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This opinion will be unpublished and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
A17-1594

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Lor Yang,
Appellant.

Filed August 27, 2018
Affirmed
Florey, Judge

Ramsey County District Court
File No. 62-CR-16-8732

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, Jessica Merz Godes, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Ross, Presid ing Judge; Florey, 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
FLOREY, Judge
On appeal from his convic tion of violating the pred atory-offender-registration
statute, appellant argues that the state did not establish that he provided a false address to
a “law enforcement authority” as defined by statute. He also argues that the state
committed plain error by failing to redact a narra tive description of a prior crime from an
exhibit. Because the state provided suffi cient evidence to su pport a conviction and
appellant’s substantial rights were not prejudiced by the unredacted statement, we affirm.
FACTS
Appellant Lor Yang was charged with viol ating Minn. Stat. § 243.166, subd. 5(a),
(2014), after he provided fa lse information regarding hi s address on four change-of-
information forms submitted to the bureau of criminal apprehension (BCA).
At trial, a special agent employed by the BCA testified that appellant is required to
register as a predatory offender and was informed that he would be required to register his
primary address and any changes to that addr ess. The special ag ent testified that, on
December 8, 2015, appellant completed a change-of-information form, indicating he
moved to an apartment on Burr Street in St. Paul. He also completed three other change-
of-information forms between January and May 2016, indicating his primary address was
located at the same apartment on Burr Street. The special agent testified that, in June 2016,
the BCA sent an address-verifi cation letter to the Burr Street apartment. The letter was
returned to the BCA as “attempted, not known, unable to forward.”

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An officer testified that she received information that appellant was not living in the
apartment where he was registered. She went to the Burr Street apartment and spoke with
a resident. The resident told the officer that she was not familiar with appellant, and he did
not live there. A second resident confirmed th at appellant had not li ved in the apartment
since the resident moved there in 2010. The officer testified that she received information
that appellant had been to the apartment be fore, and he had received a trespass citation
because the residents did not know appellant and did not want him in their home.
The state admitted appellant’s initial registration form at trial. The form included a
description of appellant’s prior conviction as well as a narrative description of the acts
underlying the conviction. The district court redacted the de scription of the conviction.
However, neither the district court nor th e parties discussed redacting the narrative
description of the criminal acts, and the exhibit was submitted to the jury with the following
statement unredacted:
Subject assaulted his 16 year old, 7 [month] pregnant
girlfriend at his home. Subject tied victim to a closet door and
struck her on the back, arms and hands with a metal rod more
than ten times for over an hour. Victim sustained injuries and
the unborn baby was considered in medical danger from the
assault, requiring fetal monitoring.

During the crafting of the jury instructions, the state asked that the instructions be
written to require the jury to find whether appellant provided false information to a “law
enforcement authority,” indicating that “law enforcement authority” could encompass the

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BCA and a corrections agent.1 Defense counsel agreed, and th e district court tailored the
jury instructions to the state’s request.
Appellant waived his right to testify and stipulated to the element of being required
to register as a predatory offender. The dist rict court defined the crime to the jury as “a
person required to register as a predator y offender who intentionally provides false
information to a law enforcement authority.” The district court instructed the jury on the
second element as requiring the jury to dete rmine whether “the defendant intentionally
provided false information to a law enforcement authority.”
The state argued during summation:
Undoubtedly, the second element is going to be what, if
anything, you guys will be ta lking about the most. The
defendant intentionally provided false information to a law
enforcement authority. Okay. Well, what’s a law enforcement
authority? Police, correcti ons, Bureau of Criminal
Apprehension. Those are the people that need to get the
information.
We have evidence, the official registration form that he
filled out in March of 2012. We have four change of
informations that were s ubmitted in December, twice in
January, once in May. And then w e c a n ’ t f o r g e t a b o u t t h e
verification letter that was sent out in June of 2016 that was
sent back as undeliverable.
Those documents indicate that the defendant
knowingly, intentionally filled out official documents, official
documents that were received by a law enforcement agency,
the BCA, indicating that he liv ed at [the apartment on] Burr
Street . . . .

1 The pattern jury instructions recommend the following language: “Second, the defendant
intentionally provided false information to (a corrections agent) (a law enforcement
authority) (the bureau of criminal apprehension).” 10 Minnesota Practice , CRIMJIG
12.100 (2015).

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The jury returned a guilty verdict. The district court sentenced appellant to 21
months’ imprisonment.
This appeal followed.
D E C I S I O N
I. The state presented sufficient evidence to support a conviction.
The first question presented by this appeal is whether the state presented sufficient
evidence to support a conviction. Appellant does not challenge the jury instructions in this
case, which failed to specifically require the jury to find that appellant provided false
information to the BCA. Rather, he argues the evidence was insufficient to prove that he
gave false information to a “law enforcement authority” as that term is defined by statute.
When reviewing a claim of insufficient evidence, we conduct “a painstaking
analysis of the record to de termine whether the evidence, wh en viewed in the light most
favorable to the conviction, wa s sufficient to permit the jurors to reach the verdict which
they did.” State v. Ortega, 813 N.W.2d 86, 100 (Minn. 2012) (quotation omitted). When
proof of an element of a crime requires ci rcumstantial evidence , we use a two-step
approach to determine if the evidence is sufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
State v. Al–Naseer , 788 N.W.2d 469, 473-75 (Minn. 2010). We first identify the
circumstances proved; in doing so, we disreg ard evidence that is in consistent with the
jury’s verdict. State v. Harris, 895 N.W.2d 592, 601 (Minn. 2017). We then independently
consider the reasonable inferences that can be drawn from the circumstances proved. Id.
We will affirm if the circumstances proved are consistent with guilt and inconsistent with

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any rational hypothesis other than guilt. State v. Galvan , 912 N.W.2d 663, 669 (Minn.
2018).
A sufficiency-of-the-evidence claim that questions whether the appellant’s conduct
meets the statutory definition of an offense pr esents a question of st atutory interpretation
that we review de novo. See State v. Hayes, 826 N.W.2d 799, 803 (Minn. 2013).
Minn. Stat. § 243.166, subd. 5(a), provide s that “[a] person required to register
under this section who . . . intentionally provides false information to a corrections agent,
law enforcement authority, or the bureau is guilty of a felony.” The statute defines
“bureau” as the BCA, and defines “law enforcement authority” as “with respect to a home
rule charter or statutory city, the chief of police, and with respect to an unincorporated area,
the county sheriff.” Minn. Stat. § 243.166, subd. 1a(a ), (b), (e) (2014). The definition
section of the statute indicates that the stat utory definitions govern “unless the context
clearly indicates otherwise.” Id., subd. 1a(a).
Appellant argues that, because the jury was only instructed to consider whether he
provided information to a “law enforcement authority,” and that phrase has a specific
statutory definition, the evidence was in sufficient to sustain a guilty verdict. 2 He argues

2 Appellant argues that the state “ultimately charged” him with giving false information to
a “law enforcement authority” as that term is defined by statute because of the state’s
choice of jury instructions. A complaint is amended during trial if an additional burden is
placed on the defendant. See State v. Guerra, 562 N.W.2d 10, 13 (Minn. App. 1997). The
original complaint alleged th at appellant gave false info rmation to a law-enforcement
authority or the BCA; the state did not alter its allegations against appellant to include a
different crime. See id. (indicating that an offense is amended if “the object of the offense”
or the “alleged facts underlying each offense were . . . different”). Rather, a defendant may
commit the crime through multip le means—by furnishing fa lse information to a law-
enforcement authority, a corre ctions agent, or the BCA. When a statute provides

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the state was required to prove that he provi ded false information to a “law enforcement
authority” as defined by Minn. St at. § 243.166, subd. 1a(e), in this case, St. Paul’s “chief
of police” because the Burr Street apartment was located within St. Paul, and St. Paul is a
“home rule charter” city. He argues that evidence of the submission of the change-of-
information forms to the Ra msey County Sheriff’s Depa rtment and the BCA are not
sufficient to sustain a conviction because those entities do not meet the definition of “law
enforcement authority” in this case, i.e., the St. Paul chief of police.
This case presents a unique que stion of whether a statutor y definition of a phrase
which was not provided or explained to the jury, and to which appellant acquiesced in using
to include other entities to whic h the crime applies, governs ou r sufficiency analysis. In
light of the unique circumstances of this case—appellant’s agreement to streamline the jury
instructions (instructions he does not challe nge on appeal) and the subsequent arguments
made in summation—we conclude that the statutory definition of “law enforcement
authority” does not govern our analysis of wh ether the evidence wa s sufficient to find
criminal culpability for the provision of false information to any of the entities listed in
Minn. Stat. § 243.166, subd. 5(a). We ther efore consider whether the state presented
sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt th at appellant intentionally
provided false information to a corrections agent, law-enforcement authority, or the BCA.
Examining the evidence in the light most favorable to the conviction, the evidence
clearly proves that appellant provided a fa lse address to the BCA on multiple occasions.

alternative means to satisfy an element, the jury is not “r equired to agree upon a single
means of commission. State v. Ihle, 640 N.W.2d 910, 918 (Minn. 2002).

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Ample evidence indicates that appellant did not live at the apartment on Burr Street at the
time he completed the change-of-information fo rms, and he had not lived there since the
current residents moved to the apartment in 2010, if he ever lived there at all. These forms
clearly state that they will be provided to the BCA, and the BCA received them. From
these circumstances, it is reasonable to infer that appellant furnished the false address to
the BCA intentionally. Examining the circumstances proved as a whole and the reasonable
inferences drawn therefrom, the circumstance s are consistent with guilt and inconsistent
with any rational hypothesis other than guilt.
II. The unredacted narrative did not affect appellant’s substantial rights.

Appellant next argues that he is entitled to a new trial because the initial registration
form that was submitted to the jury as an exhibit containe d an irrelevant and highly
prejudicial narrative concerning his prior crimin al acts. The state argues that reversal is
not required because appellant cannot satis fy his burden of dem onstrating that his
substantial rights were affected.
When a defendant does not object to the admission of evidence, this court reviews
the district court’s admission of the evidence for plain error. State v. Pearson, 775 N.W.2d
155, 161 (Minn. 2009); see Minn. R. Crim. P. 31.02. “The plain error standard requires
the defendant to show (1) erro r (2) that was plain and (3) th at affected the defendant’s
substantial rights.” State v. Manthey , 711 N.W.2d 498, 504 (Mi nn. 2006). If the three
prongs of the plain-error standard are satisfi ed, “the court must then decide whether it
should address the issu e in order to ensure fairness a nd the integrity of the judicial
proceedings.” State v. Vick, 632 N.W.2d 676, 6 85 (Minn. 2001) (quotation omitted). If

9
any of the requirements of the plain-error sta ndard are not satisfied, this court need not
consider the other requirements. State v. Brown, 815 N.W.2d 609, 620 (Minn. 2012).
An error affects substantial rights “if ther e is a reasonable likelihood that the error
substantially affected the verdict.” State v. Strommen, 648 N.W.2d 681, 688 (Minn. 2002).
In determining wh ether erroneously admitted evidence a ffected the verdict, we consider
(1) the manner in which the evidence was presented; (2) whether the evidence was highly
persuasive; (3) whether it was used in clos ing argument; and (4) whether the defense
effectively countered the evidence. Townsend v. State, 646 N.W.2d 218, 223 (Minn. 2002).
Although we may not focus solely on evidence of guilt, “overwhelming evidence of guilt”
may be considered in determining whether the error had an impact on the verdict. Id. at
224 (quotation omitted).
We agree with the state. Appellant has not demonstrated that there is a reasonable
likelihood that the unredacted narrative, if erroneously admitted, substantially affected the
jury’s verdict. The state did not draw attention to the narrative on page three of the exhibit
during its presentation of the e xhibit to the jury, instead conc entrating on pages five and
six, where appellant acknowledged the requirements of registration, and page four, where
a former case manager employed by the department of corrections acknowledged that she
completed the form with appellant and signed it. In fact, the state made no mention of the
narrative during the presentation of evidence and did not direct the jury’s attention to the
narrative during closing argument. The defense did not address the evidence or attempt to
counter it and instead focused cross-examination and closing arguments on evidence that
appellant actually lived at the house and therefore he did not give a false address.

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There is no indication that the jury’s a ttention was drawn to the narrative at any
point. Moreover, the evidence of guilt was substantial. Two residents of the apartment
where appellant repeatedly purp orted to live testified that a ppellant had not lived in that
apartment since the family took possession in 2010. Even if we assume, without deciding,
that including the narrative was plain error because the narrative contains highly prejudicial
information, we conclude that appellant’s substantial rights were not affected. In this case,
the prejudicial nature of the narrative does not outweigh the other considerations that we
must take into account when considering the effect of an erroneously admitted piece of
evidence.
Affirmed.