State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2018).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A18-0289

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

David Edward Williams, Jr.,
Appellant.

Filed April 1, 2019
Affirmed
Cochran, Judge

Washington County District Court
File No. 82-CR-17-290

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Peter Orput, Washington County A ttorney, Nicholas A. Hydukovich , Assistant County
Attorney, Stillwater, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Benjamin J. Butler, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Hooten , Presiding Judge; Reyes, Judg e; and Cochran,
Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
COCHRAN, Judge
Appellant David Edward Williams, Jr. challenges his conviction of attempted
first-degree murder, arguing that his guilty plea was not accur ate because he testified to a

2
lack of memory of certain details of his crime, necessitating a Norgaard plea, rather than a
standard guilty plea and that the record does not support a fin d i n g t h a t h e a c t e d w i t h
premeditation. Because the record contains a sufficient factual basis to support his guilty
plea, we affirm.
FACTS
On January 23, 2017, Williams was charged with a variety of cri mes against his
parents arising from an incident two days earlier. The state l ater amended the complaint
to charge Williams with attempted first-degree murder of his mo ther and second-degree
assault of his father. Williams pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder and the state
dismissed the second count. W illiams testified about the incid ent and the events that led
up to it during his plea hearing.
Williams moved out of his parents’ home in the summer of 2016. He was upset that
he had been receiving medication to treat bipolar disorder since childhood. At some point,
Williams requested that his parents provide him a list of all t he people responsible for
medicating him as a child. Williams refused to give his parents a reason for his request.
In December of 2016, Williams bough t a 12-gauge shotgun and amm unition.
Shortly thereafter, Williams threatened his mother and his pare nts changed the locks to
their home, which upset Williams. On January 20, 2017, William s went to his parents’
home, and his father turned him away because of circumstances involving his mother.
The next day, Williams went to his parents’ home with a large duffel bag containing
the 12-gauge shotgun, ammunition, a baseball bat, knives, a hatchet, and duct tape. When
he arrived, his mother was the only person at the home. Willia ms entered the house and

3
spoke with his mother. While s tanding behind his mother, Willi ams told her that he was
going to hurt her. Williams’s mother told police that he hit her in the head repeatedly with
a hammer, and medical records indicate that she suffered severe injuries. Williams did not
deny that he hit his mother in the head with a hammer, but he t estified that he could not
remember doing so. At some point, Williams’s mother got away from him and he chased
after her, caught her, and directed her to sit in a chair. Wil liams’s mother told police that
he duct-taped her hands while she sat in the chair, but William s testified that he did not
remember that. However, Williams agreed that while his mother was duct-taped, he
slapped her in the head and threatened to throw her down the st airs if she was not quiet.
Williams also agreed that he was holding a knife and a hatchet at that time.
Williams then contacted his father. He positioned his mother so that the first thing
his father would see upon coming home was Williams’s mother, si tting in a chair and
bleeding from her head injuries. Williams loaded the 12-gauge shotgun, which his mother
heard. When Williams’s father arrived, Williams pointed the loaded 12-gauge shotgun at
him.
Williams admitted that he repeated ly threatened to kill his mot her, his father, and
himself while at the house that day. Williams also agreed that prior to going to the house
he had made the decision that either his mother had to die or h e would kill himself.
Williams ultimately let his parent s leave and they went to the hospital. Following a
standoff with a SWAT team, Williams surrendered and was arrested.
During his plea hearing, Williams a greed that his actions const ituted a substantial
step towards attempted first-degree murder and that he acted wi th premeditation. The

4
district court found that Williams provided a sufficient factua l basis to support his guilty
plea to first-degree murder. The district court ultimately convicted Williams and sentenced
him to a 240-month sentence. This appeal follows.
D E C I S I O N
Williams seeks to withdraw his guilty plea, arguing it was not accurate. A defendant
does not have an absolute right to withdraw a guilty plea. State v. Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d
90, 93 (Minn. 2010). But a court must permit a defendant to withdraw a guilty plea, even
after sentencing, if it is necessary to correct a manifest injustice. Minn. R. Crim. P. 15.05,
subd. 1. A manifest injustice o c c ur s i f a ple a i s not va l i d; to be valid, a plea must be
accurate, voluntary, and intelligent. Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d at 94. We review the validity of
a guilty plea de novo. State v. Johnson , 867 N.W.2d 210, 214-15 (Minn. App. 2015),
review denied (Minn. Sept. 29, 2015).
The accuracy requirement is inte nded to protect a defendant from pleading guilty to
a charge more serious than he could be convicted of if he went to trial. Williams v. State,
760 N.W.2d 8, 12 (Minn. App. 2009), review denied (Minn. Apr. 21, 2009). To be
accurate, a guilty plea must be supported by a proper factual b asis. Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d
at 94. The factual-basis require ment is satisfied if the recor d contains credible evidence
which would support a jury verdi ct that the defendant is guilty of the crime to which he
pleaded guilty. Nelson v. State, 880 N.W.2d 852, 859 (Minn. 2016).
A factual basis is usually est ablished by asking the defendant to explain the
circumstances of the crime in his own words. Williams, 760 N.W.2d at 12. Where the
defendant is unable to do so because of “absence of memory on t he essential elements of

5
the offense,” a factual basis may be established through a Norgaard p l e a i n w h i c h t h e
defendant acknowledges that the state has sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction. Id.;
see also State ex rel. Norgaard v. Tahash, 110 N.W.2d 867, 871-72 (1961). A Norgaard
plea is accurate if it is supported by a strong factual basis a nd the defendant “specifically
acknowledge[s] on the record at the plea hearing” that the evid ence the state would likely
present against him is “sufficient for a jury, applying a reaso nable doubt standard, to find
[him] guilty.” Johnson, 867 N.W.2d at 215 (quotation omitted). This acknowledgment is
a critical component of an accurate Norgaard plea. Williams, 760 N.W.2d at 12-13.
Here, Williams pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder under Minn.
Stat. § 609.185(a)(1) (2016), which requires that a person “cau ses the death of a human
being with premeditation and with intent to effect the death of the person or of another.”
A person attempts to commit a crime when he intends to commit t he crime and “does an
act which is a substantial step toward, and more than preparati on for, the commission of
the crime.” Minn. Stat. § 609.17, subd. 1 (2016). Williams does not dispute that he acted
with intent to commit the crime. Instead he argues that (1) evidence that he hit his mother
in the head with a hammer cannot be considered because it was not properly admitted as a
part of a Norgaard plea, (2) the record is insufficient to support a finding that he took a
substantial step toward first-degree murder, and (3) the record is insufficient to support a
finding that he acted with premeditation. We address each argument in turn.

6
I. Williams’s testimony that he hit his mother in the head with a hammer
cannot be used to support the guilty plea because it was not pr operly
admitted as part of a Norgaard plea.

Williams argues that because he testified that he did not remember hitting his mother
in the head with a hammer, that fact could only support his gui lty plea if he had entered a
Norgaard plea. We agree. When a defendant testifies to a lack of memory of an essential
element of a crime, the defendant must acknowledge that the state’s evidence is sufficient
for a jury to find him guilty. Johnson, 867 N.W.2d at 215. This extra layer of protection
is necessary because the defendant’s plea is based on the state ’s evidence, rather than his
own memory. See id. (explaining that in a Norgaard plea a factual basis “is not established
by the defendant’s admissions to the facts alleged in the compl aint” but by the defendant
agreeing that the state’s evidence is sufficient to convict).
Here, Williams testified that he did not remember hitting his mother in the head with
a hammer. Accordingly, Williams’s guilty plea to attempted first-degree murder can only
be considered accurate based on that act if it was entered as a Norgaard plea. It is
undisputed that Williams did not enter a Norgaard plea and did not acknowledge on the
record that the state’s evidence was sufficient to convict him. Therefore, Williams’s
acknowledgment that he hit his mother with a hammer is insufficient to sustain his guilty
plea. But this does not end our analysis because Williams admi tted to a number of other
acts that he remembered.

7
II. Williams’s other actions would su pport a jury finding that he t ook a
substantial step toward attempted first-degree murder.

A person attempts to commit a crime when he intends to commit t he crime and
“does an act which is a substan tial step toward, and more than preparation for, the
commission of the crime.” Minn. Stat. § 609.17, subd. 1. Ther e is no rule as to specific
acts that are sufficient to constitute an attempt, rather, “[e] ach case must depend largely
upon its particular facts.” State v. Dumas , 136 N.W. 311, 314 (Minn. 1912). But the
Minnesota Supreme court identifie d general principles that cour ts should consider in
determining whether a person’s conduct constitutes a substantia l step toward the
commission of a crime:
It may be stated . . . as a gene ral proposition that to constitute
an attempt to commit a crime there must be an intent to commit
it, followed by an overt act or acts tending, but failing, to
accomplish it. The overt acts need not be such that, if not
interrupted, they must result in the commission of the crime.
They must, however, be something more than mere
preparation, remote from the t ime and place of the intended
crime; but if they are not thus remote, and are done with the
specific intent to commit the cr ime, and directly tend in some
substantial degree to accomplish it, they are sufficient to
warrant a conviction.

Applying these principles, the Dumas court held that the defendant’s acts of hiring others
to start a fire, purchasing supplies and tools to accomplish th is aim, and entering the
building to be burned, constituted a substantial step toward committing arson. Id.
This court has recently addressed the question of what constitutes a substantial step
in the context of criminal sexual conduct. Applying the Dumas principles, this court held
that a defendant took a substantial step toward third-degree criminal sexual conduct where

8
he engaged in explicit social media contact with a police decoy he believed to be a minor,
agreed to engage in sexual penetration with the decoy, and then showed up and knocked
on the decoy’s door. State v. Wilkie, ___ N.W.2d ___, ___, 2019 WL 333483, at *4 (Minn.
App. Jan. 28, 2019). This court concluded that, although the defendant did not physically
contact the decoy, his other actions nonetheless constituted a “substantial step toward
achieving his intended goal—sexual penetration of a juvenile.” Id.
Similarly, applying the Dumas principles to this case, the record would support a
jury finding that Williams took a substantial step toward attem pted first-degree murder.
Williams showed up to his parents’ house with the intent to kil l his mother and all the
means necessary to do so. He had a shotgun, numerous other weapons, and duct tape. He
repeatedly threatened to kill his mother, slapped her in the he ad while holding weapons,
and loaded his shotgun. Williams’s actions were not remote in time or place from the
intended crime. Rather, Williams put his plan to kill his mother into action. Considering
the totality of the circumstances the evidence would support a jury finding that Williams’s
actions went beyond “mere prepar ation” and constituted a substa ntial step toward
committing first-degree murder. See Dumas, 136 N.W. at 314 (explaining that each case
depends on the specific facts of that case that the reasonable inferences a jury may draw
from those facts). Accordingly, there is a proper factual basis for this element of attempted
first-degree murder. See Nelson v. State, 880 N.W.2d 852, 859 (Minn. 2016).

9
III. Williams’s testimony would support a jury finding that he acted with
premeditation.

Williams also argues that his plea was inaccurate because his t estimony does not
support a finding that he acted with premeditation and his test imony was in response to
leading and conclusory statements. Minn. Stat. § 609.18 (2016) specifies that
premeditation “means to consider, plan or prepare for, or deter mine to commit, the act
referred to prior to its commission.” Premeditation does not require that a specific period
of time passes for deliberation, nor does it require proof of extensive plans and preparation
to kill. State v. Cooper , 561 N.W.2d 175, 180 (Minn. 1997). However, premeditation
requires that “after the defendant formed the intent to kill, some appreciable time passed.”
Id. A defendant’s actions before a nd after the crime are relevant to the question of
premeditation. State v. Leake, 699 N.W.2d 312, 321 (Minn. 2005).
Minnesota courts have recognized three categories of evidence relevant to infer the
existence of premeditation: (1) evidence of planning; (2) evide nce of motive; and (3)
evidence as to the nature of the (attempted) killing. State v. Moua, 678 N.W.2d 29, 40-41
(Minn. 2004). The state need not “present evidence from each o f the three categories
relevant to premeditation in order to support a finding of premeditation.” State v. Goodloe,
718 N.W.2d 413, 420 n.4 (Minn. 2006). Premeditation must be de termined based on the
totality of the circumstances. State v. Ulm, 326 N.W.2d 159, 162 (Minn. 1982). Although
the district court “should be particularly wary of situations i n which the factual basis is
established by asking a defendant only leading questions,” “a defendant may not withdraw

10
his plea simply because the cour t failed to elicit proper respo nses if the record contains
sufficient evidence to support the conviction.” Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d at 94.
Here, Williams’s testimony showed that he was motivated by ange r about being
medicated and that he planned out the crime ahead of time, show ing up to his parents’
home with a duffel bag of weapons and duct tape. Although Williams testified that he did
not remember hitting his mother i n the head with a hammer or du ct-taping her hands, he
remembered positioning her in a chair while she was injured and had her hands duct-taped
so that she would be the first thing his father saw. He also remembered slapping her while
holding a knife and hatchet, a nd loading a shot gun. Williams’ s testimony provides
evidence of planning, motivation, and the vicious nature of the attempted killing, and this
evidence is sufficient to support a jury finding that Williams acted with premeditation.
Williams may not withdraw his guilty plea simply because his testimony was in response
to leading questions. See Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d at 94.
In sum, because the record conta ins sufficient ev idence to supp ort Williams’s
conviction, there is a proper factual basis for his guilty plea.
Affirmed.