But whether the district court properly characterized
the motion as a petition for postconviction relief under Minnesota Statutes section 590.01
(2014) is a threshold issue that requires us to interpret the rule and the statute. We interpret
procedural rules and statutes de novo. State v. Coles, 862 N.W.2d 477, 479 (Minn. 2015).
A person convicted of a crime may challenge his sentence in two ways. He may file
a petition for postconviction relief under Minnesota Statutes section 590.01, subdivision 1,
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or he may file a motion to correct his sentence under Minnesota Rule of Criminal Procedure
27.03, subdivision 9. Washington v. State, 845 N.W.2d 205, 210 (Minn. App. 2014). The
two remedies face different conditions. Vazquez v. State, 822 N.W.2d 313, 317–18 (Minn.
App. 2012). A petition for postconviction relief has a temporal condition: it must generally
be filed within two years after the entry of judgment of the petitioner’s conviction or
sentence, or an appellate court’s disposition of the petitioner’s direct appeal. Minn. Stat.
§ 590.01, subd. 4(a). It also has a substantive condition in that, after a direct appeal, “all
matters raised therein, and all claims known but not raised, will not be considered upon a
subsequent petition for postconviction relief.” State v. Knaffla, 309 Minn. 246, 252, 243
N.W.2d 737, 741 (1976); see also Jones v. State, 671 N.W.2d 743, 746 (Minn. 2003)
(extending the Knaffla restriction to also bar claims that were known or raised in a previous
postconviction petition). The restriction has been extended further to bar claims that should
have been known at the time of the previous petition. See Brown v. State, 746 N.W.2d 640,
642 (Minn. 2008). By contrast, a motion to correct an unauthorized sentence under rule
27.03, subdivision 9, is not subject to these conditions. Washington, 845 N.W.2d at 211.
Fellman therefore seeks to have his filing treated as a sentence-correction motion, not as a
postconviction petition.
The supreme court has instructed the district court when to categorize a
postconviction filing as a sentence-correction motion under the rules or as a postconviction
petition under the statute. It explained that, when a defendant challenges a sentence
imposed as part of a plea agreement, the district court properly treats his purported rule
27.03 motion as a statutory petition for postconviction relief. Coles, 862 N.W.2d at 481–
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82. The district court here followed Coles, reasoning that Fellman’s challenge implicates
the plea agreement and is therefore a section 590.01 postconviction petition rather than a
rule 27 motion.
Fellman argues unconvincingly that Coles does not apply. He attempts to draw a
distinction between a challenge to the legality of a sentence on improper-departure
grounds, see Coles, 862 N.W.2d at 479, and a challenge like his, which maintains that the
sentence itself is unauthorized. Fellman cites Reynolds v. State, 874 N.W.2d 257 (Minn.
App. 2016), aff’d, ___ N.W.2d ___, 2016 WL 7118915 (Minn. Dec. 7, 2016), and State v.
Garcia, 582 N.W.2d 879 (Minn. 1998), as support. Neither Reynolds nor Garcia supports
Fellman’s position.
In Reynolds, the appellant challenged a sua sponte sentence amendment that
imposed a conditional-release term. 874 N.W.2d at 259. We noted, “Even if [Reynolds]
prevails, his plea and conviction are unaffected. Under this assessment, it appears that
Reynolds properly brought his challenge under the rule.” Id. at 261. While Fellman’s case
was pending before us, the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed our decision. Reynolds v.
State, ___ N.W.2d ___, ___, 2016 WL 7118915, at *6 (Minn. Dec. 7, 2016). The supreme
court agreed with us that the district court lacked the authority to impose a ten-year
conditional-release term because the basis for that imposition was a fact not found by a
jury or admitted to by Reynolds. Id. at ___, 2016 WL 7118915, at *3. The district court’s
conditional-release term therefore rendered the sentence not authorized by law and subject
to challenge under rule 27. Id. This differs from the situation in Coles; the Coles court
described Coles’s contested sentence as “part of a negotiated package” that implicated the
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terms of the plea agreement. Coles, 862 N.W.2d at 481. It is true that Reynolds addresses
an unauthorized 10-year conditional-release term, similar to the now-contested part of
Fellman’s sentence. But this similarity is not material. Coles is instead materially similar
to this case because the sentence here, like the sentence in Coles, was imposed as part of a
plea bargain, which is in turn integral to the conviction. So unlike the situation in Reynolds,
where “the plea and conviction are unaffected” by the postconviction challenge, Fellman’s
plea and conviction would necessarily be affected by his postconviction challenge.
And in Garcia, which long predated Coles, the defendant challenged the post-
sentencing addition of a conditional-release term to his plea-bargained sentence and sought
specific performance of the plea agreement. 582 N.W.2d at 880. Because the sentence
without the conditional-release period was unauthorized, the district court could amend the
sentence under rule 27.03, subdivision 9. Id. at 881. But the Garcia court also held that
Garcia was not entitled to specific performance, and it allowed him either to withdraw from
the plea agreement or continue under the amended sentence. Id. at 882. Fellman wants his
conditional-release term reduced but objects to withdrawing from his plea. As the Coles
court reasoned in rejecting this approach, “[i]f the defendant succeeds in reducing his or
her sentence, he or she retains the benefit of the reduced criminal charge but the State no
longer receives the benefit of the longer sentence.” 862 N.W.2d at 481.
Fellman also argues on principle that construing his claim as a postconviction
petition (and holding him to the Knaffla restrictions), rather than as a motion to correct his
sentence, would undermine his right to challenge a sentence that is not authorized by law.
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See Minn. Stat. § 609.095(a) (2014). His argument echoes Justice Page’s dissent in Coles,
which expressed similar concerns:
Under the court’s decision, however, for the first time in our
court’s history, we hold that there is in effect no remedy for the
imposition of an illegal sentence. This result cannot stand. It
contradicts our authority to correct an illegal sentence “at any
time” under Rule 27.03, subdivision 9, runs counter to the
Legislature’s “stated public policy of achieving uniformity in
sentencing” by way of the sentencing guidelines, . . . and is
inconsistent with our obligation to do justice.
Coles, 862 N.W.2d at 486 (Page, J., dissenting) (citation omitted). We are bound by the
majority’s reasoning in Coles, not by the dissent. Fellman fails to distinguish this case from
Coles, which we will follow regardless of its potentially harsh consequences. Applying
Coles, we ask whether Fellman’s challenge to the consecutive terms of conditional release
is, in essence, a challenge to the underlying plea agreement. The record informs us that the
answer is yes. Fellman signed a plea petition and was examined sufficiently to assure both
his understanding and the voluntary nature of his agreement. The parties had negotiated
the plea agreement. Fellman received its benefits, including its sentencing terms and the
state’s dismissing of several counts. The state was relieved of its trial burdens. Each party
benefited from the resulting certainty in the outcome. That Fellman would face conditional
release for ten years by operation of two consecutive five-year periods was a term in the
negotiated agreement. Fellman’s challenge to that term of his sentence therefore implicates
the plea agreement and the conviction, and the district court properly characterized his
motion to correct his sentence as a petition for postconviction relief under section 590.01.
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The remaining question is less complicated, which is whether the district court
abused its discretion when it denied Fellman’s petition as Knaffla-barred. “A
postconviction court abuses its discretion when its decision is based on an erroneous view
of the law or is against logic and the facts in the record.” Riley, 819 N.W.2d at 167
(quotation omitted).
Fellman seems correct in doubting the legality of consecutive terms of conditional
release. Fellman cites Miller v. State (for the first time on appeal), where we held that
consecutive conditional-release terms were unauthorized as a matter of law. 714 N.W.2d
745, 748 (Minn. App. 2006). But the district court’s apparently erroneous conclusion of
law on this point does not prevent the effect of Coles and the consequent Knaffla bar.
In concluding that Fellman’s claim was Knaffla-barred, the district court considered
Fellman’s 2005 postconviction petition and observed that “[t]here is no argument that the
consecutive periods of conditional release were unknown to [Fellman] upon the filing of
the first petition for post-conviction relief.” The district court did not address Fellman’s
2004 motion to correct his sentence, but that motion also implies that Fellman knew about
the claim at the time of his 2005 petition. The district court’s conclusion was inescapable:
Fellman knew or should have known of his potential claim when he previously petitioned
for postconviction relief. The district court did not abuse its discretion by applying the
Knaffla bar to Fellman’s conditional-release-term challenge.
Fellman argues alternatively that, even if Coles applies and the postconviction
statute is the appropriate avenue for his challenge, his challenge cannot be barred because
the department of corrections changed its implementation of the sentence after the original
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sentencing date. The argument has at least four flaws. First, Fellman raises it for the first
time on appeal, so the district court had no opportunity to consider whether an exception
to the Knaffla bar applies. See Schleicher v. State, 718 N.W.2d 440, 445 (Minn. 2006)
(holding that parties may not raise issues for the first time on appeal from the denial of a
postconviction petition); Washington, 845 N.W.2d at 216 (holding that a defendant may
not assert an exception to the Knaffla bar for the first time on appeal). Second, the argument
discusses the statutory, two-year time bar, which the district court did not apply to
Fellman’s petition. Third, the argument relies on documents in his appellate addendum that
are nowhere in the record. We do not consider these documents on appeal. See Minn. R.
Crim. P. 28.02, subd. 8. And fourth, even if we were to consider Fellman’s argument
concerning the department of correction’s implementation of the sentence, the district
court’s sentencing summary mandated “10 years of conditional release” and could have
been contested regardless of the department’s implementation process.
Affirmed.
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