Michael John Husten, 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This opinion will be unpublished and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
A17-1420

Michael John Husten, petitioner,
Appellant,

vs.

State of Minnesota,
Respondent.

Filed May 21, 2018
Affirmed
Reyes, Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-12-2130

Michael John Husten, Stillwater, Minnesota (pro se appellant)

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

Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Michael Richardson, Assistant County
Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

Considered and decided by Reyes, Presiding Judge; Sc hellhas, Judge; and Jesson,
Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
REYES, Judge
In this appeal from the dist rict court’s denial of appe llant’s motion to correct his
sentence including 152 days of jail credit, appellant argues that he is instead entitled to 466
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days of jail credit, calculated from the first da y he was incarcerated on another unrelated
charge. We affirm.
FACTS
On February 8, 1975, R.H. was murder ed. Appellant Michael John Husten was a
prime suspect in the murder, but no charges were filed against him due to a lack of
evidence.
Approximately 34 years later, appellant was sentenced on April 8, 2009 for simple
robbery and placed on probation for a period of three years. On December 10, 2010, police
arrested appellant for a probation violation. On March 10, 2011, wh ile still in prison,
respondent State of Minnesota charged appellant with seco nd-degree aggravated robbery
for a November 2010 bank robbery. Appellan t denied involvement in the bank robbery
but confessed to R.H.’s murder, stating that he would rather serve a prison term for the
crime he actually committed than for one he did not commit.
On March 21, 2012, appella nt pleaded guilty to second-degree intentional murder.
The terms of the plea agreemen t included the state’s dismissa l of the aggravated-robbery
charge in exchange for imposition of a 20-year sentence with 152 days of jail credit. The
district court calculated the jail credit from Oc tober 21, 2011, the date appellant admitted
to R.H.’s murder. During sentencing, appella nt agreed that the jail credit should be
calculated from that date.
After sentencing, appellant filed severa l unsuccessful post-conviction petitions and
motions, none of which raised the issue of jail credit. On May 12, 2017, appellant filed a
motion for corrected sentence, arguing that he is entitled to 466 days of jail credit beginning
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December 10, 2010, when he was first arrested for a probation viol ation, to March 21,
2012, when he was sentenced fo r the murder. The district court denied the motion, and
this appeal follows.
D E C I S I O N
Appellant argues that, because his confin ement was continuous and uninterrupted,
the district court erred by calculating his jail credit from the date he confessed to the murder
rather than from the date of his incarceration. We are not persuaded.
“[The] decision whether to award [jail] cr edit is a mixed questi on of fact and law;
the court must determine the circumstances of the custody the defendant seeks credit for,
and then apply the rules to those circumstances.” State v. Johnson, 744 N.W.2d 376, 379
(Minn. 2008). We review the district court’s underlying factual findings for clear error and
questions of law de novo. State v. Clarkin , 817 N.W.2d 678, 687 (Minn. 2012). The
sentencing court does not have discretion in awarding jail credit. Johnson, 744 N.W.2d at
379; see Minn. R. Crim. P. 27.03, subd. 4(B ). The defendant bears the burden of
establishing entitlement to jail credit. State v. Garcia, 683 N.W.2d 294, 297 (Minn. 2004).
A criminal defendant is entitled to jail cr edit for time spent in custody “in connection
with the offense or behavioral incident being sentenced.” Minn. R. Crim. P. 27.03, subd.
4(B). If a defendant is already in custody on another offense before being charged with
the instant offense, the defendant can receive jail credit from “the date when (1) the State
has completed its investigation in a manner that does not suggest manipulation by the State,
and (2) the State has probable cause and sufficient evidence to pr osecute its case against
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the defendant with a reasonable likelihood of actually convicting the defendant of the
offense for which he is charged.” Clarkin, 817 N.W.2d at 689 (emphasis added).
Here, the record supports the district court’s finding that, prior to appellant’s
admissions regarding the convicted offense, the state did not have probable cause to believe
appellant was involved in the murder and su fficient evidence to prosecute him for the
murder. R.H. was murdered 35 years ago, and it was appellant who brought the murder of
R.H. to the attention of both the district court and the prosecution. Aside from appellant’s
confession, the state did not have any reason to revisit R.H.’s murder again after 35 years.
Furthermore, as the district c ourt properly found, nothing in the record suggests that the
state manipulated sentencing by deliberately delaying charging appellant with the murder
of R.H., and appellant does not claim so. Therefore, appellant failed to meet his burden to
establish that, on December 10, 2010, the st ate completed its investigation without
manipulation and had probable cause and sufficient evidence to prosecute appellant for the
murder. The district court correctly applied the rule that appellant is entitled to jail credit
for time spent in custody in connection with the murder calculated from the date he
confessed to the murder. Therefore, the district court did not err in awarding appellant 152
days of jail credit.
Affirmed.