When you kick a friend to death after you stuff him in a duffel bag, the court can order you to pay his family for his funeral out of your "license-plate" wages.

2014-M-267       State of Minnesota, Respondent, vs. Toby Earl Johnson, Appellant.

THE CRIME:  In 1999, Rudy Pool was suspected of tipping police off about some of Pool’s accomplices involved in a meth ring in Hutchinson.  Johnson and others were involved in the kidnapping and three days of torture of Pool.  On the night of July 20, Pool was placed in a duffel bag and beaten until he died.  Ecklund, McCollum, Johnson, and Engstrom were present when Pool died.  Ecklund, McCollum, and Engstrom subsequently dumped Pool’s body into the Clearwater River in Wright County.

As a plea bargain, Johnson agreed to the dismissal of a kidnapping charge and a pre-set sentence for either first-degree or second-degree murder if the prosecutor agreed that Johnson had provided “useful” information.  A month later, Johnson pled guilty to the two remaining charges.  The prosecutor stated that Johnson’s further statements had not proved useful.  The trial judge convicted Johnson on the amended count of first-degree murder and sentenced him to life with the possibility of release after 30 years.

In 2001, Johnson filed a post-conviction petition, asking the court to vacate his conviction and permit him to withdraw his guilty plea.  He challenged the plea on the grounds that he was denied effective assistance of counsel and that the plea agreement was illegal for a number of reasons, including that it violated separation of powers.  In 2002, the Supreme Court rejected all his claims and upheld his conviction.

In 2010, Johnson filed a motion to correct his sentence. Johnson again challenged the validity of his guilty plea.  In addition, Johnson argued for a reduction of his sentence in the interests of justice, contending that his sentence was “disproportionate not only to the factual basis at the plea hearing but to the punishments received by other members of the group” who participated the murder.  The post-conviction court denied relief on Johnson’s other claims, concluding that those claims were properly treated as requests for post-conviction relief and barred as waived under Knaffla.

THIS APPEAL: In 2015, Johnson filed the present motion to correct his sentence.  Here, the Supreme Court held that “because the post-conviction court properly construed appellant's motion as a petition for post-conviction relief, and the petition was untimely, the court did not err in denying the petition.”

Appellant Toby Earl Johnson challenges a restitution order entered against him after he was convicted of aiding and abetting the first-degree premeditated murder of Randy Pool.  This matter comes to us under our authority to hear sentencing appeals in first-degree murder cases.  See State v. Jones, 678 N.W.2d 1, 23 (Minn. 2004); State v. Warren, 592 N.W.2d 440, 451 (Minn. 1999).

 Johnson raises three issues before this court.  First, he argues that the restitution order improperly included restitution for losses for which an insurance company had already reimbursed Pool’s estate.  Second, he argues that the order improperly calculated the restitution Johnson and his codefendants should pay for damage done to Pool’s car.  Third, he argues that the district court did not have statutory authority to order that the codefendants are jointly and severally liable for the restitution award.  We affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand to the district court for further proceedings. 

1. This court will not consider appellant’s argument that the district court improperly ordered restitution for a loss already reimbursed by an insurance company because the argument was made first on appeal. 

2. Because Minn. Stat. § 611A.04 (2012) provides that victims can be reimbursed for “losses resulting from the crime,” the district court erred in using the outstanding value of a promissory note secured by the victim’s car as the measure of loss rather than the actual diminution in value caused to the car from the crime. 

3. When a victim sustains indivisible loss from multiple defendants’ actions, the sentencing court has the authority to order restitution based on joint and several liability.

Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded.

Lillehaug (Gildea, Page, Dietzen, Stras, and Wright)

            Took no part:  Anderson

[MURDER]

A13-2353,