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This opinion will be unpublished and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
A18-1638

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Nicholas Alonzo Jefferson,
Appellant.

Filed August 26, 2019
Affirmed
Smith, Tracy M., Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-17-12997

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

Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin Coun ty Attorney, Audr ey A. Liquard , Assistant County
Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Charles F . Clippert, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Smith, Tracy M., 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
SMITH, TRACY M., Judge
Appellant Nicholas Jefferson challenges his conviction for sec ond-degree murder,
arguing that the district court plainly erred by failing to give an accomplice-corroboration

2
jury instruction and that the p rosecutor plainly committed misc onduct during the closing
argument. We affirm.
FACTS
On May 12, 2017, at 3:15 in the afternoon, I.W. was fatally sh ot in a mall parking
lot on Lyndale Avenue North in Minneapolis.
Shortly before I.W. was killed, Marvel Williams, I.W.’s then-bo yfriend, and
Jefferson were together at a restaurant. After Williams got a call from his friend A.W. that
A.W. was at a nearby shopping center and that I.W. was there, too, Williams and Jefferson
drove to the shopping center in a rented Dodge SUV.1 A.W. got into the back of the SUV
when Williams and Jefferson arrive d at the shopping center. Wil liams, who was driving
the vehicle, saw I.W.’s car in the multi-aisle parking lot. Her car was midway down an
aisle and was parked facing the aisle. Williams pulled the SUV directly in front of I.W.’s
car and stopped in the aisle so that the SUV was perpendicular to and blocking I.W.’s car.
The passenger side of the SUV was next to I.W.’s car. The SUV was facing away from the
shopping center. Williams got out of the SUV and headed back toward the shopping center
where I.W. was. Jefferson moved to the driver’s seat of the SUV , and A.W. got into the
front passenger’s seat.
Williams found I.W. in a barbershop at the shopping center, an d the two got into an
argument. Although I.W. was holding a baby, Williams “smacked” her on the jaw because

1 The record reflects that Williams was angry with I.W. because he believed that she had
damaged his luxury vehicle.

3
he thought she “started talking crazy.” After putting the baby down, I.W. sprayed mace in
Williams’s face. Williams ran out o f the building with I.W.’s c ell phone in his hand. He
ran back to the Dodge SUV, and I.W. followed him. At one point, Williams and I.W. were
arguing several yards in front of the SUV, with Williams farther away from the vehicle.
Events in the parking lot were captured from various angles by surveillance
cameras. One camera provided a v iew of the front passenger-side window of the Dodge
SUV. Although, in the videos, anything below the front passenger-side window is blocked
from view by other cars in the parking lot and the rear passeng er-side window is out of
view, Williams and I.W. are clearly visible in that footage in front of the Dodge SUV.
Additional cameras provided views of Williams, I.W., and the dr iver’s side of the Dodge
SUV as well.
After a few moments in front of the SUV, I.W. turned and walked around the SUV
toward the front passenger-side window of the vehicle. At the m oment I.W. reached the
passenger-side window, Williams heard a gunshot and ducked down . Onlookers who had
been watching the commotion ran away. The bullet penetrated I.W.’s torso from the back
and then went through her car’s left headlight unit. Williams w ent around the passenger
side of the vehicle, over I.W.’s body, and got in the SUV through the rear driver-side door.
A.W., who was in the front passenger’s seat, exited the vehicle and walked away, and
Jefferson hurriedly drove the vehicle away from the shopping center. I.W. was transported
to the hospital via ambulance, but she died.
The police officers who were dispatched to the shopping center l e a r n e d t h a t
Williams and Jefferson were potential suspects. The police inte rviewed Jefferson on

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May 15 and 18, 2017. During the interviews, Jefferson maintaine d that there was another
person in the backseat at the time of the shooting and that the backseat passenger was the
shooter. But Jefferson gave shifting statements regarding the c olor of the t-shirt that the
backseat passenger was wearing. And Jefferson ultimately failed to identify the backseat
passenger to the police, stating that he barely knew the person. A few days later, the police
also interviewed A.W. and decided not to arrest him. Instead, t hey moved to arrest
Jefferson. On or about May 30, 2017, after Jefferson was arrested, A.W. was murdered.
The state charged Jefferson with second-degree murder for the killing of I.W. At
trial, Williams testified to the events described above, but he also added information that
cannot be confirmed by the surveillance videos, including that: (1) on May 12, before the
shooting, Williams saw a bulge that he believed was a gun in Jefferson’s pocket; (2) when
Williams got into the backseat of the SUV after the shooting, t he backseats were not
occupied; (3) on the way to a friend’s house where Williams was hed his face after the
shooting, Williams saw a gun on the center console between the front seats; and (4) at the
friend’s house, Jefferson said that he, Jefferson, shot the victim.
The state also introduced testim ony of V.P., who shared a jail cell with Jefferson
shortly after Jefferson’s arrest . V.P. testified that Jefferson told him the following:
(1) Jefferson, Williams, and A.W. were in the Dodge SUV and ran into the victim at the
shopping center; (2) Williams was fighting with the victim; (3) the victim sprayed
Williams with mace; (4) Williams was struggling to see because of the mace; (5) Jefferson
was driving; and (6) Jefferson shot the victim.

5
The jury found Jefferson guilty o f second-degree murder, and t he district court
convicted him. This appeal follows.
D E C I S I O N
I. The district court’s failure to sua sponte give an accomplic e-corroboration
instruction, while plainly erroneous, was not reversible error.

Jefferson first argues that his c onviction must be reversed because the district court
failed to instruct the jury that the testimony of Williams, an accomplice, needed to be
corroborated. Because Jefferson di d not object to the district court’s failure to give an
accomplice-corroboration instruction, the plain-error standard applies. See Minn. R. Crim.
P. 31.02 (“Plain error affecting a substantial right can be considered by the court on motion
for new trial, post-trial motion, or on appeal even if it was n ot brought to the trial court’s
attention.”). The plain-error standard requires the appellant to show: (1) error; (2) that was
plain; and (3) that affected substantial rights. State v. Griller, 583 N.W.2d 736, 740 (Minn.
1998). If these three prongs are met, the appellate court then assesses (4) whether it should
address the error to ensure the fairness and integrity of the j udicial proceedings. State v.
Matthews, 779 N.W.2d 543, 549 (Minn. 2010).
“An error is plain if it . . . violates or contradicts case la w, a rule, or an applicable
standard of conduct.” Id. Minn. Stat. § 634.04 (2018) provides:
A conviction cannot be had upon the testimony of an
accomplice, unless it is corroborated by such other evidence as
tends to convict the defendant of the commission of the
offense, and the corroboration is not sufficient if it merely
shows the commission of the offense or the circumstances
thereof.

6
The supreme court has held that, accordingly, “as a rule, trial courts have a duty to instruct
juries on accomplice testimony in any criminal case in which it is reasonable to consider
any witness against the defendant to be an accomplice.” State v. Clark, 755 N.W.2d 241,
251 (Minn. 2008) (quotation omitte d). The state concedes that W illiams was plainly an
accomplice. The district court in this case violated its duty by failing to give an accomplice-
corroboration instruction. The district court committed error, and the error was plain.
Therefore, the next question is whether Jefferson’s substantial rights were affected.
When evaluating the impact of a district court’s failure to gi ve an accomplice-
corroboration instruction, appellate courts examine
whether the testimony of the accomplice was corroborated by
significant evidence, whether the accomplice testified in
exchange for leniency, whether the prosecution emphasized
the accomplice’s testimony in cl osing argument, and whether
the court gave the jury general witness credibility instructions.

State v. Horst , 880 N.W.2d 24, 38 (Minn. 2016) (quotation omitted). We turn t o these
factors.
A. Corroborative Evidence
“Corroborative evidence
. . . must affirm the truth of the accomplice’s testimony
and point to the guilt of the def endant in some substantial deg ree.” Reed v. State , 925
N.W.2d 11, 21 (Minn. 2019) (quo tation omitted). But the corrobo ration requirements—
affirmation of the accomplice’s testimony and incrimination of the defendant—need not
both be satisfied by each individual piece of corroborating evidence. Clark, 755 N.W.2d at
255. Caselaw requires only that “the evidence as a whole . . . affirm the truth of the
accomplice’s testimony and point to the defendant’s guilt.” Id.

7
Williams testified extensively as to what happened after he go t to the shopping
center on May 12, 2017. Williams’s description of events up to the point of the shooting is
largely confirmed by the surveillance videos; in fact, much of Williams’s testimony was
given to the jury alongside the playback of the videos. Key aspects of Williams’s testimony
that the surveillance videos indisputably affirm are that the victim was on the passenger’s
side of the Dodge SUV at the moment of the gunshot and that Wil liams ducked down at
the sound of the gunshot. These pieces of information point to someone inside the Dodge
SUV as the shooter. And, as we explain next, the surveillance videos and V.P.’s testimony
incriminate Jefferson as the shooter.
Surveillance videos
In the surveillance videos, I.W. is seen walking, moments before the shooting, from
in front of the Dodge SUV to the passenger’s side of the vehicl e. As she approaches the
front passenger-side window, the window rolls down and an object that looks like the barrel
of a handgun appears. The gun-like object makes a recoiling motion, and then the object is
lowered and disappears from view. What appears to be the top of the victim’s body is seen
falling behind the parked vehicles that are in the line of sight from the camera to the victim.
It is true that the surveillance videos do not conclusively ru le out the possibility that
an unidentified backseat passenger was holding the gun-like obj ect and, therefore, are
arguably insufficient to support Jefferson’s conviction. But “[c]orroborative evidence need
not, standing alone, be suffici ent to support a conviction . . . .” See Reed, 925 N.W.2d at
21 (quotation omitted). Rather, th e question is whether the sur veillance videos “point to
the guilt” of Jefferson “in some substantial degree.” Id. (quotation omitted). The

8
surveillance videos satisfy that standard. As seen in the videos, the motion of the gun-like
object and the position in which it is held out the window sugg est that the gun was being
held by the driver, stretching his arm over the center console. While it is possible that a
driver-side backseat passenger was wielding the gun in the mann er depicted in the video,
it is not the most natural inference because of the position of the gun and A.W.’s presence
in the passenger’s seat. In short, a shooter in the backseat li kely would have shot through
the backseat window.
Jefferson tries to discount the incriminating nature of the su rveillance videos in
various ways. First, he emphasizes what the surveillance videos do not show—they do not
show “a muzzle flash or any smoke or powder” emanating from the gun-like object.
Undoubtedly, the videos would provide stronger corroboration if they captured a muzzle
flash, smoke, or powder, but the surveillance cameras recorded the incident under bright
daylight, and the gun-like object was at a considerable distance from the cameras. Nothing
in the record indicates that, despite the brightness and the distance, “a muzzle flash or any
smoke or powder” would be clearly identifiable in the videos had a gun been fired through
the front passenger-side window. Jefferson’s assertion does not overcome the clearest
indication of the surveillance videos—the driver of the Dodge SUV shot the victim through
the front passenger-side window.
Second, Jefferson argues that the entrance wound in the victim ’ s b a c k i s n o t
consistent with the gun being fired through the front passenger -side window because the
victim was walking by the passenger’s side of the Dodge SUV from in front of the vehicle.
Jefferson also implies that Williams , away from whom the victim was walking, shot the

9
victim, citing a witness’s testimony that she thought she saw a shiny metal object in
Williams’s right hand and that she told the police she thought the object was a gun. But the
videos establish that Williams did not shoot the victim. In the videos, during the few
seconds before the victim is shot, Williams is seen with a smal l, white object—which he
testified was the victim’s phone —in his right hand, following t he victim toward the
passenger’s side of the Dodge SUV. At the moment the victim is shot, Williams ducks
while still being a few feet in front of the vehicle and keeping his hands close to his body.
In the videos, the onlookers start to run away from the scene p recisely when Williams
ducks, which suggests that that is when everyone hears the gunshot. And close examination
of the footage reveals that Willia ms’s gait slowed slightly bef ore he and everyone else
heard the gunshot. The slowed gait indicates that Williams did not expect what he saw—
the shooting of I.W. Ultimately, t he entrance wound in the vict im’s back can only be
explained through inference becau se the videos captured only pa rt of the victim’s body
when she was shot and there was no testimony to fill that void in the recording. But given
that Williams was not the shooter, the only reasonable explanation for the entrance wound
is that the victim suddenly changed her direction of motion just before the shooting, turning
her back against the gun. Jefferson’s second argument does not negate the corroboration
that the surveillance videos provide.
Third, Jefferson points to the fact that the state “did not ch eck the Dodge SUV for
the presence of gunshot residue, which may have confirmed the a rea where the gun was
fired.” That the state did not check for gunshot residue does not mean that there was none
or that the shot did not come from the Dodge SUV. Fourth, the p resence of a shell casing

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outside of the SUV, Jefferson argues, suggests that the gun was not fired through the
window of the vehicle. But, given the gun’s position relative t o the front passenger-side
window, it is reasonable to posit that the casing would end up outside the vehicle. As with
his first two arguments, Jefferson’s third and fourth arguments elaborate the ways in which
the surveillance videos could have been more corroborative, but they do not seriously
undermine the effectiveness of the videos as corroborating evidence.
V.P.’s testimony
V.P.’s testimony also corrobor ates Williams’s testimony that J efferson was the
shooter. Jefferson argues that V.P.’s testimony does not corroborate Williams’s testimony
because V.P. was a “jailhouse snitch” and his testimony was inc onsistent with other
evidence. But, as the state correctly notes, State v. Pippitt, 645 N.W.2d 87 (Minn. 2002)
defeats Jefferson’s argument. In Pippitt, the supreme court held “that [an accomplice’s]
testimony was sufficiently corroborated by [a jailhouse informant’s] testimony to support
the verdict” under the accomplice-testimony statute. 645 N.W.2d at 94. V.P.’s testimony
is not deprived of corroborative effect simply because V.P. is a “jailhouse snitch.” Also, in
Pippitt, there were other indications that the informant’s testimony w as not reliable, as
Jefferson argues is the case here, but the supreme court nevertheless upheld the testimony,
stating that “weighing the credibility of witnesses is a functi on exclusively for the jury.”
Id. at 93-94 (quotation omitted). Jefferson fails to show why this court should not consider
V.P.’s testimony, which specifically points to Jefferson’s guilt, as corroborating evidence.

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B. Other Factors
The remaining factors are “whether the accomplice testified in exchange for
leniency, whether the prosecution emphasized the accomplice’s t estimony in closing
argument, and whether the court gave the jury general witness c redibility instructions.”
Horst, 880 N.W.2d at 38 (quotation om itted). It is undisputed that W illiams gave his
testimony in exchange for lenien cy, which supports appellant’s argument. But the
prosecution did not emphasize W illiams’s testimony in closing a rgument. As the state
points out, the prosecutor acknowledged in closing argument tha t Williams’s testimony
was not altogether credible. He said:
And let’s be honest, folks, I don’t suspect there’s a person in
this room now or . . . at any time in this trial who likes Marvel
Williams. Think in my opening I told you that Marvel Williams
is probably not the guy who’s in the first row at the Mormon
Tabernacle Choir singing . . . .

. . . .

And I suspect that you folks will conclude that Mr. William’s
statement that he didn’t know she had been shot is probably
nonsense, untrue.

. . . .

Talked about the fact that, you know, he stepped over
the dead or dying body of his girlfriend and claims not to know.
The State acknowledges that part’s . . . not believable . . . .

Although the prosecutor spent a substantial amount of time revi ewing Williams’s
testimony, he did not do so to artificially lend credence to Wi lliams’s testimony. Rather,
the prosecutor tried to communicate the many aspects of William s’s testimony that were
consistent with other evidence pr esented to the jury. For examp le, when referring to

12
Jefferson’s confession to Williams, which is arguably the most incriminating part of
Williams’s testimony, the prosecutor immediately turned to V.P. ’s testimony. Lastly, the
district court gave the jury general witness-credibility instructions.
While one out of the four relevant factors weighs in his favor, overall Jefferson fails
to show that his substantial rights were affected by the distri ct court’s failure to give an
accomplice-corroboration instruction.
II. The prosecutor di d not plainly commit misconduct during closing argument.

Jefferson next argues that he is entitled to a new trial based on unobjected-to
prosecutorial misconduct during closing argument. When the defe ndant fails to object
during trial, prosecutorial misco nduct is reviewed under a modi fied plain-error standard.
State v. Ramey , 721 N.W.2d 294, 302 (Minn. 2006). The defendant bears the bur den of
establishing error that is plain, but, once plain error is established, the burden shifts to the
state to prove that there is no reasonable likelihood that the absence of the misconduct
would have had a significant effect on the jury’s verdict. Id. If the state fails to meet its
burden, an appellate court then “must decide whether the error seriously affected the
fairness and integrity of the judicial proceedings.” State v. Radke, 821 N.W.2d 316, 329
(Minn. 2012).
Jefferson argues that the prose cutor plainly erred during clos ing argument by
“repeatedly referenc[ing]” A.W.’s statement to the police becau se that statement was not
in evidence and was inadmissible hearsay. But the prosecutor di d not tell the jury what
A.W. said in his interview with the investigating officers. The prosecutor only talked about
the investigating officers’ reac tion to what A.W. said: they “c leared” A.W. and pursued

13
Jefferson instead. It is undisputed that the evidence of the in vestigating officers’ reaction
to A.W.’s statement was properly admitted at trial. Therefore, the question raised by
Jefferson’s argument is whether the prosecutor’s reference to t he investigating officers’
reaction violated the rule agains t hearsay by unduly implying t he contents of A.W.’s
statement.
“A police officer testifying in a criminal case generally may not, under the guise of
explaining how an investigation fo cused on the defendant, relat e hearsay statements of
others.” State v. Fields, 679 N.W.2d 341, 348 (Minn. 2004) (citing State v. Cermak, 365
N.W.2d 243, 247 (Minn. 1985)). Here, the police testimony that the prosecutor referred to
in the closing argument evinced only that the police interviewe d A.W. and decided not to
arrest him. While that testimony may lend itself to an inferenc e that A.W.’s testimony
incriminated Jefferson, caselaw distinguishes between an office r’s testimony regarding
out-of-court conversations that disclose the contents of those conversations and testimony
that does not. See State v. Litzau, 650 N.W.2d 177, 183 n.4 (Minn. 2002) (“A police officer
‘may reconstruct the steps taken in a criminal investigation, m ay testify about his contact
with an informant, and may describe the events leading up to a defendant’s arrest, but the
officer’s testimony must be limited to the fact that he spoke t o an informant without
disclosing the substance of that conversation.’” (quoting United States v. Williams , 133
F.3d 1048, 1052 (7th Cir.1998))).
Jefferson bears the burden of s howing that there was misconduct constituting error
and that the error was plain; to be plain, the error must “contravene[] case law, a rule, or a
standard of conduct.” State v. Carridine , 812 N.W.2d 130, 146 (Minn. 2012) (quotation

14
omitted). Jefferson has not shown that the prosecutor’s referen ce to the investigating
officers’ reaction after interv iewing A.W. implied the contents of a hearsay statement in
contravention of case law, a rule, or a standard of conduct. Th e prosecutor did not plainly
commit misconduct.
Affirmed.