You were late for giving a stranger a ride home.  So I will beat you to death and burn down the apartment building!

2016-M-325             Tracy Alan Zornes, Appellant, vs. State of Minnesota, Respondent.

BACKGROUND:  On February 18, 2010, Zornes stabbed and beat Megan Londo and John Cadotte to death, robbed the apartment, and set a fire which destroyed the apartment building in Moorhead.  Both Zornes and Londo had been looking for a ride from Moorhead to Naytahwaush, and Cadotte had been staying over as a guest of another resident of the building.

After a jury trial, the district court sentenced him to concurrent terms of life in prison without the possibility of release for the murders, a consecutive term of 45 months in prison for the arson, and a concurrent term of 30 months for the theft conviction. The court also ordered him to pay restitution.

In 2013, the Supreme Court rejected his direct appeal.

THIS APPEAL: On his first post-conviction appeal, Zornes claimed that he had ineffective assistance of counsel and raised several claims that could have been raised on direct appeal.

The Supreme Court held that the record provided ample proof that Zornes had received effective assistance of counsel and that his other claims were barred under the Knaffla doctrine because all of the claims should have been brought in an earlier appeal or should have been known at the time of an earlier appeal.

Hudson (Gildea, Anderson, Dietzen, Stras, and Lillehaug)

Took No Part:  Chutich

               [CRIME] [MURDER] [PREMEDITATED] [FIRST-DEGREE] [ROBBERY] [ARSON]

Date: June 15, 2016