Opinion
A23-0823
04-02-2024
Jerrmaine Winston Knowles, petitioner, Appellant, v. State of Minnesota, Respondent.
Ramsey County District Court File No. 62-CR-13-10054
Considered and decided by Reyes, Presiding Judge; Wheelock, Judge; and Schmidt, Judge.
ORDER OPINION
SARAH I. WHEELOCK, JUDGE
BASED ON THE FILE, RECORD, AND PROCEEDINGS, AND BECAUSE:
1. Appellant Jerrmaine Winston Knowles pleaded guilty on April 16, 2014, to one count of identity theft involving eight or more direct victims in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.527, subds. 2, 3(5) (2012). The sentencing court ordered a presentence-investigation report (2014 PSI), and the 2014 PSI assigned Knowles seven criminal-history points. Knowles did not appear for sentencing, and the court issued a warrant for his arrest. On June 19, 2016, officers arrested Knowles pursuant to the warrant.
2. The sentencing court ordered a new PSI (2016 PSI), and the 2016 PSI identified nine criminal-history points. At the sentencing hearing, Knowles successfully moved to discharge his counsel, and he represented himself thereafter. Knowles objected to several of the criminal-history points assigned, respondent State of Minnesota conceded that the 2016 PSI incorrectly counted two gross misdemeanors as felonies, and the sentencing court determined that, because the record was unclear regarding whether Knowles was in custody at the time of one offense, he should not have a custody point for that offense. The sentencing court concluded that Knowles's criminal-history score was 6.5 and included two points for delivery of 50-224 grams of cocaine in 1994, one point for aggravated theft over $5,000 in 2006, one and a half points for fraud and related activity with identification documents in 2008, one point for identity fraud in 2008, and one point for having more than four prior gross-misdemeanor convictions. Based on that criminal-history score, the sentencing court imposed a middle-of-the-box sentence of 108 months in prison.
The sentencing court did not provide Knowles with a separate copy of the 2014 PSI; rather, his attorney had received a copy of the PSI and kept it after being discharged. Knowles argues that the sentencing court erred by failing to provide him with a new copy of that PSI pursuant to Minn. R. Crim. P. 27.03, subd. 1. If the sentencing court so erred, it was harmless. At most, the effect of this error would have been that Knowles could not effectively argue his out-of-state convictions and criminal-history score at the sentencing hearing. But because any arguments pertaining to an allegedly illegal sentence are preserved, see State v. Outlaw, 748 N.W.2d 349, 356 (Minn.App. 2008), rev. denied (Minn. July 15, 2008), he has had ample opportunity to access the 2014 PSI and make those arguments to challenge his sentence.
3. This is an appeal from the denial of Knowles's fourth motion since his direct appeal. Knowles first filed a direct appeal challenging, among other things, the calculation of his criminal-history score and the sufficiency of the 2016 PSI as evidence of his out-of-state convictions, and this court affirmed. State v. Knowles, No. A17-0004, 2017 WL 6273124, at *7 (Minn.App. Dec. 11, 2017) (Knowles I), rev. denied (Minn. Feb. 28, 2018). In 2021, he filed a postconviction petition to withdraw his plea, but the district court denied his petition as untimely, and this court affirmed. Knowles v. State, No. A22-0363, 2022 WL 17958200, at *1, *3 (Minn.App. Dec. 27, 2022). Knowles next filed motions to correct his sentence pursuant to Minn. R. Crim. P. 27.03, subd. 9, in March 2022, May 2022, and January 2023. The district court denied each motion because Knowles failed to show that the sentencing court imposed an illegal sentence. Knowles now appeals the most recent denial.
4. Knowles argues that the district court abused its discretion when it denied his motion to correct his sentence because the sentencing court incorrectly calculated his criminal-history score and therefore imposed an illegal sentence. Knowles contends that the sentencing court erred by (1) relying on only the 2016 PSI as evidence of the existence and nature of his out-of-state convictions, (2) relying on the 2016 PSI despite discrepancies between the 2014 and 2016 PSIs, and (3) applying the wrong equivalent Minnesota statutes to his out-of-state convictions. These arguments are not properly before us.
5. This court reviews a denial of a motion to correct a sentence and the calculation of a criminal-history score for an abuse of discretion, examining the district court's legal conclusions de novo and its factual findings for clear error. Townsend v. State, 834 N.W.2d 736, 738 (Minn. 2013); State v. Oreskovich, 915 N.W.2d 920, 926 (Minn.App. 2018).
6. The law-of-the-case doctrine prevents a party from raising issues already considered and decided in a case, and it applies when an appellate court previously considered and decided the issue in a direct appeal and the defendant raises it again in a sentencing motion. Smith v. State, 974 N.W.2d 576, 581-82 (Minn. 2022). This is true "even if the issue presented is not precisely the same in all its details." Townsend v. State, 3 N.W.3d 13, 17 (Minn. 2024) (holding that the law-of-the-case doctrine applied to defendant's repeated sentencing motions challenging the sentence imposed, even though defendant raised slightly different theories or arguments in each motion).
7. The law-of-the-case doctrine bars each of Knowles's arguments. Knowles already argued in his direct appeal that the sentencing court erred by relying on the 2016 PSI, the state did not provide enough evidence to support his criminal-history score, and the sentencing court abused its discretion when it determined the Minnesota statutes to apply to analyze his out-of-state convictions. Knowles I, 2017 WL 6273124, at *4-5. We rejected those arguments. Id. at *5. Even if we discerned slight differences in his current arguments compared to previous arguments, this does not prevent the application of the law-of-the-case doctrine.
8. The law-of-the-case doctrine applies here because this court already considered and rejected each of Knowles's arguments in his direct appeal, and the district court therefore did not abuse its discretion when it denied Knowles's motion to correct his sentence.
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED:
1. The district court's order denying appellant's motion to correct his sentence is affirmed.
2. Pursuant to Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c), this order opinion is nonprecedential, except as law of the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel.