2009-M-110        Dario George Bonga, petitioner, Appellant, vs. State of Minnesota, Respondent.

Bonga admitted the following facts during his guilty plea hearing.  On the night of July 17, 1998, Bonga was a passenger in a car in Carlton County with Carlos San Miguel, DuWayne Johnson, and another man.  Bonga became angry after San Miguel made a disparaging remark about a musician Bonga admired.  Johnson stopped the car in Jay Cooke State Park and Bonga began punching San Miguel.  Bonga and San Miguel both got out of the car and Bonga continued to hit San Miguel, at one point using a pair of handcuffs as brass knuckles.  Bonga began to stab San Miguel, who fell to the ground.  Bonga stabbed him with a screwdriver a total of 80 times in the chest, back, and throat.  Bonga admitted that some of the stabs were designed to kill San Miguel.  Following the murder, Bonga went through San Miguel’s pockets and took his wallet and money.  Bonga then instructed Johnson to hide San Miguel’s body, and  Johnson did so.

In 1999, ater Bonga fired his public defender and pleaded guilty pro se, he district court accepted Bonga’s guilty plea to first-degree premeditated murder and later sentenced Bonga to life imprisonment.  Bonga did not file a direct appeal.

In 2001, Bonga filed a pro se motion asking the district court to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence. 

The court denied the motion without a hearing.  It appears, although the order does not specifically so state, that the district court treated Bonga’s motion as a petition for post-conviction relief.  Bonga did not appeal.  

In 2007, Bonga, represented by counsel, filed this petition for post-conviction relief, seeking to withdraw his guilty plea to first-degree murder.  The court dismissed the petition without a hearing, characterizing the current action as a successive petition for post-conviction relief.

MAJORITY:  “It was an abuse of discretion for the post-conviction court to summarily deny a

petition for post-conviction relief as a “second or successive petition for similar relief”

under Minn. Stat. § 590.04, subd. 3 (2008), where petitioner was denied the right to

counsel in the previous proceeding.”

CONCUR:  Justices Meyer and Paul Anderson opined:  “I concur with the majority’s conclusion that the post-conviction court’s summary dismissal was an abuse of discretion that requires reversal and remand.  However, I write separately to highlight my concern that the lawyers and the court in this case did not appropriately consider the serious implications that clinical depression can have on a defendant’s competency.”

               Barry Anderson (Magnuson, Page, Gildea, and Dietzen)

               Concur:  Meyer and Paul Anderson

[MURDER]