James Wieseler, petitioner, Appellant,

This opinion will be unpublished and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
A16-1845

James Wieseler, petitioner,
Appellant,

vs.

Eddie Miles, Warden, Minnesota Department of Corrections - Faribault,
Respondent.

Filed July 3, 2017
Affirmed
Halbrooks, Judge

Rice County District Court
File No. 66-CV-16-1918

James Wieseler, Faribault, Minnesota (pro se appellant)

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Kelly S. Kemp, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul,
Minnesota (for respondent)

Considered and decided by Halbrooks, Presiding Judge; Schellhas, Judge; and
Klaphake, Judge.

 Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to
Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.
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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 petition for habeas relief,
arguing that the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) violated his substantive due-
process rights by extending his projected release date. We affirm.
FACTS
In 2007, appellant James Wieseler pleaded guilty to felony incest against his
daughter and entered an Alford plea1 to second-degree criminal sexual conduct against his
grandson. The parties agreed at Wieseler’s plea hearing that he could be required to
participate in sex-offender treatment, but that his refusal to admit to sexual contact with his
grandson would not violate his probation. This understanding was not discussed again at
sentencing. The district court stayed execution of a 45 -month sentence and placed
Wieseler on probation for 25 years.
As a condition of his probation, Wieseler was required to enroll in sex -offender
treatment. He enrolled in a treatment program but was terminated “possibly for refusal to
admit to sexually abusing his grandson.” The district court revoked his probation and
executed his 45 -month prison sentence, ordering a ma ximum term of 15 months on
supervised release and a ten-year conditional-release term.

1 A district court may constitutionally accept a defendant’s guilty plea even though the
defendant maintains innocence. North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 38, 91 S. Ct. 160,
168 (1970).
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Wieseler completed his prison sentence and was placed on supervised release in
May 2010; one condition of his supervised release was completi on of a sex -offender
treatment program. Although Wieseler enrolled in a program, he was terminated from the
program less than one month later “for failing to take responsibility for abusing his
grandson.” The DOC revoked his supervised release. The DOC conditionally released
Wieseler again in August 2011 on the condition that he complete sex -offender treatment,
but he refused to comply with the program’s enrollment requirements. Nevertheless, he
remained on conditional release for nearly three years.
In July 2014, the DOC revoked Wieseler’s conditional release because he violated
multiple conditions of release by initiating contact with his daughter, having contact with
children, and attending his daughter’s church. The DOC directed Wieseler to complete
sex-offender treatment and gave him a projected release date of June 28, 2016. He again
refused treatment. On June 20, 2016, the DOC extended his projected release date by one
year because he failed to begin sex -offender treatment. His projected release date is June
28, 2017, and his conditional-release term expires on February 16, 2020.
Wieseler petition ed for a writ of habeas relief, requesting the district court to
(1) overturn his convictions, (2) vacate a restraining order that prohibits him from
contacting his daughter, and (3) correct his projected release date. The district court denied
Wieseler’s petition. This appeal follows.
D E C I S I O N
Wieseler’s appeal is limited to the district court’s denial of the request to correct his
projected release da te, and he argues that the DOC violated his substantive due -process
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rights by extending his projected release date for refusing to admit to sexual contact with
his grandson. “An appellate court will review a habeas corpus decision de novo where, as
here, the facts are undisputed.” Joelson v. O’Keefe , 594 N.W.2d 905, 908 (Minn. App.
1999), review denied (Minn. July 28, 1999). Wieseler bears the burden of demonstrating
the illegality of his detention. See Case v. Pung, 413 N.W.2d 261, 262 (Minn. App. 1987),
review denied (Minn. Nov. 24, 1987).
As a threshold matter, the DOC contends that Wieseler waived his substantive due-
process argument because he failed to raise the issue before the district court. “A reviewing
court must generally consider only those issues that the record shows were presented and
considered by the trial court in deciding the matter before it.” Thiele v. Stich, 425 N.W.2d
580, 582 (Minn. 1988) (quotation omitted). But, as justice requires, we may address issues
not argued before the district court . Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 103.04. Constitutional rights
may be asserted on appeal in the interests of justice if the parties had adequate time to brief
the issues and the issues were implied in the district court. Tischendorf v. Tischendorf, 321
N.W.2d 405, 410 (Minn. 1982). Because Wieseler’s due-process challenge was implied in
the district court and comprises his entire argument on appeal, we address it in the interests
of justice.
The U nited States and Minnesota Constitutions protect individuals from the
deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of the law. U.S. Const. amend.
XIV, § 1; Minn. Const. art. I, § 7; see State v. Krause, 817 N.W.2d 136, 144 (Minn. 2012)
(noting that the due-process protections under the Minnesota Constitution are identical to
the protections under the United States Constitution). Substantive due process protects “an
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individual from certain arbitrary, wrongful government actions regardless of the fairness
of the procedures used to implement them.” State v. Hill , 871 N.W.2d 900, 906 (Minn.
2015) (quotation omitted). T he first step in our review of a substantive due -process
challenge is to identify Wieseler’s asserted constitutional right “and the government
conduct allegedly depriving [him] of that right.” Id. at 907 (alteration in original).
Wieseler argues that the DOC violated his substantive due -process rights by
extending his projected release date . Consistent with his Alford plea, he maintain s his
innocence and refuses to admit in treatment that he had sexual contact with his grandson.
We have previously held that a criminal defendant who enters an Alford plea does
not have “a protected liberty interest in denying conduct for which he has been lawfully
convicted.” Northwest v. LaFleur, 583 N.W.2d 589, 591 (Minn. App. 1998) (stating that
a criminal defendant’s Alford plea does not involve a “bargain for a right of silence in any
context but of his plea”) , review denied (Minn. Nov. 17, 1998) . Moreover, a projected
release date is “a date in the futur e at which an inmate will be released providing the
inmate’s behavior is satisfactory, the release date was based on complete and accurate
information, and the inmate is not considered to be a risk to the public at the time of
release.” Minn. R. 2940.0100, subp. 21 (2015). Because a projected release date is subject
to these requirements, there is no guarantee that an inmate will be released on a specific
date.
Because Wieseler has no protected liberty interest in denying the underlying
conduct from his conviction of second -degree criminal sexual conduct aft er entry of his
Alford plea and because a projected release date does not guarantee an inmate’s release ,
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we conclude that the DOC did not violate Wieseler’s constitutional rights by extending his
projected release date by one year. The district court properly exercised its discretion by
denying Wieseler’s habeas petition.
Affirmed.