Opinion
A21-0225
11-29-2021
Walter Johann Happel, petitioner, Appellant, v. State of Minnesota, Respondent.
Ramsey County District Court File No. 62-CR-14-3581
Considered and decided by Gaïtas, Presiding Judge; Ross, Judge; and Reilly, Judge.
ORDER OPINION
Kevin G. Ross Judge
BASED ON THE FILE, RECORD, AND PROCEEDINGS, AND BECAUSE:
1. Appellant Walter Happel pleaded guilty in 2015 to first-degree criminal sexual conduct and to second- and fourth-degree intrafamilial sexual abuse.
2. Happel unsuccessfully petitioned for postconviction relief in 2018. He disputed that he waived his right to a sentencing jury on aggravating factors and admitted facts supporting an aggravated sentence of 120 months in prison-an upward durational departure from the presumptive guidelines sentence. We affirmed the sentence. Happel v. State, No. A18-0052, 2019 WL 272861, at *2, *6 (Minn.App. Jan. 22, 2019), rev. denied (Minn. Apr. 16, 2019).
3. Happel moved the district court to correct his sentence in July 2020 under Minnesota Rule of Criminal Procedure 27.03, subdivision 9, arguing that the district court based the departure on impermissible aggravating factors that lacked evidentiary support and that the state had not provided proper notice of its intent to seek a departure.
4. In an August 24, 2020 order, the district court construed Happel's motion as a petition for postconviction relief under Minnesota Statutes section 590.01 (2018) and summarily denied the petition as time-barred under the statute and procedurally barred under the law-of-the-case doctrine. Happel did not appeal that order; he instead moved for amended findings or to set aside the order under Minnesota Rule of Civil Procedure 60.02. The district court denied Happel's motion to amend or set aside the August order in an order dated December 16, 2020.
5. In this appeal Happel challenges both the August 2020 order and the December 2020 order. A special-term panel of this court determined that we lack jurisdiction to address Happel's challenge to the August 2020 order, and Happel provides no basis for us to revisit the panel's decision.
6. Happel challenges the December 2020 order by again arguing that he did not properly waive a sentencing jury and that he lacked notice of the state's intent to seek a departure. The arguments fail under the law-of-the-case doctrine. See Lynch v. State, 749 N.W.2d 318, 321 (Minn. 2008) (providing that a court's decision upon a rule of law continues to govern the same issues in later stages in the same case). Although the arguments have no apparent merit, we hold only that we will not address them in substance because we resolved them in his previous appeal.
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED:
1. The district court's order 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.