2006-M-07 Shane
Pierson, petitioner, Appellant, vs. State of Minnesota, Respondent.
DESCRIPTION OF THE CRIME: On March 25, 1994, a Ramsey County jury found Pierson
guilty of murder in the first degree, murder in the second degree, and
aggravated robbery for his involvement in the robbery of Raymond Barnett and
the murder of Dural Woods. The trial court sentenced Pierson to consecutive terms of
48 months for the aggravated robbery and to life for the first-degree murder.
On the evening
of October 5, 1993, Raymond Barnett and his roommate left their home at 911
Dayton Avenue in St. Paul shortly before 10:00 p.m. and walked a block to
King's Market on the corner of Selby Avenue and Milton Street. On their return home,
they heard voices calling out to get their attention and saw three men running
up behind them. Barnett and his roommate walked a short distance further and
stopped on the sidewalk in front of their house to talk with the three men.
Barnett later identified the men as appellant Shane Pierson, Carlos Smith and
Antonius Hudspeth. One or two minutes later, Barnett's roommate left the group
to go into the house, and almost immediately, the three men surrounded Barnett.
At that moment, Barnett realized Smith was pointing a gun at his head. As Smith
told Barnett to get on the ground, Hudspeth shouted "shoot him."
During this time, Pierson was standing to one side of Barnett and did not say
anything. When Barnett failed to comply with the order to get on the ground,
Smith struck Barnett on the right side of his forehead with the gun, causing
him to fall to the ground. Barnett believed he was "out" for a couple
of seconds, and when he woke up, he was face-down in the grass and all three
men were going through his clothing and beating him. One of the men was beating
Barnett with some sort of stick or bat. Although Barnett could not see each
individual man while he was face-down in the grass, he could feel that all
three, including Pierson, participated in going through his pockets, taking his
pager, ripping his pants off of him and beating him while he was on the ground.
The last items taken were Barnett's tennis shoes. After the attack, the three
men jogged south down the middle of Milton Street toward King's Market.
At
roughly the same time, Dural Woods was standing on the corner in front of
King's Market, and Michael Kirkwood had just arrived to use the telephone
connected to the outside wall of the market. As Kirkwood picked up the
telephone receiver, he looked up and saw three men running toward him, one of
whom was carrying a pair of tennis shoes under his arm. Kirkwood and other
witnesses later identified the men as Pierson, Smith and Hudspeth — the same
three men identified as having robbed Barnett just moments earlier. Although
the testimony conflicted somewhat, it appears that, immediately suspecting
trouble, Kirkwood dropped the telephone and said "what's up" to the
men four or five times. Believing he was about to be robbed, Kirkwood called to
a friend across the street and stepped backwards away from the corner. As he
reached his friend near the south curb of Selby Avenue, Kirkwood heard one of
the men say "jack-move," a slang term for robbery, and he then saw
Smith and Hudspeth hold Woods' arms while Pierson went through Woods' pockets.
According to Kirkwood and his friend, Woods struggled and said "get off
me." At that moment, Smith shot Woods once in the head while he was
standing and three to five more times after Woods had fallen to the ground.
During the fatal shooting, Pierson stood at Woods' head and watched without
attempting to leave or to stop Smith.
Immediately
following the shooting, Pierson, Smith and Hudspeth jogged south on Milton
Street, howling and cheering as they left. Moments later, witnesses who lived a
block south of King's Market heard multiple doors slamming on a car that was
parked on Milton Street south of Selby Avenue, and then saw a small tan station
wagon turn the corner and proceed west on Hague Avenue at a high rate of speed.
At least two occupants in the car were shouting as if in celebration and
laughing raucously as they drove away.
At
approximately 10:30 p.m., a "shots-fired" call was issued to St. Paul
police officers in the area of Selby Avenue and Milton Street. Within minutes of
the call, two officers in a patrol car spotted a brown station wagon heading
north on Lexington Avenue at 40-45 miles per hour and turning west onto an I-94
access road. Having heard the call about the shooting, and because the vehicle
did not slow down when it turned the corner onto the access road, the officers
suspected that the occupants were trying to flee the area in a hurry. The
officers followed the car onto westbound I-94 and, after receiving a
description of the suspect vehicle and requesting backup assistance, stopped
the car at the Riverside exit in Minneapolis. After police removed the
occupants from the car, they identified the men as John Edmondson, Pierson,
Smith and Hudspeth. Within an hour of the shooting, the police brought a
witness of both the robbery of Barnett and the shooting of Woods to the
Riverside exit, and he identified Pierson, Smith and Hudspeth as the men
involved in both crimes. The car was later identified by Smith's mother as the
one she had loaned to Edmondson, Pierson, Smith and Hudspeth earlier that
evening, and was identified by witnesses as the one seen driving away from the
scene of the shooting. Police searched the car and recovered three pagers, one
of which was the pager taken from Barnett, a baseball bat, one of Barnett's
tennis shoes, and a sweatshirt. All four men were arrested.
Also
within minutes of the call, police arrived at the corner of Selby Avenue and
Milton Street and found Woods lying face-down on the sidewalk in a pool of
blood. The police recovered from the scene four shell
PRIOR DECISIONS: In 1995, on direct appeal, Pierson raised the sole issue of whether the
evidence presented at trial was sufficient to sustain his conviction of
first-degree murder. The Supreme Court rejected his claim and affirmed his convictions
and sentence.
In 2002, Pierson subsequently filed his first petition for
post-conviction relief, in which he made three claims: (1) newly discovered
evidence entitled him to a new trial or an evidentiary hearing; (2) the
district court improperly admitted Spreigl evidence; and (3) he was
denied effective assistance of counsel. The post-conviction court denied
relief, and the Supreme Court affirmed.
THIS APPEAL: In 2005, Pierson appealed the post-conviction court’s
summary dismissal of his second petition for post-conviction relief.
Pierson claims that the post-conviction court erred in summarily
dismissing his petition because he was subject to multiple convictions for the
same offense in violation of state law, and therefore should have been
sentenced on the less serious offense. The Supreme Court rejected his claim and
affirmed his convictions and sentence.
THIS DECISION: Justice Gildea joined Justice Helen Meyer’s opinion to
reject his claim and affirm his convictions and sentence. Pierson claimed
that the jury was improperly instructed on both first- and second-degree murder
and that, when the jury found him guilty of both, the district court improperly
sentenced him on the first-degree murder charge.
First, the Supreme Court rejected Pierson’s claim that he was
improperly subject to multiple convictions for the same offense and therefore
the district court erred in sentencing him on the more serious offense.
“We have previously barred a petitioner’s claim that he was improperly
sentenced based on the charging indictment because the claim was known or
knowable at the time of direct appeal.
“Similarly, Pierson knew or should have known about this issue at
the time of his direct appeal. Moreover, neither Knaffla exception (a
novel legal argument has arisen or the interests of justice require review) is
applicable to Pierson’s claim.
Second, Pierson’s claim has no merit. Under state law, a defendant may be
convicted of either the crime charged or an included offense, but not both. We have
long recognized that the “conviction” prohibited by this statute is not a guilty verdict, but is rather
a formal adjudication of guilt. In other words, a conviction occurs only after the district
court judge accepts, records, and adjudicates the jury’s
guilty verdict.
Here, a jury found Pierson guilty of first-degree murder,
second-degree murder, and aggravated robbery. However, contrary to Pierson’s
assertion, the district court convicted him of only the first-degree murder and
aggravated robbery offenses. The district court did not formally adjudicate the jury’s
finding of guilt on the second-degree murder charge. Therefore,
the district court did not violate the law, when it convicted and sentenced
Pierson on the first-degree murder charge rather than on the second-degree
murder charge.
Affirmed.
DATE OF DECISION: June 8, 2006
RECORD NUMBER: 2006-101
DESCRIPTION: [MURDER] [ROBBERY]
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