Arteco Marvell Rhodes, petitioner, Appellant,

This opinion will be unpublished and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
A18-1248

Arteco Marvell Rhodes, petitioner,
Appellant,

vs.

State of Minnesota,
Respondent.

Filed June 3, 2019
Affirmed
Kirk, Judge*

Ramsey County District Court
File No. 62-CR-13-3859

Deborah Ellis, Ellis Law Office, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

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

John Choi, Ramsey County Attorney, Adam E. Petras, Assistant County Attorney, St. Paul,
Minnesota (for respondent)

Considered and decided by Hooten, Presiding Judge; Reyes, Judge; and Kirk, Judge.

* Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, 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
KIRK, Judge
Appellant Arteco Marvell Rhodes challenges the district court’s denial of his
petition for postconviction relief without an evidentiary hearing. Because we conclude that
Rhodes’s claims are Knaffla-barred, we affirm.
FACTS
Following a jury trial in 2013, Rhodes was convicted of sex trafficking under Minn.
Stat. § 609.322, subd. 1 (2012), and possession of child pornography under Minn. Stat.
§ 617.247, subd. 4(a) (2012). At trial, the state introduced several photographs of the minor
victim that police found on one of Rhodes’ s three cellphones. Police found the phones in
Rhodes’s van when they arrested him in April 2013. Sergeant Bandemer obtained a search
warrant to search the phones on May 9, 2013. Officer Siegfried executed the warrant, and
was only able to access data on one of the phones because the other two were password
protected and not compatible with the data-extracting software that he used. On the phone
that he could access, he found the photographs and gave them to Sergeant Bandemer. The
photographs were the basis of the child pornography charge and also support ed the sex
trafficking charge.
Rhodes appealed his conviction and sentence. State v. Rhodes, No. A14-0433, 2015
WL 4611883 (Minn. App. Aug. 3, 2015), review denied (Minn. Oct. 28, 2015). Rhodes
raised two issues in the direct appeal —the introduction of evidence o f threats he made to
witnesses and the sufficiency of the evidence. Id. at *3-4. Rhodes obtained a stay of the
appeal to file a postconviction petition. Id. at *1. Rhodes argued in the first postconviction

3
petition that he was improperly sentenced because the district court incorrectly calculated
his criminal-history score and because his two convictions arose out of the same course of
conduct and therefore violated Minn. Stat. § 609.035 (2012). Id. at *5-7. The district court
denied the first po stconviction petition. Id. at *1. When the appeal was reinstated, this
court affirmed the district court, including its denial of the first petition. Id.
On December 28, 2017, Rhodes brought a second postconviction petition —the
subject of this appeal —asserting ineffective assistance of trial counsel. In the petition,
Rhodes indicated that he had obtained a copy of his trial attorney’s file in January 2016,
after his first appeal concluded. The file included a Saint Paul Police Property Room log
relating to the three cell phones that police had seized. A log entry shows that Sergeant
Bandemer took the three cellphones out of the property room on April 29, 2013 , and
returned them on May 14, 2013 . Bandemer wrote the word “forensics” in a column
labelled “reason.” The next log entry shows that Officer Siegfried took the phones out of
the property room on May 17 , and returned them on May 20, with “exam” listed as the
reason. Rhodes asserts that the log shows that Bandemer conducted a warrantless search
on the cellphones because Bandemer did not obtain the s earch warrant until May 9, 2013,
and because Bandemer wrote the word “forensics” as the reason that he took the phones
out of the property room.
Rhodes claimed that h is trial attorney’s assistance was ineffective because the
attorney failed to contest the alleged warrantless search. The district court denied the
petition without an evidentiary hearing, concluding that Rhodes did not allege facts that, if

4
proved, showed that a warra ntless search actually occurred or that his trial attorney’s
performance was ineffective.
Rhodes appeals.
D E C I S I O N
Rhodes argues that the district court abused its discretion by denying his
postconviction petition without first conducting an evidentiary hearin g. The state
maintains that the district court properly denied the petition without a hearing because,
among other reasons, Rhodes’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim is Knaffla-barred.
An appellate court reviews the denial of postconviction relief for an abuse of
discretion. Caldwell v. State, 853 N.W.2d 766, 770 (Minn. 2014). We review legal issues
de novo and factual issues to determine whether sufficient evidence in the record supports
the district court’s findings. Matakis v. State, 862 N.W.2d 33, 36 (Minn. 2015).
A court must hold an evidentiary hearing on a postconviction petition “ [u]nless the
petition and the files and records of the proceedings conclusively show that the petitioner
is entitled to no relief.” Minn. Stat. § 590.04, subd. 1 (2016). To determine whether an
evidentiary hearing is required, the court must consider the “competent evidence presented
by the petitioner” and the arguments of the parties in “the light most favorable to the
petition.” Martin v. State , 825 N.W.2d 73 4, 740 (Minn. 2013). If the petition, evidence
and record “conclusively show that the petitioner is not entitled to relief,” the court may
deny the petition without a hearing. Id.

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“Claims that were raised on direct appeal, or were known or should have been
known but were not raised on direct appeal, are procedurally barred.” Sontoya v. State ,
829 N.W.2d 602, 604 (Minn. 2013) (citing State v. Knaffla, 243 N.W.2d 737, 741 ( Minn.
1976)); see also Minn. Stat. § 590.01, subd. 1 (2016) (“A petition for postconviction relief
after a direct appeal has been completed may not be based on grounds that could have been
raised on direct appeal of the conviction or sentence.”). A claim is not Knaffla-barred,
however, if “(1) the claim is novel; or (2) the interests of fairness and justice warrant relief.”
Id.
“When a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel can be determined on the
basis of the trial record, the claim must be brought on direct appeal or it is Knaffla-barred.”
Id. “[A]n ineffective -assistance-of-counsel claim is not Knaffla-barred when the claim
requires examination of evidence outside the trial record and additional fact-finding by the
postconviction court because it is not based solely on the briefs and trial court transcript.”
Sanchez-Diaz v. State , 758 N.W.2d 843, 847 ( Minn. 2008). “But if such a claim could
have been raised in a previous postconviction petition, the Knaffla rule bars consideration
of the claim in a subsequent petition for postconviction relief.” Pearson v. State , 891
N.W.2d 590, 597 (Minn. 2017).
Accepting that Rhodes did not have personal, actual knowledge of the property
room log until January 2016, we conclude that Rhodes should have known about it—and
the ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim that Rhodes now brings—when he filed his first
petition for postconviction relief. The property room log was in Rhodes’s trial attorney’s
possession before he disclosed it to Rhodes in January 2016. Rhodes and his previous

6
appellate attorney could have, and should have, known about and reviewed discovery
materials that the trial attorney possessed when they filed Rh odes’s first petition and
appeal. Because Rhodes could have raised the ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim
in his first postconviction petition but did not, the Knaffla rule bars consideration of the
claim in Rhodes’s second postconviction petition.1
Citing Washington v. State, 845 N.W.2d 205 (Minn. App. 2014), Rhodes argues that
the Knaffla rule does not apply here because he could have brought his first petition as a
motion to correct sentence under Minn. R. Crim. P. 27.03 , subd. 9.2 In Washington, this
court discussed the limits of a district court’s discretion to treat certain claims brought
under rule 27.03 as if they were brought in a postconviction petition under Minn. Stat.
§ 590.01. Id. at 211-12. A district court cannot treat a claim properly brought under rule
27.03 as if it were brought as a postconviction petition. Id. The procedural rules and
limitations of the postconviction petition statutes, including the Knaffla rule, do not apply
to claims properly invoked under rule 27.03. State v. Reynolds , 888 N.W.2d 125, 133
(Minn. 2016); See also Washington, 845 N.W.2d at 212. We noted in Washington that
[a]s a consequence of the above-described caselaw, an offender
wishing to challenge his or her sentence may have a strong
incentive to do so in a motion to correct sentence filed pursuant
to rule 27.03, subdivision 9, rather than a postconviction

1 The state notes in its appellate arguments that Rhodes could have brought a petition
alleging ineffective assistance of appellate counsel for failing to raise a claim of ineffective
assistance of trial counsel in the first petition. Rhodes makes no claim of ineffective
assistance of appellate counsel in his postconviction petition or in his appellate arguments.
Thus, we do not address the merits of that claim.
2 Rule 27.03 provides that “[t]he court may at any time correct a sentence not authorized
by l aw. The court may modify a sentence during a stay of execution or imposition of
sentence if the court does not increase the period of confinement.”

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petition filed pursuant to chapter 590, if both alte rnatives are
available.

Id.
We stated that “an offender may avoid the procedural requirements of chapter 590
only if a challenge is properly filed under rule 27.03.” Id. (quotation omitted).
Although Rhodes could have brought his first petition as a motio n to correct
sentence pursuant to rule 27.03 , he chose to file the first petition as a postconviction
petition. For that reason, we consider the petition here to be Rhodes’s second
postconviction petition and conclude that the Knaffla rule applies.
Because Rhodes’s claim is Knaffla-barred, the petition and the record of the
proceedings conclusively showed that Rhodes was not entitled to relief. The district court
acted within its discretion when it denied Rhodes’s second petition without conducting an
evidentiary hearing.3
Affirmed.

3 Because we conclude that Rhodes’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim is Knaffla-
barred, we do not reach the merits of his claim.