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This opinion will be unpublished and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
A16-0963

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Christopher Lee Wynn,
Appellant.

Filed April 3, 2017
Affirmed
Reilly, Judge

Otter Tail County District Court
File No. 56-CR-15-2592

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

David J. Hauser, Otter Tail County Attorney, Kurt A. Mortenson, Assistant County
Attorney, Fergus Falls, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Jennifer Lauermann, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Reilly, Pr esiding Judge; Hooten, Judge; and Smith,
Tracy M., Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
REILLY, Judge
Appellant argues that the district c ourt abused its disc retion by denying his
presentencing plea-withdrawal motion, claimi ng that his plea was neither intelligent nor

2
voluntary. Appellant also makes pro se ar guments. We reject each of appellant’s
arguments and affirm.
FACTS
On August 28, 2015, M.F. reported to police that her ex-boyfriend, appellant
Christopher Lee Wynn, had coer ced his way into her home that morning, threatened her
with a knife, and choked her by the throat almost to the point of unconsciousness.
Respondent State of Minnesot a charged Wynn with second -degree assault (dangerous
weapon), felony domestic assault (fear), felony domestic as sault (harm), felony violation
of a no-contact order, and domestic assault by strangulation.
A jury trial was set for January 20, 2016. But shortly before trial, the parties reached
a plea agreement whereby Wynn would plead gu ilty to second-degree assault (dangerous
weapon) and the state would dismiss the remaining four charges and seek a bottom-of-the-
box sentence. On January 19, Wynn entered a Norgaard plea to second-degree assault
(dangerous weapon); the district court accepted that plea and set sentencing for March 11,
2016.1

1 At the plea hearing, Wynn’s plea was characterized as an Alford/Goulette or Alford plea.
And on appeal, both parties refer to the plea as an Alford/Goulette or Alford plea. But, as
we explain below, the plea was actually a Norgaard plea. See Williams v. State , 760
N.W.2d 8, 12 (Minn. App. 2009) (“A plea constitutes an Alford/Goulette plea if the
defendant maintains inno cence but pleads guilty because th e record establishes, and the
defendant reasonably believes, that the state has sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction.
A plea constitutes a Norgaard plea if the defendant asserts an absence of memory on the
essential elements of the offense but pleads guilty because the record establishes, and the
defendant reasonably believes, that the state has sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction.”
(citations omitted)), review denied (Minn. Apr. 21, 2009). We urge greater care in
distinguishing between the two.

3
Wynn moved to withdraw his plea on February 26, 2016, and the state opposed plea
withdrawal. At a hearing on his plea-withdr awal motion, Wynn testified that he had felt
pressured to plead guilty and “just said what [he] had to say and did what [he] had to do to
get it over with.” The distri ct court ruled that it would not allow Wynn to withdraw his
plea, adjudicated Wynn guilty of second- degree assault (dangerous weapon), and
sentenced Wynn to 34 months’ imprisonment in accordance with th e plea agreement.
Wynn appeals.
D E C I S I O N
“A defendant has no absolute right to wi thdraw a guilty plea after entering it.”
Taylor v. State, 887 N.W.2d 821, 823 (Minn. 2016) (quotation omitted). But Minnesota
Rule of Criminal Procedure 15.05 provides for plea withdrawal under two separate
standards: the subdivision 1 manifest-injustice standard, which applies to plea-withdrawal
motions made before or after sentencing, a nd the subdivision 2 fair-and-just standard,
which applies only to presentencing plea-withdrawal motions.
Under the manifest-injustice standard, a di strict court must allow a defendant to
withdraw his guilty plea “upon a timely motion and proof to th e satisfaction of the court
that withdrawal is necessary to correct a manifest injustice.” Minn. R. Crim. P. 15.05,
subd. 1. “A manifest injustice exis ts if a guilty plea is not valid.” Barrow v. State, 862
N.W.2d 686, 691 (Minn. 2015). “To be valid, a guilty plea must be accurate, voluntary,
and intelligent.” Taylor, 887 N.W.2d at 823. Thus, the court must allow the defendant to
withdraw a guilty plea that he proves was not accurate, voluntary , and intelligent. See

4
Barrow, 862 N.W.2d at 689 (“A de fendant has the burden of proving his plea was
invalid.”).
Under the fair-and-just standard, by cont rast, the district court may allow plea
withdrawal “[i]n its discretion . . . if it is fair and just to do so.” Minn. R. Crim. P. 15.05,
subd. 2. Thus, “[t]he court must give due consideration to the reasons advanced by the
defendant in support of the motion and any prejudice the granting of the motion would
cause the prosecution by reason of actions taken in reliance upon the defendant’s plea.” Id.
“The defendant has the burden of advancing reasons to sup port withdrawal; the state has
the burden of showing the prejudice that would be caused by withdrawal.” State v.
Townsend, 872 N.W.2d 758, 764 (Minn. App. 2015) (quotation omitted).
The fair-and-just standard is “a less demanding standard than the manifest-injustice
standard, but it does not permit withdrawal of a guilty plea for simply any reason.” Id.
(quotations omitted). Indeed, “[e]ven when there is no prejudice to the state, a district court
may deny plea withdrawal under rule 15.05, subdivision 2, if the defendant fails to advance
valid reasons why withdrawal is fair and just.” State v. Cubas , 838 N.W.2d 220, 224
(Minn. App. 2013), review denied (Minn. Dec. 31, 2013). “Guilty pleas facilitate the
efficient administration of justice, and more than a change of heart is needed to withdraw
a guilty plea.” State v. Lopez , 794 N.W.2d 379, 382 (M inn. App. 2011) (citing Kim v.
State, 434 N.W.2d 263, 266 (Minn. 1989)).
In this case, Wynn argues that the district court abused its discretion by denying his
presentencing plea-withdrawal motion, apparently blending the fair-and-just standard with
the manifest-injustice standard by claiming that his plea wa s invalid as unintelligent and

5
involuntary and insisting that, because th e plea thereby “amount[ed] to a manifest
injustice,” withdrawal of the plea is fair and just. Yet Wynn also implicitly concedes that
his plea-withdrawal motion and the evidence presented at the plea-withdrawal hearing did
not raise the issue of plea validity below, citing State v. Abdisalan, 661 N.W.2d 691 (Minn.
App. 2003), review denied (Minn. Aug. 19, 2003), for th e proposition that “where the
defendant’s presentence motion to withdraw his guilty plea raised only the question of
whether withdrawal would be ‘fair and just,’ the reviewing court will not consider whether
his plea was valid under the ‘manifest injustice’ standard.” And Wynn does not ask us to
apply the manifest-injustice standard on review.
We therefore apply only the fair-and-just standard here. Cf. Abdisalan, 661 N.W.2d
at 694-95 (applying only fair-and-just standard where appellant did not squarely challenge
the validity of his plea or argue that his pl ea was invalid under the manifest-injustice
standard). Under the fair-and-just standard, we reverse only if the district court abused its
discretion by denying Wynn’s presentencing motion to withdraw his Norgaard plea. See
Cubas, 838 N.W.2d at 223 (“We review a distri ct court’s decision regarding a motion to
withdraw a guilty plea under the fair-and-just standard for an abuse of discretion, reversing
only in the ‘rare case.’” (quoting Kim, 434 N.W.2d at 266)).
Wynn claims that his plea was not in telligent because (1) “[t]he term ‘Alford plea’
pertains to guilty plea proceedings in which the defendant maintains that he is innocent of
the charged offense,” (2) “Wynn ultimately agreed to enter a plea to second-degree assault
with a dangerous weapon” as an Alford/Goulette plea, and (3) Wynn “failed to assert his
innocence” during the plea colloquy, thereby “demonstrat[ing] that he did not understand

6
that an Alford/Goulette plea [i]s premised on a defendan t maintaining his innocence.”
According to Wynn, “[t]he record makes it clear that Wynn did not have the same
understanding of the premises supporting the Alford/Goulette plea, as did the State and his
counsel.”
We recognize that Wynn’s plea was characterized as an Alford/Goulette or Alford
plea at the plea hearing and that Wynn did not maintain his innocence during the plea
colloquy. But Wynn’s argument here mistakes a Norgaard plea for an Alford plea. During
his plea colloquy, Wynn asserted an absence of memory on the esse ntial elements of
second-degree assault (dangerous weapon), stating:
We’d been using drugs all we ek long. I don’t know.
It’s so blurry and I can’t rea lly remember much. I remember
being there. I remember fightin g with [M.F.]. I remember, I
don’t know, her wanting to have sex, and that’s basically all I
remember. I don’t remember much.

He further agreed that he did not “recall specifics” but that he recalled being inside M.F.’s
home and “fighting with her.” Wynn also affirmed that he had read the police reports and
listened to an audio recording of M.F.’s statement to police, and he expressed a reasonable
belief that the state had suffici ent evidence to convict him of second-degree assault, as
follows:
DEFENSE COUNSEL: [A]t this point, you’re prepared to
enter a plea of guilty based on if that information was presented
to a jury, you find the jury would believe that?
WYNN: Yes.
. . . .
DEFENSE COUNSEL: And is this why you’re doing this, to
take advantage then of the plea agreement?
WYNN: Yes.
. . . .

7
THE COURT: . . . You had a chance to sit down and talk
through this evidence with [defense counsel], correct?
WYNN: Yes.
THE COURT: And do you believe that the evidence could or
would be presented at a trial if the trial went forward?
WYNN: Yes.
THE COURT: And that based on the evidence contained in
those reports you reviewed with [defense counsel], the jury
would find you guilty of the offense of A ssault in the Second
Degree?
WYNN: Yes.

It is evident that Wynn’s plea was a prototypical Norgaard plea. The intelligence of such
a plea cannot be undermined by a defendant’s fa ilure to maintain his innocence or by the
simple misnomer of the plea as an Alford/Goulette or Alford plea. See Nelson v. State, 880
N.W.2d 852, 858 (Minn. 2016) (“[T]he proper legal inquiry [for intelligent pleading] is
whether, when he pleaded guilty, [the defendant] understood the charges against him, the
rights he waived, and the consequences of th e plea.”). Because Wynn provides no other
basis for his claim that his plea was unintelligent, we conclude that the claim is meritless.
Wynn also claims that his Norgaard plea was not voluntary because he “felt forced
into pleading guilty.” But he supports this claim with no more than a curated portion of
his own plea-withdrawal testimony:
I felt I had no other choice. I really didn’t have any time to
visit with my attorney or, you know, get anything taken care of
before trial. . . . And I just basically felt, you know, like I was
going into trial blind and by myse lf and that if I didn’t take a
plea deal I wouldn’t stand a chance, so I just said what I had to
say and did what I had to do to get it over with, basically.

Wynn discounts his plea-colloquy affirmations that he had “a sufficient amount of time to
discuss th[e] matter with [defen se counsel],” that he “believe [d] that [defense counsel]

8
ha[d] fully represented [his] interests throughout the[] proceedings,” that no one “made any
threats or promises to [him] or members of [h is] family to get . . . [him] to plead guilty,”
that he was not “under the influence of any dr ugs or alcohol,” that he was not “under the
care of a medical or psychiat ric professional,” and that, kn owing his trial rights, he
nevertheless “wish[ed] to offer [his] guilty plea.”
We note that Wynn declined two separa te opportunities to ask “any questions”
before entering a factual basis for the plea—a plea that limited his exposure on five felony
charges to a single felony conv iction with a bottom-of-the-box sentence. On these facts,
we conclude that Wynn’s involuntariness claim must fail. See Nelson, 880 N.W.2d at 861
(“The voluntariness requirement ensures a defendant is not pleading guilty due to improper
pressure or coercion. Whether a plea is voluntary is determined by considering all relevant
circumstances.” (quotations omitted)); Oldenburg v. State , 763 N.W.2d 655, 658 (Minn.
App. 2009) (“A plea is voluntary when it is made without improper pressures or
inducements.” (quotation omitted)); cf. Shire v. Rosemount, Inc. , 875 N.W.2d 289, 300
(Minn. 2016) (Anderson, J., dissenting) (“[A] plea decision may be ‘v oluntary’ even if a
motivating influence is particularly strong, . . . and even if the alternatives to a decision are
unattractive[.]” (citations omitted)).
Our review of the record confirms that the district court duly considered Wynn’s
testimony and arguments in support of plea withdrawal and the prosecutor’s arguments that
plea withdrawal would result in prejudice to th e state. In denying Wynn’s presentencing
plea-withdrawal motion, the court stated:

9
The plea that was entered made specific reference to the
evidence that the State would . . . present . . . at the trial, and
Mr. Wynn acknowledged that that evidence was there. He’d
had access to the reports of the three police officers. He’d had
access to the recorded statement of [M.F.]. He indicated he
had read the reports and listene d to the recording. He was
aware of the specific allegations that supported the assault in
the second degree charge. I do not find that it would be fair
and just at this time to allow the defendant to withdraw his
guilty plea primarily because I’m considering not only the
statements of Mr. Wynn but also prejudice to the State and the
impact that a withdrawal of th e plea would have on [M.F.]. I
do think that the State would be prejudiced, at this point, in
gaining the cooperative testimony of [M.F.], and so the State
would be prejudiced in its presentation of the case to a jury.

We conclude that the court properly applied the fair-and-just standard for plea withdrawal
and did not abuse its broad di scretion by denying Wynn’s mo tion to withdraw his plea.
See Abdisalan , 661 N.W.2d at 694-95 (concluding that presentencing plea-withdrawal
motion was not an abuse of discretion wher e defendant voluntarily pleaded guilty and
district court ensured that defendant underst ood and was aware of all trial-related rights,
the particular facts underlying the crime, and the direct and collateral consequences of the
sentence imposed).
In a pro se supplemental brief, Wynn pr esents a scrambled version of the same
argument, claiming that his plea was “not va lid, not voluntary, [and] not intelligent or
knowing,” that plea-withdrawal is necessary to correct the resulting “manifest of injustice,”
and that “[t]here can be no separation of a claim of ‘fair and just’ and ‘manifest of
injustice’” because “the one en compasses the other by necessity .” We are confident that
this argument does no more than repeat le ss coherently the counseled argument that
because Wynn’s Norgaard plea was not voluntary and intelligent, the district court abused

10
its discretion by denying Wynn’s presentencing motion to withdraw that plea. We have
fully addressed Wynn’s counseled argument abov e, and we do not separately address its
pro se iteration. See State v. Schuster , 709 N.W.2d 282, 285 n. 1 (Minn. App. 2006)
(declining to address pro se argument that “r eiterate[d] the argument raised in the formal
brief”), vacated on other grounds, 744 N.W.2d 374 (Minn. 2006).
Wynn also asks us to preserve an ineff ective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim for
postconviction consideration, citing caselaw for the proposition that “an ineffective
assistance of counsel claim is properly raised in a postconviction proceeding and not on
direct appeal” while arguing that his “claim of ineffective assistance of counsel . . . is
supported by the record and . . . relevant in these proceedings to establish the plea as
unlawful/invalid.” We view this portion of Wynn’s pro se supplemental brief as a primary
argument that the record shows that defens e counsel rendered ineffective assistance,
making Wynn’s Norgaard plea invalid. Alternatively, we view this portion of Wynn’s
brief as an argument that Wynn has an ineffective-assistan ce-of-trial-counsel claim that
cannot be determined on this record and therefore is prop erly raised in a petition for
postconviction relief.
A criminal defendant’s “Six th Amendment right to counsel . . . extends to the plea-
bargaining process,” such that “[d]uring plea ne gotiations defendants are entitled to the
effective assistance of competent counsel.” Lafler v. Cooper, 566 U.S. 156, 163, 132 S.
Ct. 1376, 1384 (2012) (quotation omitted). It follows that “[a] defendant’s guilty plea may
be constitutionally invalid if th e defendant received ineffectiv e assistance of counsel.”
Sames v. State, 805 N.W.2d 565, 567 (Minn. App. 2011).

11
But the record does no t show that defense counsel rendered ineffective assistance
to Wynn. In fact, the transcript of the plea hearing suggests just the opposite:
PROSECUTOR: Have you had a sufficient amount of time to
discuss this matter with your attorney . . . ?
WYNN: Yes.
PROSECUTOR: Have you discussed the facts with him and
any possible defenses that you may have?
WYNN: Yes.
PROSECUTOR: Do you believe he has fully represented your
interests throughout these proceedings?
WYNN: Yes.
. . . .
THE COURT: You had a chance to sit down and talk through
[the state’s] evidence with [defense counsel], correct?
WYNN: Yes.

Even at the plea-withdrawal hearing, Wynn began by testifying, “ I’m not here to, you
know, say anything bad about [d efense counsel] or bash him or anything like that. You
know, I like him. He’s a good attorney.”
We recognize that Wynn went on to testif y that defense counsel was “very busy,”
that he “really didn’t have any time to visit with [h is] attorney or . . . get anything taken
care of before trial,” and that he “basically fe lt” that he “was going into trial blind and by
[himself].” But these “bare allegations . . . do not reach the level of proof necessary to
show ineffective assistance of counsel.” See State v. Bock, 490 N.W.2d 116, 123 (Minn.
App. 1992) (denying ineffective-assistan ce claim that was based on defendant’s
unsupported assertions that his trial counsel failed to adequately inform him of pretrial
preparations and initiated minimal contact with him prior to trial), review denied (Minn.
Aug. 27, 1992). We therefore reject Wynn’s claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel
and decline to hold that the claim is pr eserved for postconviction consideration. See

12
McKenzie v. State , 754 N.W.2d 366, 369 (Minn. 2008) (“[A]n ineffective assistance of
counsel claim fits within the second exception to Knaffla if it cannot be determined from
the district court record and requires additional evidence.” (quotation omitted)); Brocks v.
State, 753 N.W.2d 672, 675-76 (Minn. 2008) (noting that Knaffla exceptions apply only to
claims a defendant failed to raise on direct appeal and concluding that postconviction
ineffective-assistance-of trial-counsel claims were Knaffla barred where petitioner raised,
and supreme court rejected, these claims on direct appeal).
Affirmed.