If everybody at the party knows you, don't return and shoot somebody seven times!

2016-M-339      Aaron Joseph Morrow, Appellant, vs. State of Minnesota, Respondent. A16-117, Supreme Court, September 21, 2016.

BACKGROUND:  Morrow had a father-son type relationship with R.W. On September 26, 2010, R.W. called Morrow from house party and reported that he thought someone had stolen his cell phone.  Morrow picked up R.W., and drove to Morrow’s house, where Morrow retrieved a semiautomatic AK-47 rifle.  The two men then drove back to the party, parking approximately one half-block away. Shortly after Rivera emerged from the party with his two friends, Morrow fired 15 shots in their direction. Rivera died at the scene, suffering approximately 7 gunshot wounds. D.C. was shot in the leg, and G.C. escaped uninjured. Morrow and R.W. fled the scene, and Morrow later hid the gun in a relative’s garage.

A Ramsey County grand jury indicted Morrow on nine separate counts, including one count of first-degree premeditated murder; one count of first-degree murder while committing a drive-by shooting; one count of second-degree intentional murder; two counts of attempted first-degree premeditated murder; and two counts of attempted first-degree murder while committing a drive-by shooting.

A jury found Morrow guilty of all nine counts, although the district court convicted him of only three of the nine charged offenses: the lone count of first-degree premeditated murder and the two counts of attempted first-degree premeditated murder. The court did not convict him of the second-degree-murder and drive-by-shooting offenses.

On direct appeal in 2013, Morrow’s principal brief challenged various aspects of the grand-jury proceedings, the district court’s evidentiary rulings, and the denial of surrebuttal closing argument. In a supplemental pro se brief, Morrow raised additional claims, including one that questioned whether the State had presented sufficient evidence of premeditation.  The Supreme Court affirmed Morrow’s convictions and specifically held that “the State [had] presented ample evidence to establish that Morrow acted with premeditation and did not act in self-defense.”

In 2015, Morrow filed a petition for post-conviction relief. In it, he argued that appellate counsel was ineffective by failing to raise the following five issues on appeal: (1) the sufficiency of the evidence; (2) prosecutorial misconduct; (3) ineffective assistance of trial counsel; (4) instructional error on the drive-by-shooting counts; and (5) the possible violation of a statute prohibiting multiple overlapping convictions. The post-conviction court denied Morrow’s petition, concluding that none of his theories had merit and that no evidentiary hearing was required.

HELD:  The Supreme Court affirmed Morrow’s convictions and sentences.  The post=conviction court did not abuse its discretion when it denied the appellant's "ineffective-assistance-of-appellate-counsel claims without holding an evidentiary hearing.

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

               Took No Part:  McKeig.

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

Date: September 21, 2016