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This opinion will be unpublished and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
A17-0700

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Jesse Russell Patchen,
Appellant.

Filed February 12, 2018
Affirmed
Smith, Tracy M., Judge

Ramsey County District Court
File No. 62-CR-16-7683

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

John Choi, Ramsey County At torney, Thomas R. Ragatz, Assistant County Attorney,
St. Paul, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Veronica M. Surges, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Smith, Tracy M., Presiding Judge; Larkin, Judge; and
Hooten, Judge.

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U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
SMITH, TRACY M., Judge
Appellant Jesse Russell Patchen challenge s his conviction of felony domestic
assault, arguing that the district court erred in denying his presentence motion to withdraw
his guilty plea under the fair-and-just standard. We affirm.
FACTS
On October 27, 2016, the state charged Patchen with one count of felony domestic
assault in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.2242, subd. 4 (2016), and one count of malicious
punishment of a child in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.377, subd. 3 (2016). According to
the complaint, Patchen was sitting inside an SUV with his two-year-old son, S.J.P., when
Patchen grabbed and violently shook the child’s car seat as S.J.P. cried. The complaint
further alleged that, when S.J.P. continued to cry, Patchen grasped the child’s hands and
forced him to hit himself in his face over and over again, and mocked and mimicked S.J.P.’s
cries after S.J.P. cried more. Patchen had been convicted of two domestic-violence-related
offenses within the previous ten years.
On November 23, 2016, the district cour t held a plea hearing in which Patchen
pleaded guilty to felony domestic assault in exchange for di smissal of the charge of
malicious punishment of a child and a stay of execution with a 60-day cap of jail time.
Patchen testified that he had reviewed the plea petition line by line with his attorney, signed
the plea petition when he was thinking clearly , understood everything in the petition, and
understood that he was waiving his pretrial and trial rights by pleading guilty. Patchen

3
further testified that he was not making a claim of innocence because he was guilty of the
offense and that he wanted the district court to accept his plea of guilty.
The district court received Patchen’s plea petition, and the state questioned Patchen
to establish the factual basis for his guilty plea. Patchen agreed that, on October 25, 2016,
he was sitting in a parked SUV with his two-year-old son, S. J.P. Patchen acknowledged
that he became angry with S.J.P., violently shook the child’s car seat, yelled “shut up,” and
swore. Patchen admitted that S.J.P. cried ha rder as Patchen shook the car seat. Patchen
further acknowledged his 2013 convictions of terroristic threats and misdemeanor domestic
assault.
The district court was initially “very relu ctant to accept” Patchen’s plea and asked
Patchen whether he was denying that he hit S.J.P. in the face. Patchen denied hitting S.J.P.
in the face, but agreed that he assaulted S.J.P. and violently shook S.J.P.’s car seat knowing
that the act would injure a two-year-old ch ild. The district court acknowledged that
Patchen’s statements constituted a “minimal factual basis” but accepted Patchen’s plea and
adjudicated him guilty.
Patchen filed a presentence motion to w ithdraw his guilty pl ea, arguing that the
district court should permit hi m to withdraw his guilty plea under either the manifest-
injustice standard or the fair-and-just standa rd. The district court held a motion hearing
and clarified that the factual basis of Patchen’s guilty plea was “minimal” because the court
felt that Patchen “was minimizing the behavi or.” The district court denied the plea-
withdrawal motion and proceeded to sentence Patchen.
Patchen appeals.

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D E C I S I O N
“A defendant has no absolute right to withdraw a guilty plea after entering it.” State
v. Raleigh , 778 N.W.2d 90, 93 (Minn. 2010). “Withdrawal is permitted in two
circumstances.” Id. First, a district court must allow a defendant to withdraw a guilty plea
“[a]t any time” if “withdrawal is necessary to correct a manifest injustice.” Minn. R. Crim.
P. 15.05, subd. 1. Second, a district court may allow a defendant to “withdraw a plea at
any time before sentence if it is fair and just to do so.” Id., subd. 2. Although the district
court denied Patchen’s plea-withdrawal motion under both standards, Patchen challenges
only the district court’s denial under the fair-and-just standard. See id.
When deciding whether to grant a motion to withdraw a guilty plea under the fair-
and-just standard, a district 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.
“A defendant bears the burden of advancing reasons to support withdrawal,” and the state
“bears the burden of showing prej udice caused by withdrawal.” Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d at
97. “The ultimate decision is left to the sound discretion of the [district] court, and it will
be reversed only in the rare case in which th e appellate court can fairly conclude that the
[district] court abused its discretion.” Kim v. State, 434 N.W.2d 263, 266 (Minn. 1989).
This court “[c]onsider[s] the entire context in which [a de fendant’s] plea of guilty
occurred, as demonstrated by the record” to determine whether sufficient reasons exist to
support a plea-withdrawal motion. State v. Abdisalan, 661 N.W.2d 691, 695 (Minn. App.
2003), review denied (Minn. Aug. 19, 2003). Although the fair-and-just standard “is less

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demanding” than the manifest-injustice sta ndard, “it does not allow a defendant to
withdraw a guilty plea for simply any reason.” State v. Theis, 742 N.W.2d 643, 646 (Minn.
2007) (quotation omitted). If a defendant coul d withdraw his guilty plea “for any reason
or without good reason” at any time before sentence, “then the process of accepting guilty
pleas would simply be a means of continuing the trial to some indefinite date in the future
when the defendant might see fit to come in and make a motion to withdraw his plea.”
Kim, 434 N.W.2d at 266 (quotation omitted).
Patchen advances two reasons for plea withdrawal under the fair-and-just standard.
First, Patchen argues that he only pleaded guilty “in order to be released from jail pending
sentencing” and that “the district court made no finding that [his] signature on a document
was any more reliable than [his] argument in court.” However, Patchen checked a box on
the plea petition stating that he “[did] not make the claim that the fact [he had] been held
in jail since [his] arrest and co uld not post bail caused [him] to decide to plead guilty in
order to get the thing over with rather than waiting for [his] turn at trial.” At the plea
hearing, Patchen testified th at he had reviewed the plea petition with his attorney,
“understood everything” in the petition, and signed the plea petition when he was thinking
“quite clear[ly].” In addition, the district court expressly stated that it would rely on both
the petition and Patchen’s testimony. The dist rict court did not abuse its discretion in
crediting Patchen’s plea-petition and plea-heari ng statements and rej ecting this argument
for plea withdrawal.
Second, Patchen argues that he was innocent of the underlying charges—essentially,
that the plea lacked a su fficient factual basis. See State v. Ecker , 524 N.W.2d 712, 716

6
(Minn. 1994) (holding that a defendant must ha ve laid a “proper factual basis” for the
district court to accept a guilty plea). Patc hen pleaded guilty to violating Minn. Stat.
§ 609.2242, subd. 4, which provides: “Whoever violates the provisions of this section . . .
within ten years of the first of any combination of two or more previous qualified domestic
violence-related offense convictions . . . is guilty of a felony . . . .” The statute defines a
domestic assault as “an act with intent to caus e fear in another of immediate bodily harm
or death” against “a family or household member.” Id., subd. 1(1) (2016). During the plea
hearing, Patchen admitted that, on October 25, 2016, he yelled at his son, S.J.P., and as a
result, the child continued to cry and cried harder as Patche n shook the car seat. During
the motion hearing, the district court expressl y found, and we agree, that “to say that
shaking a car seat of a two-year-old and ye lling at a two-year-old and telling a two-year-
old to . . . ‘shut up’ would not put fear in the child is unreasonabl e.” Although Patchen
denied hitting his son in any way, his admissions support an “assault-fear” offense, which
“does not require a finding of actual harm to the victim.” State v. Fleck, 810 N.W.2d 303,
308 (Minn. 2012) ( discussing Minn. Stat. § 609.02, su bd. 10 (2010), which defines the
word “assault” as used in the Minnesota Criminal Code, Minn. Stat. §§ 609.01 to .912
(2010)).1
Patchen argues, however, that his “claim of actual innocence” is supported by the
fact that most of his answers during the plea hearing “were ‘y es’ and ‘no’ in response to
leading questions.” We recognize that this practice has been “long discouraged” by the

1 Patchen does not dispute the previous-conviction element of the offense, as he
acknowledges his two convictions of qualified domestic-violence-related offenses in 2013.

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Minnesota Supreme Court. Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d at 94-95. However, in Raleigh, the
defendant “never stated in his own words what happened and throughout the plea hearing
the district court asked [the defendant] no questions.” Id. at 94. Here, in contrast, Patchen
affirmatively testified, “I s hook [S.J.P.] in his car seat an d I swore and I shook and said
shut up and I swore,” and the district court asked questions throughout the plea hearing to
establish the factual basis. See id. at 95 (“It is to be hoped that the trial judge, in accepting
a plea, will ask the questions with respect to the factual basis for the crime so as to avoid
the rather common inclination of counsel to elicit these facts by leading questions.”)
(quotation omitted). Patchen also signed the plea petiti on, stating, “My attorney has told
me and I understand that a judge will not acce pt a plea of guilty from anyone who claims
to be innocent,” and “I now make no claim th at I am innocent.” In addition, during the
plea hearing, Patchen and his defense counsel had the following exchange:
Q. And you’re pleading guilty today because you are guilty of
the offense, right?
A. Yeah.
Q. You’re not making a claim of innocence?
A. I am not.

We conclude that the record, when viewed as a whole, prov ides a sufficient factual basis
for the plea, and the district court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting Patchen’s actual-
innocence argument for plea withdrawal.
Patchen also contends that the state did not meet its burden to show prejudice. The
district court considered both Patchen’s a nd the state’s arguments as to whether the
witnesses would still be availa ble and would remember the in cident and concluded that
both arguments were “plausible ” and “sort of wipe each othe r out.” Nevertheless, the

8
district court denied the motion based on th e insufficient reasons advanced by Patchen.
This court has recognized that, “[e]ven when there is no prejud ice to the state, a district
court may deny plea withdrawal under [Minn. R. Crim. P. 15.05, subd. 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). Therefore,
the district court was not required to reach the issue of prejudice and did not abuse its
discretion in denying Patchen’s plea-withdrawal motion.
Affirmed.