The Minnesota DWI Case Of The Week is State v. Street (Decided May 6, 2024, Minnesota Court of Appeals, Unpublished) which stands for the proposition that out-of-state convictions may not be used to calculate a defendant's criminal history score without proper documentation.
In Street, the Defendant pled guilty to Felony DWI without any agreement as to sentencing except the State did agree to dismiss the remaining charges. The district court sentenced Street to 57 months in prison, which represented a bottom-of-the-box presumptive sentence based on Street’s criminal history score of five.
According to the PSI, the score of five included one custody-status point and four felony points. The PSI assigned three felony points for convictions that allegedly occurred in the state of Georgia. The fourth felony point was for Street’s 2019 Minnesota conviction of criminal vehicular operation with an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more. The PSI identified each Georgia conviction by case number, date of conviction, and sentence, and included a description, date, and location for each convicted offense. The PSI did not include, and the state did not offer, any evidence to substantiate these out-of-state convictions. At sentencing, Street did not object to his criminal-history score.
On appeal, Mr. Street claimed the district court abused its discretion by sentencing him with a criminal-history score that included unsubstantiated out-of-state convictions. The Minnesota Court of Appeals agreed and remanded the case for resentencing stating:
"An offender’s criminal-history score may include out-of-state convictions if certain requirements are met. See Minn. Sent’g Guidelines 2.B.5. The guidelines provide that an out-of-state conviction “may be counted as a felony only if [the offense] would both be defined as a felony in Minnesota, and the offender received a sentence that in Minnesota would be a felony-level sentence, which includes the equivalent of a stay of imposition.” Minn. Sent’g Guidelines 2.B.5.b (2020) (emphasis omitted). In assigning weight to an out-of-state offense, “[s]ection 2.B.1 governs the weight of a prior felony conviction from a jurisdiction other than Minnesota, and [the weight] must be based on the severity level of the equivalent Minnesota felony offense.” Minn. Sent’g Guidelines, 2.B.5.C (2020)."
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"Although the state need not present certified copies of out-of-state convictions for the convictions to be included in a defendant’s criminal-history score, the state must provide “persuasive evidence that sufficiently substitutes for the official, certified record of conviction.” Id. at 711-12. If the state fails to meet its burden, the proper remedy is to reverse and remand for resentencing. See id. at 715. But if the defendant fails to object to his criminal-history score at sentencing, the state may “further develop the sentencing record” on remand to allow the district court to determine whether the relevant out-of-state convictions were properly included in the defendant’s criminal-history score. Outlaw, 748 N.W.2d at 356; see also State v. Strobel, 921 N.W.2d 563, 577 (Minn App. 2018), affd, 932 N.W.2d 303 (Minn 2019)."
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"The record shows that the state failed to meet its burden of proving that the three alleged Georgia convictions were valid and would constitute felonies under Minnesota law. See Maley, 714 N.W.2d at 711. As Street correctly notes, the state did not present any evidence to support Street’s alleged Georgia convictions, nor did the PSI include any documentation to verify them. Accordingly, the state failed to present “persuasive evidence” that these convictions were properly included in Street’s criminal-history score. See id. at 710-12 (concluding that the state’s reliance on a sentencing worksheet alone was insufficient to substantiate the defendant’s out-of-state convictions); see also State v. Griffin, 336 N.W.2d 519, 525 (Minn. 1983) (concluding that the state met its burden of proof by providing the district court with “considerable documentation” of the defendant’s out-of-state conviction). We therefore conclude that the district court abused its discretion by sentencing Street based on a criminal-history score that included unsubstantiated out-of-state convictions, and we reverse and remand for resentencing. See Maley, 714 N.W.2d at 711, 715. Because Street did not object to his criminal-history score at sentencing, the state may supplement the sentencing record on remand. See Outlaw, 748 N.W.2d at 356."
Moral Of The Story: You can't keep score without some paper.
If you or a loved one have been charged with a Minnesota DWI, feel free to contact Minnesota DWI Attorney, F. T. Sessoms at (612) 344-1505 for answers to all of your Minnesota DWI and DUI questions.
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