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This opinion will be unpublished and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
A18-0604

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Stephen Forrest Towle,
Appellant.

Filed March 4, 2019
Affirmed
Reilly, Judge

Sibley County District Court
File No. 72-CR-17-168

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

David E. Schauer, Sibley County Attorney, Donald E. Lannoye, Assistant County
Attorney, Winthrop, Minnesota (for respondent)

Richard L. Swanson, Chaska, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Rodenberg, Presiding Judge; Reilly, Judge; and
Bratvold, Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
REILLY, Judge
Appellant argues that the district court abused its discretion by denying his
presentence motion to withdraw his guilty plea under the manifest-injustice standard and

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the fair-and-just standard. Because appellant has not satisfied his burden of establishing
that he is entitled to relief under either standard, we affirm.
D E C I S I O N
Appellant Stephen Forrest Towle challenges the denial of his presentence motion to
withdraw his guilty plea. “A defendant has no absolute right to withdraw a guilty plea after
entering it.” Taylor v. State, 887 N.W.2d 821, 823 (Minn. 2016) (quotation omitted). Plea
withdrawal may be permitted under two circumstances. State v. Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d 90,
97 (Minn. 2010). 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. The decision to
withdraw a presentence guilty p lea is left to the sound discretion of the district court and
will be reversed only in the “rare case” that the district court abused that discretion. Kim
v. State, 434 N.W.2d 263, 266 (Minn. 1989).
I. Appellant is not entitled to relief under the manifest-injustice standard.
Under the manifest -injustice standard, a district court must allow a defendant to
withdraw his guilty plea “ upon a timely motion and proof to the satisfaction of the court
that withdrawal is necessary to correct a manifest injustice. ” Minn. R. Crim. P. 15.05,
subd. 1. “A manifest injustice exists if a guilty plea is not valid.” Barrow v. State , 862
N.W.2d 686, 691 (Minn. 2015) . “To be valid, a guilty plea must be accurate, voluntary,
and intelligent.” Taylor, 887 N.W.2d at 823. The district court must allow the defendant

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to withdraw a guilty plea if the defendant proves that the plea was not accurate, voluntary,
and intelligent. See Barrow, 862 N.W.2d at 689 (placing burden of proof on defendant).
Appellant does not contest the voluntary or intelligent nature of his plea, but claims
that his plea was inaccurate because the factual basis was established through the use of
leading questions . The accuracy requirement provides that a factual basis must be
established showing that the defendant’s conduct meets all elements of the offense to which
he is pleading guilty. State v. Iverson , 664 N.W.2d 346, 349 -50 (Minn. 2003). The
Minnesota Supreme Court has “cautioned against the use of exclusively leading questions
to establish a proper factual basis for a guilty plea.” Lussier v. State, 821 N.W.2d 581, 589
(Minn. 2012) (citations omitted). But “a defendant may not withdraw his plea simply
because the court failed to elicit proper responses if the record contains sufficient evidence
to support the conviction.” Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d at 94; see also Barnslater v. State, 805
N.W.2d 910, 914 (Minn. App. 2011) (“The use of leading questions is therefore disfavored,
but it does not by itself invalidate a guilty plea.”).
Sufficient evidence supports the conviction. A Domestic Abuse No Contact Order
(DANCO) prohibited appellant from having any contact with A.T., his former domestic
partner. Appellant contact ed A.T. on multiple occasions and pressured her to drop the
charges supporting the DANCO. Appellant had two prior convictions for domestic assault
and DANCO violations and two open cases for domestic assault and violating an order for
protection, enhancing any subsequent offense to a felony-level crime. The state charged
appellant with one felony count of violating the DANCO in violation of Minn. Stat.
§ 629.75, subd. 2(d)(1) (2016), and appellant entered a plea of guilty to that charge.

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Minnesota law provides that “[a] person is guilty of a felony . . . if the person violates
this subdivision . . . within ten years of the first of two or more previous qualified domestic
violence-related offense convict ions or adjudications of delinquency.” Minn. Stat.
§ 629.75, subd . 2(d)(1). Counsel established the factual basis for the crime through the
following colloquy:
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Mr. Towle, on June l, 2017, was there
a Domestic Abuse No Contact Order in place between you and
a person with the initials A.T.?
APPELLANT: Yes.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: And that No Contact Order prevented
you or prohibited you from having any contact with A.T.,
correct?
APPELLANT: Correct.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: While that was in place, you ha d sent
text messages to A.T.?
APPELLANT: Correct.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: And you knew that that was something
that was prohibited by the No Contact Order?
APPELLANT: Correct.
. . . .
DEFENSE COUNSEL: And at the time of this incident, you
had two prior, at least two prior no contact convictions?
APPELLANT: Correct.
. . . .
PROSECUTOR: . . . Those prior convictions were within the
last ten years, correct?
APPELLANT: Correct.

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By pleading guilty, a defendant “in effect judicially admit[s] the allegations
contained in the complaint.” State v. Trott, 338 N.W.2d 248, 252 (Minn. 1983). The court
may “look to the whole record, beyond what the defendant said, when evaluating the
quality of a guilty plea’s factual basis.” Barnslater, 805 N.W.2d at 914. “The complaint
may provide a factual basis for a defendant’s plea, and [reviewing courts] are permitted to
examine the complaint to assess whether a defendant’s plea was accurate.” Sanchez v.
State, 868 N.W.2d 282, 289 (Minn. App. 2015), aff’d, 890 N.W.2d 716 (Minn. 2017).
Here, the complaint and the police report reveal that appellant contacted A.T. on
numerous occasions, despite knowing that a DANCO prohibited him from doing so. The
police department received an anonymous report that appellant was interacting with A.T.
in violation of the DANCO. Police officers arrived at the scene and observed appellant
and A.T. sitting together in the same vehicle. The interaction was captured on a police
squad car camera. The material presented in the complaint and the police report, coupled
with the colloquy at the plea petition hearing, supports a determination that appellant knew
that the DANCO prohibit ed him from contacting A.T., and that he contacted her in
violation of that order. Although his admissions at the plea hear ing consisted entirely of
leading questions, the record nevertheless supports the conviction. We therefore determine
that t he district court did not abuse its discretion by rejecting appellant’s request to
withdraw his guilty plea under the manifest-injustice standard.
II. Appellant is not entitled to relief under the fair-and-just standard.
The fair-and-just standard is “a less demanding standard than the manifest-injustice
standard, but it does not permit withdrawal of a guilty plea for simply any reason.” State

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v. Townsend, 872 N.W.2d 758, 764 (Minn. App. 2015) (quotation omitted). In analyzing
a motion to withdraw a guilty plea under the fair -and-just standard, a district court
considers: (1) the reasons the defendant advances to support withdrawal of the guilty plea;
and (2) whether granting the motion prejudices the state . Minn. R. Crim. P. 15.05, subd.
2. Underlying this rule is the principle that “giving a defendant an absolute right to
withdraw a plea before sentence would undermine the integrity of the plea-taking process.”
Kim, 434 N.W.2d at 266. The defendant bears the burden of advancing sufficient reasons
to support plea withdrawal. Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d at 97. “The state bears the burden of
showing prejudice caused by withdrawal.” Id. If that burden is met, the burden shifts to
the state to show prejudice caused by withdrawal of a plea. Id. We review appellant’s
claim for an abuse of discretion. Kim, 434 N.W.2d at 266.
Appellant did not argue that his plea was involuntary or unintelligent under the
manifest-injustice standard. Instead, a ppellant sought to withdraw his guilty plea before
sentencing on the grounds that he did not understand the charges against him or the
consequences of his plea. The district court did not find the reasons advanced by appellant
to be persuasive, stating:
There was the factual basis that was stated, full recitation of
rights, as I think [counsel] ably points out, that was all, that was
all part of that record that day and there doesn’t seem to me to
be anything wrong with the way that was done, with the way it
was put together.

So on the basis of the, the fact that Mr. Towle, at the time you
were under oath, you were advised of all your rights, and it
certainly looks to this Court like you freely, volun tarily and
intelligently waived your rights and admitted that factual basis

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with no reference to the DANCO being dismissed then or
earlier, I have to deny that motion to vacate the plea.
We discern no abuse of discretion here. Appellant stated on the reco rd that he
wished to enter a plea of guilty to a felony DANCO violation and, through questioning,
provided a factual basis support ing the plea. Based upon the record, the district court
denied appellant’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea. The record su pports the district
court’s decision. See State v. Abdisalan , 661 N.W.2d 691, 694 (Minn. App. 2003)
(affirming district court’s decision to deny withdrawal of plea under fair-and-just standard
where “[n]othing objectively in the record suggests that [defe ndant] failed to comprehend
the nature, purpose, and consequences of his plea”), review denied (Minn. Aug. 19, 2003).
The evidence in the record establishes a valid factual basis for the district court’s decision
denying the withdrawal motion and we concl ude that the district court did not abuse its
discretion.
Because appellant did not satisfy his burden of showing that it was fair and just to
allow him to withdraw his plea, the district court did not consider whether the state would
be prejudiced by the plea withdrawal. Even if there is no prejudice to the State, the court
may still deny a plea withdrawal. See Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d at 97-98 (holding that the court
did not abuse its discretion in denying plea withdrawal when the prejudice to the State was
overstated but defendant failed to provide any valid reason why the withdrawal would be
fair and just). “A district court may deny plea withdrawal under rule 15.05, subdivision 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 ).

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The district court acted within its discretion by declining to address the possible prejudice
to the state where appellant failed to advance valid reasons why plea-withdrawal would be
fair and just, and we affirm.
Affirmed.