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This opinion will be unpublished and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
A16-1474

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Shawn Henry Wellner,
Appellant.

Filed August 28, 2017
Reversed and remanded
Ross, Judge

Aitkin County District Court
File No. 01-CR-15-844

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

James P. Ratz, Aitkin County Attorney, Nathan T. Benusa, Assistant County Attorney,
Aitkin, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Leon P. Wells IV, Fabyanske, Westra, Hart & Thomson, Special Assistant Public
Defender, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Kirk, Presiding Judge; Worke, Judge; and Ross, Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
ROSS, Judge
When s heriff’s deputies arrived at Shawn Wellner’s house to arrest Sheila
Misquadace, Wellner allegedly told the deputies that Misquadace was in a different house.
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In Wellner’s trial on the charge of aiding an offender to avoid arrest, Misquadace testified
that she had been hiding in a crawl space in Wellner’s home and that Wellner helped her
escape by misdirecting the deputies. After Wellner announced that he would testify in his
own defense, the district court restricted his testimony only to “facts and circumstances
that occurred outside . . . his home,” attempting to limit Wellner in the same way the court
had suppressed evidence that the state had unconstitutionally obtained. Wellner decided
not to testify, and the jury found him guilty. On appeal, we hold that the district court’s
testimonial restriction was too broad and infringed on Wellner’s constitutional right to
present his defense. We therefore reverse Wellner’s conviction and remand for a new trial.
FACTS
The state charged Shawn Wellner with aiding an offender to avoid arrest in violation
of Minnesota Statutes section 609.495, subdivision 1(a) (2014). The complaint alleged that
Wellner distracted sheriff’s deputies to allow Sheila Misquadace to escape.
The district court granted Wellner’s pretrial motion to suppress evidence obtained
when deputies illegally entered his residence without a warrant to search for Misquadace.
The district court’s suppression order barred the state from presenting “any and all evidence
found as a result of that unlawful entry.”
Before giving opening statements at trial, the parties discussed Misquadace’s
expected testimony as it related to the suppression order. The prosecutor indicated her
understanding that “the state is not allowed to discuss [ the deputies’] entry into the home
and that the state can discuss what occurred outside the home.” She also explained that “the
state wasn’t planning to try and elicit any testimony about [ Misquadace’s] hearing law
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enforcement walking within the home.” Wellner’s attorney pointed out that Misquadace
had given a statement to deputies regarding other events that occurred inside the house.
The prosecutor and the district court believed that this testimony was not precluded by the
suppression order because it had nothing to do with the deputies’ activity inside the house.
The prosecutor then clarified that she would “specifically tell [Misquadace] that she is not
allowed to talk about law enforcement being within the house.” The district court indicated
that this restriction was appropriate.
The prosecutor elicited testimony from witnesses who saw Misquadace and Wellner
enter Wellner’s home, from the two deputies who told Wellner that Misquadace was the
subject of a felony arrest warrant, and from other witnesses who saw Misquadace flee from
Wellner’s home.
Misquadace testified about events that occurred inside Wellner’s home. She said
that she had been there to fix her tire in his driveway. She implied that she went into
Wellner’s house because she believed her mother was calling the police to report her. She
panicked when she saw the deputies arrive, ran around inside the house, and entered a crawl
space in one of Wellner’s bedroom closets. Misquadace testified that Wellner eventually
opened the door to the crawl space where she was hiding, told her that she had to leave,
and explained that he had bought her enough time to get away by misdirecting the deputies
to search another house. Misquadace said she fled out Wellner’s back door.
After the prosecutor rested the state’s case, Wellner indicated that he wanted to
testify and “tell his side of what happened.” He also requested “that the evidence that was
suppressed at omnibus stage be brought back in” and to “open the door . . . and have Deputy
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Asmus testify to what went on in Mr. Wellner’s house.” The prosecutor objected, arguing
that allowing Wellner to present suppressed evidence after the state complied with the
suppression order would prompt the jury to infer that the state had tried to hide evidence.
Wellner’s attorney indicated that she had “no intention of eliciting testimony that the
deputies’ actions were illegal.” The district court judge began, “Generally speaking I
cannot imagine circumstances where I would not allow that kind of testimony to come in,”
but then reasoned that allowing Wellner to present evidence that had been suppressed
would be unfair. The district court curtailed Wellner’s potential testimony, ordering that
“if Mr. Wellner’s going to testify, he’s going to testify as to the facts and circumstances
that occurred outside the door of his home.” After that order, Wellner chose not to testify.
The jury found Wellner guilty, and the district court sentenced him to 19 months in
prison. Wellner appeals.
D E C I S I O N
Wellner requests a new trial, arguing that the district court’s evidentiary ruling
limiting his testimony violated his constitutional right to testify in his own defense. We
review evidentiary rulings for an abuse of discretion, even when a constitutional violation
is alleged. State v. Wenthe, 865 N.W.2d 293, 306 (Minn. 2015). But we decide de novo
whether an evidentiary ruling violates a defendant’s constitutional rights. State v.
Anderson, 789 N.W.2d 227, 235 (Minn. 2010).
The Fourteenth Amendment affords a criminal defendant “due process of law,” see
U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1, which includes the right to explain his conduct to the jury .
State v. Brechon, 352 N.W.2d 745, 751 (Minn. 1984); see also In re Welfare of M.P.Y.,
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630 N.W.2d 411, 416 (Minn. 2001) (“[T]he Fourteenth Amendment protects a defendant’s
right to testify in his own defense.”). This right has limits. See S tate v. Richardson, 670
N.W.2d 267, 282 (Minn. 2003). A defendant must generally conform his testimony to the
rules of evidence, and when the right to testify conflicts with evidentiary rules, restrictions
on testimony cannot be arbitrary or disproportionate. Id. (quoting Rock v. Arkansas, 483
U.S. 44, 55–56, 107 S. Ct. 2704, 2711 (1987)).
We first observe that “[t]he established principle is that suppression of the product
of a Fourth Amendment violation can be successfully urged only by those whose rights
were violated by the search itself.” Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 171–72, 89
S. Ct. 961, 965 (1969). That a trial court rightly prevents the state from introducing
evidence that it obtained in violation of a defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights does not
support preventing the defendant from presenting evidence obtained in violation of his
rights. Here the prosecutor urged the district court to preclude Wellner from testifying
about matters about which the state was precluded from eliciting testimony as a matter of
“fairness” to the state, and the district court agreed with the prosecutor’s reasoning. We
need not decide whether mutually suppressing evidence out of fairness to the state is
consistent with “the established principle” that suppression is designed to protect “only . . .
those whose rights were violated.” This is because, even assuming the prosecutor’s fairness
argument merited a restriction on Wellner’s testimony, the district court’s actual restriction
was disproportionate to the stated fairness concern.
The restriction was disproportionate because it was overly broad, preventing
Wellner from presenting any testimony about any fact or circumstance inside his house,
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while the suppression order restricted the state only from eliciting testimony about some of
the circumstances occurring in the house. Before the district court restricted Wellner to
testifying only “to the facts and circumstances that occurred outside the door of his home,”
it had allowed the prosecutor to elicit Misquadace’s testimony about the critical moment
inside the home when Wellner allegedly found her in the crawl space and there told her he
had bought her time to escape. The ruling broadly overstates what the district court likely
intended based on the prosecutor’s argument, which was to ap ply the same limit on
Wellner’s testimony that it had applied to the state’s witnesses.
The state argues that Wellner was not harmed by the excessive restriction on his
testimony as stated by the district court because Wellner should have known that the district
court intended instead to establish a lesser restriction, identical to the restriction the court
had previously applied to Misquadace. The argument urges us essentially to hold Wellner
accountable not to the words the district court actually communicated but to the thoughts
the district court must have entertained; that is, not what the district court said, but what it
may have intended to say . The argument would suppose that defendants should apply a
degree of Holmesian (Sherlock, not Oliver) reasoning that the law does not require.
We recognize that the district court likely issued its overbroad ruling as a reaction
to fluid and imprecise arguments presented to it without notice immediately at the close of
the state’s case. Wellner’s offer of proof, for example, was vague and broad. He said that
he wanted to explain “his side of what happened,” and that he wanted to “open the door”
to introduce the previously suppressed evidence. On that suggestion, the prosecutor had
reason to suspect gamesmanship and therefore argued that the district court should prevent
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Wellner’s testimony. In any event, although the district court’s rationale fit the
circumstances, its broad restriction did not.
We must decide whether the erroneous restriction prejudiced Wellner. See Wenthe,
865 N.W.2d at 306. An erroneous evidentiary ruling that implicates a constitutional right
mandates reversal unless it is “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt,” meaning that the
verdict was surely unattributable to the error. Id. at 306, 308.
This case is somewhat similar to State v. Wiltse, where we reversed a conviction
after the district court excluded the defendant’s testimony about his intent in his defense of
a charge that he violated a protective order. 386 N.W.2d 315, 316– 17 (Minn. App. 1986),
review denied (Minn. June 30, 1986). We reasoned, “It is difficult to imagine a situation
where, when an essential element of a crime turns on the presence of a defendant, the
defendant could be prevented from explaining his presence at the scene to the jury.” Id. at
318. Wellner told the district court that he wanted to present “his side of what happened,”
which might have included his version of what, if anything, transpired between him and
Misquadace near the crawl space. Misquadace’s testimony was the state’s only direct
evidence that Wellner intentionally aided her escape. Precluding him from testifying about
any circumstance in the house prevented him from attempting to explain either
Misquadace’s presence or his alleged statements to her, among other circumstances that
might be relevant to whether he intentionally aided in the escape. The state fails to persuade
us that the restriction could not have reasonably impacted the jury’s decision.
Reversed and remanded.