State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2016).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A16-0935

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed,
Appellant.

Filed April 24, 2017
Affirmed
Halbrooks, Judge

Benton County District Court
File No. 05-CR-14-1649

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Philip K. Miller, Benton County Attorney, Karl Schmidt, Assistant County Attorney,
Foley, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, St. Paul, Melissa Sheridan,
Assistant Public Defender, Eagan, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Worke, Presiding Judge; Halbrooks, Judge; and Jesson,
Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
HALBROOKS, Judge
Appellant challenges the district court’s denial of his requ est to continue his
sentencing hearing, arguing that the district court abused its discretion. We affirm.

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FACTS
In September 2014, appellant Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed and three others robbed a
gas station at gun point. There was one female employee and one male employee in the
gas station at the time of the robbery. Ahmed punched the male employee multiple times
while ordering him to open a safe , and the four robbers left the gas station with m oney
from the cash register and safe.
On September 15, 2014, respondent State of Minnesota charged Ahmed with aiding
aggravated first-degree robbery, and less than one month later, the state filed notice of its
intent to seek an aggravated sentence up to the statutory maximum of 240 months in prison.
See Minn. Stat. § 244.10, subd. 5a(a)(10) (2014) (stating that committing a crime “as part
of a group of three or more persons who all actively participated in the crime” is an
aggravating factor). Over the next several months, the district court granted several pretrial
continuance requests made jointly by both parties and by Ahmed alone , and i t also
discharged Ahmed’s defense counsel at his request and reassigned a different public
defender.
On November 9, 2015, Ahmed pleaded guilty and testified that he c ommitted the
crime with three other offenders, and the state agreed to cap its upward departure request
at 120 months. With a criminal-history score of three and an offense-severity level of eight,
Ahmed’s presumptive sentence was 78 months with a range o f 67 to 93 months. The
district court scheduled the sentencing hearing for January 8, 2016 , and approved an
interim commitment to the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

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On December 31, 2015, Ahmed moved the district court for an extension of the
sentencing hearing “to allow the defense to fully prepare for sentencing.” The district court
granted the continuance motion and rescheduled the sentencing hearing for March 11,
2016.
One day before the rescheduled sentencing hearing, Ahmed’s counsel again moved
to continue the hearing because he was unable to complete his position paper due to
substantial pre-existing time commitments and difficulties contacting Ahmed based on his
interim commitment. The district court denied this motion and justified its decision at the
sentencing hearing:
Well, I did a very thorough review of the case and
procedural posture, and this file goes way back to a first
appearance that occurred on September 29th of 2014; and for
circumstances beyond your control, [defense counsel] , there
had been a number of continuances.

Actually your continuance yesterday was the 6th
continuance request in this case. Some of those were joint
continuance requests. Most of them were made by previous
counsel who the Defendant then discharged prior to your
appointment, [defense counsel].

So it has been a long road. We have had multiple,
multiple hearings and continuances and resets that I don’t
blame you for but are just the fact of the matter in this specific
case. It’s true that the Defendant d id plead guilty back on
November 9th of 2015. We are four months beyond that now
for the sentencing hearing. So I am going to deny the defense
request for a continuance.

However, I would add that if the Defendant is
dissatisfied with the Court’s sentence and wishes to pursue post
conviction relief the Court would be open to having a hearing
where additional information could be presented about a
reduction in sentence and the Court would consider that.

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The state argued that the district court should sentence Ahmed to 120 months in
prison—an upward durational departure—because his actions were the most egregious of
the four men who participated in the robbery. Ahmed’s counsel stated that he was
unprepared to respond to the state’s upward -departure arg ument. The district court
sentenced Ahmed to 120 months in prison. This appeal follows.
D E C I S I O N
Ahmed argues that the district court abused its discretion by denying his request to
continue his sentencing hearing because he did not have adequate time to prepare an
argument on the departure issue. We review a district court’s decision to grant or deny a
continuance of a sentencing proceeding under the abuse -of-discretion standard. State v.
Mix, 646 N.W.2d 247, 250 (Minn. App. 2002), review denied (Minn. Aug. 20, 2002). And
we may only reverse the district court if the moving party shows that he or she was
prejudiced as a result of the denial. Id. A district court abuses its discretion if it “acts
arbitrarily, without justification, or in contravention of the law.” Id.
Sentencing hearings “shall be scheduled so that the parties have adequate time to
prepare and present arguments regarding the issue of sentencing.” Minn. Stat. § 244.10,
subd. 1 (2016). And a district court’s decision to grant or deny a continuance “should be
based on all facts and circumstances surrounding the request.” State v. Vance, 254 N.W.2d
353, 358 (Minn. 1977). But district courts have “broad discretion to determine when and
under what circumstances a continuance should be granted.” State v. Johnson, 256 N.W.2d
280, 286 (Minn. 1977). A district court does not abuse its discretion if it denies a motion

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to continue a sentencing hearing based on “a substantial delay in sentencing.” State v.
Wallner, 346 N.W.2d 386, 388 (Minn. 1984) (summarizing the district court’s opinion that
a sentencing hearing held “almost one and one-half years” after charging was a substantial
delay).
Here, t he district court commented on the “long road” of the proceedings and
ultimately denied Ahmed’s second request to continue his sentencing hearing because it
had been nearly one and one -half years since Ahmed was charged and four months since
he pleaded guilty. In addition, the district court had already granted one continuance
request to give Ahmed another three months to prepare for his sentencing.
Ahmed asserts that his counsel was not ready for the sentencing hearing because:
(1) the dispositional advisor assigned to this case “was not immediately available to assist
defense counse l in gathering information, arranging psychological evaluations and
preparing a report and recommendation”; (2) “Ahmed’s interim commitment to prison
made it extremely difficult” to meet with him; and (3) psychological evaluations had not
been sent to the dispositional advisor by the sentencing hearing, so they were not included
in his report. But Ahmed moved the district court for an interim commit to prison, and he
fails to cite to any authority that supports his position that, based on these circumstances, a
district court is required to grant a continuance.
The district court has broad discretion to consider whether to grant or deny a motion
to continue the sentencing hearing so long as the parties ha ve adequate time to prepare.

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See Minn. Stat. § 244.10, subd. 1. Based on this record, we conclude that the district court’s
denial of Ahmed’s second continuance request was a proper exercise of its discretion.
Affirmed.