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STATE OF MINNESOTA IN SUPREME COURT A08-1926

Court of Appeals

Anderson, Paul H., J. Dissenting, Gildea and Dietzen, JJ.

State of Minnesota, Appellant, vs. Tyeric Lamar Lessley, Respondent. ________________________ Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Patrick C. Diamond, Assistant County Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for appellant. William M. Ward, Chief Hennepin County Public Defender, Paul J. Maravigli, Assistant Public Defender, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for respondent. John W. Lundquist, Sten-Erik Hoidal, Fredrikson & Byron, P.A., Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Teresa Nelson, American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, for amicus curiae American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota. Robert M. A. Johnson, Anoka County Attorney, Marcy S. Crain, Assistant County Attorney, Anoka, Minnesota, for amicus curiae Minnesota County Attorneys Association. John M. Stuart, State Public Defender, Benjamin J. Butler, Assistant Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota, for amicus curiae Office of the Minnesota State Public Defender. ________________________ Filed: March 11, 2010 Office of Appellate Courts

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SYLLABUS A writ of prohibition was the appropriate procedure for the State to follow when challenging the denial of its motion to remove a district court judge. Article I, section 4 of the Minnesota Constitution does not require the consent of the State before a defendant may waive a jury trial. Affirmed. OPINION ANDERSON, Paul H., Justice. The State of Minnesota challenges the denial of its motion to remove the Hennepin County District Court judge assigned to the trial of Tyeric Lamar Lessley. Lessley has been charged with second-degree murder. In a pretrial hearing, Lessley announced that he would waive his right to a jury trial. The State made a motion for the judge to remove himself from presiding over Lessley's trial. The judge denied the motion. Following this denial, the State asked the Chief Judge of the district to remove the judge. The Chief Judge denied the request. The State then made a motion to deny Lessley's jury-trial-waiver request. The trial judge denied the State's motion and granted Lessley's waiver request. The State appealed the denial of its motions. The Minnesota Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal, holding that the State had failed to show that the challenged pretrial actions by the judge would have a "critical impact" on the outcome of the prosecution. We granted review as to whether the State made the required threshold showing of critical impact, based on either the denial of the State's request for a jury trial or the judge's pretrial conduct.

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The State, in its briefs and at oral argument, argued that, under the Minnesota Constitution, Lessley could not waive a jury trial without the State's consent. After oral argument, we asked the parties to file supplemental briefs on the question of whether the Minnesota Constitution requires the consent of both the defendant and the State of Minnesota, as the prosecuting authority, for waiver of a jury trial in a criminal case. Because we conclude that the Minnesota Constitution does not require the consent of the State for waiver of a jury trial in a criminal case, we affirm. Early in the morning of March 17, 2008, respondent Tyeric Lamar Lessley, Lessley's cousin, and a friend finished spending the evening at a nightclub on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis.1 When the three men left the nightclub at closing time, the police were responding to an unrelated fight outside the nightclub and the three men were maced. All three men got into a car driven by Lessley's cousin. They began to drive to a service station in order to wash out their eyes. While on their way to the service station, their car collided with a pickup truck near the intersection of Third Street and Park Avenue in Minneapolis. The pickup truck was occupied by three or four men. The occupants of the truck were coming from a bar on Hiawatha Avenue in Minneapolis. After the collision, the car in which Lessley was a passenger kept going, prompting the occupants of the truck to

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We note that because the State's appeal involves pretrial proceedings, the facts depicted here are ascertained from the record available to us. None of the facts have been proven at trial. Our description of the facts as gleaned from the record is simply meant to provide context, not to endorse any particular version of the events that transpired.

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follow the car. While the car was being followed, Lessley pulled out a revolver. The men in the truck were able to stop the car. After the car was stopped, Lessley got out and began to walk away from the two vehicles. An occupant of the pickup truck, Darby Claar, got out of the truck and

followed Lessley on foot. Claar caught up with Lessley and punched Lessley "once or twice," including once in the jaw. Armed with the revolver--a .44-caliber Smith and Wesson--Lessley shot twice at Claar and hit him once. Lessley then left the scene. Police officers investigating the traffic accident discovered Claar's body about a halfblock from the scene of the traffic accident. An autopsy determined that Claar died from a single bullet wound. As part of their investigation, the police learned that Lessley might have been involved in the shooting. They also learned that Lessley was from Omaha, Nebraska, and that he was staying at his aunt's house in south Minneapolis. The police then executed a search warrant at the aunt's house. During the search, the police found Lessley and a .44caliber Smith and Wesson handgun. By the time police found the handgun, they had also recovered what appeared to be a .44-caliber bullet from Claar's body. The police then arrested Lessley. Police ballistics analysis later matched the bullet taken from Claar's body to the gun found at the home of Lessley's aunt. There is some dispute as to the distance from which Lessley shot Claar. The criminal complaint quotes Lessley as saying the men were about six feet apart, but the medical examiner testified at the omnibus hearing that the gun was fired from a range of "two centimeters . . . up to three feet." Lessley told the police that he shot Claar in self-

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defense. Lessley also told the police that he fired twice at Claar after Claar attempted to make him return to the scene of the accident. Lessley said that he left the shooting scene because he had a gun and was scared. The State charged Lessley with murder in the second degree (intentional), Minn. Stat.

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Minnesota Law