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This opinion will be unpublished and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
A17-0892

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Elisa Marie Wier,
Appellant.

Filed May 7, 2018
Affirmed
Reyes, Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-16-29155

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

Susan L. Segal, Minneapolis City Attorney, Heather P. Robertson, Assistant City Attorney,
Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Erik I. Withall, Assistant Public
Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Schellhas, Pres iding Judge; Reyes, Judge; and Stauber,
Judge.
*

* Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Ap peals, 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
REYES, Judge
Appellant challenges her conviction of misdemeanor obstructing legal process
without force in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.50, subd. 1(2) (201 6), arguing that the
evidence was insufficien t to convict her because the st ate failed to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that she did not act in self-def ense against the use of force by police
officers. We affirm.
FACTS
On November 1, 2016, appellant Elisa Ma rie Wier called 911 and stated that she
wanted a male removed from her home, agains t whom she had an order for protection.
Appellant could be heard yelling and screaming at a male in the background, and she hung
up on the operator. Appellant called the operator again, but did not answer the operator’s
questions and continued yelling at the male.
Officers Reed and Brazeau of the Minne apolis Police Department responded to
appellant’s call and went to her apartment in Minneapolis. As the officers approached
appellant’s apartment unit, they observed clothing and other be longings outside of
appellant’s door and heard yelling coming from inside the unit.
The officers stood outside the apartment door for a few minutes to hear what was
going on before they entered. Appellant yelled at a man later identified as J.A., her then-
boyfriend and the father of her child. J.A. spoke loudly, but di d not yell as loud as
appellant. Appellant yelled that J.A. wanted her to go to ja il and that if the police put
handcuffs on her, she was going to die because she was going to “go off” and they would
3
shoot her. The officers heard a slapping sou nd after that but did not know who had been
slapped because the door to the apartment was still closed.
Officer Brazeau knocked on the door and identified himself as a police officer.
Appellant answered the door approximately one minute later. She held her three-month
old baby and was covered in sweat. Appellant to ld the officers that everything was fine,
that she was the person who called 911, and that she no longer needed their assistance. She
told the officers that no one else was inside the apartment and that she had been arguing
with someone on the phone. Officer Reed then drew his pistol, pushed past appellant and
her child, and entered the apar tment. Appellant screamed. Officer Brazeau grabbed her
by the arm, pulled her into the hallway, and inst ructed her to sit down. He then followed
Officer Reed into the apartment, and both officers inspected the apartment to “clear” it.
Officer Reed found J.A. sitting in the ba throom and handcuffed him. As he spoke
to J.A., Officer Reed noticed that J.A. had a swollen left cheek, which was cut and bleeding.
At the same time, Officer Brazeau spoke with appellant in th e hallway. He asked her for
her name and why she had take n so long to open the door. A ppellant did not answer any
of his questions. She was agitated, yelled and swore at him, and told him that he liked
killing people and to shut the f-ck up. Office r Brazeau told her that he did not care about
what happened to her and threatened to ha ve her child placed w ith child-protective
services. He told her to sit on the floor in the hallway and went inside the apartment to
speak to J.A.
Officer Brazeau observed the injury on J. A.’s face and initiated appellant’s arrest,
which was consistent with the Minneapolis Police Depart ment’s policy in suspected
4
domestic-abuse cases. Officer Brazeau observed appellant standing in the hallway, despite
his instruction to sit on the hallway floor. He told appellant twice that she was under arrest.
She was holding her child in her left arm and her cell ph one in her right hand. Officer
Brazeau told appellant to put th e child down and not to resist arrest because he could not
handcuff her while she held he r child. Officer Brazeau grabbe d appellant’s arm, and she
tried to pull away from him. She was again instructed to release the child but did not
comply. Appellant said, “No, don’t do this” as the officers tried to handcuff her.
Officer Brazeau then effectuated a joint manipulation technique on appellant’s right
arm called an “escort hold.” Officer Reed ex ited the apartment into the hallway, grabbed
appellant’s left arm, which was holding on to her child, and told her that she would be
charged with child endangerment if she did not let go of her child. Appellant laid on the
ground and continued to resist. She held her child to her chest, and yelled for J.A. to take
the child.
After J.A. removed the child from a ppellant’s arms, the officers executed a
controlled takedown, dragged her up to her knees by her arms, and grabbed her by her hair
on the back of her head. They pushed appe llant to the ground, where she laid on her
stomach with her arms spread out in front of her. Officer Brazeau attempted to place
appellant in an unconscious neck restraint, the proper execution of which restricts the blood
flow to the brain and renders the person unconscious. He put his left arm around
appellant’s neck while his right arm pushed her head into the bend of his left elbow, but
failed to properly execute the restraint because appellant was covered in sweat. The

5
officers’ body cam footage shows appellant twice saying that she could not breathe, tapping
her right hand on the ground as she said this.
At this point, Officer Brazeau was knee ling on appellant’s lower back and Officer
Reed was kneeling on appellant’s buttocks. Officer Brazeau then punched appellant in the
back of the head three times—a technique called “stunning strikes.” Officer Reed got off
appellant, moved in front of he r, and maced her in the face. Officer Brazeau also got off
her and delivered two “s tunning strikes” to her torso. He then handcuffed and arrested
appellant. The physical altercation occurred in less than three minutes.
On November 9, 2016, respondent Stat e of Minnesota char ged appellant with
obstructing legal process with force in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.50, subds. 1(2), 2(2)
(2016), domestic assault—inflic ting bodily harm in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.2242,
subd. 1(2) (2016), domestic assa ult—intent to cause fear of immediate bodily harm in
violation of Minn. Stat, § 609.2242, subd. 1(1 ), and disorderly conduct in violation of
Minn. Stat. § 609.72, subd. 1(3) (2016).
During appellant’s jury trial, and after the close of the state’s case-in-chief, appellant
moved for, and the district court granted, judgment of acquittal on the two domestic-assault
charges involving J.A. After appellant presented her defense, the jury returned verdicts of
not guilty for obstructing lega l process with force and diso rderly conduct, but found
appellant guilty of the lesser-i ncluded misdemeanor of obstr ucting legal process without
force in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.50, subd. 1(2). The district court sentenced appellant
to 20 days imprisonment, stayed her sentence for six months, and imposed a $50 fine. This
appeal follows.
6
D E C I S I O N
Appellant does not dispute that the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that she
actually obstructed legal process without force. Appellant instead argues that the evidence
was insufficient to convict her because the state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt
that she did not act in self-defense because th e officers used excessive force to effectuate
her arrest. We disagree becaus e the state set forth sufficient evidence that appellant did
not act in self-defense.1
To resolve this i ssue, we “review the record to determine whether the evidence,
taken in the light most favorable to the verdict, is sufficient for a guilty verdict.” State v.
Shimota, 875 N.W.2d 363, 372 (Minn. App. 2016), review denied (Minn. Apr. 27, 2016).
We “assume that the jury believed the stat e’s witnesses and disbelieved any contrary
evidence[,]” id., and we “will not overturn a guilty verd ict if, giving due regard to the
presumption of innocence and the prosec ution’s burden of proving guilt beyond a
reasonable doubt, the jury could reasonably have found the defendant guilty of the charged
offense.” State v. Hurd, 819 N.W.2d 591, 598 (Minn. 2012) (quotation omitted).
In State v. Wick, the supreme court held that Mi nnesota law does not recognize a
defendant’s right to resist an unlawful arrest or search, but that a defendant does “have a
right to resist an officer in order to defend himself or another against unjustified bodily

1 We do not analyze whether the level of force used by the officers was excessive because
our conclusion that the state produced sufficient evidence that appellant did not act in self-
defense is dispositive. See Lipka v. Minn. Sch. Emps. Ass’n, Local 1980, 550 N.W.2d 618,
622 (Minn. 1996) (stating that “judicial restraint binds us to refrain from deciding any issue
not essential to the disposition of the particular controversy before us”).
7
attack.” 331 N.W.2d 769, 771 (Minn. 1983). The supreme court has since referred to the
Wick defense as “self-defense.” City of St. Louis Park v. Berg, 433 N.W.2d 87, 91 (Minn.
1988). Implicit in a claim of self-defense is that the defendant was not the first aggressor.
State v. Edwards, 717 N.W.2d 405, 410-11 (Minn. 2006).
Here, the evidence indicates that appellant was the initial aggre ssor. The officers
testified that they heard appellant tell J.A. that if the police cuffed her, she would “go off”
and that the officers would shoot and kill her. Officer Brazeau testified that he believed
appellant was referencing “suicide by cop,” wherein a person purposely provokes police to
shoot him or her through acts of aggression toward the police. Also, when Officer Brazeau
told appellant several times that she was under arrest, she would not let go of her child and
struggled with the officers as they tried to arrest and cuff her. The state presented this
evidence to the ju ry through officer testimony and th e officers’ body cams that were
admitted into evidence.
Because we review the record in the light most favorable to the verdict, we conclude
that the jury could have reasonably found that appellant did not act in self-defense in
resisting arrest and that the state produced sufficient evidence to support the jury’s verdict.
Affirmed.