Do not shoot a Deputy Sheriff who wants to know why you are shooting guns and drinking before dawn in your trailer park!  Ever!

2016-M-330         Thomas Lee Fairbanks, Appellant, vs. State of Minnesota, Respondent.

THE BACKGROUND:  After a night of drinking, firing a handgun in a trailer home, a drunken car crash, and two visits by police officers, Fairbanks and a friend went to a neighbor’s home to seek more alcohol or a ride in the pre-dawn hours of February 18, 2009.  Mahnomen County Deputy Christopher Dewey rolled into the driveway, left his unit and asked the two men to raise their hands.  The friend tried to tackle Deputy Dewey, and as the officer twisted away, Fairbanks fatally shot Deputy Dewey in the face.  Dewey died of his wounds 18 months after the shooting.

On September 1, 2011, a Polk County jury found appellant Thomas Lee Fairbanks guilty of first-degree murder of a peace officer and nine other felonies associated with the shooting. 

PRIOR APPEALS:  In 2014, Fairbanks appealed directly to our court, arguing, among other things, that his murder conviction violated the common law year-and-a-day rule.  We upheld Fairbanks’s first-degree-murder conviction and all but one of his other felony convictions, concluding that “the year-and-a-day rule does not apply to the Minnesota law of homicide.”

On February 17, 2015, Fairbanks filed a pro se petition for post-conviction relief wherein he argued, in addition to asserting other claims, that he did not actually cause the death of Deputy Dewey.

The post-conviction court denied Fairbanks’s petition without an evidentiary hearing, finding that his causation claim and the majority of his other claims were barred by statutory time limits and by our decision in Knaffla, which bars consideration of appeals on issues that were either raised in earlier appeals or should have been raised in earlier appeals. Fairbanks’s remaining claims were deemed meritless. This appeal followed.

HELD:  The Supreme Court upheld Fairbanks’ conviction and sentence for the murder of Deputy Dewey.

“The post-conviction court did not abuse its discretion when it concluded that appellant's causation claim was Knaffla-barred. Appellant's remaining claims are unsupported by substantive facts or argument and are therefore forfeited.”

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

               Took No Part:  Chutich.

[CRIME] [MURDER] [PREMEDITATED] [FIRST-DEGREE] [POLICE]

Date: July 20, 2016