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This opinion will be unpublished and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
A19-0735

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Jason Ashley Kingsley,
Appellant.

Filed April 6, 2020
Affirmed
Connolly, Judge

Anoka County District Court
File Nos. 02-CR-18-5049, 02-CR-18-5629, 02-CR-18-6398

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

Anthony C. Palumbo, Anoka County Attorney, Robert I. Yount, Assistant County
Attorney, Anoka, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Amy Lawler, Assistant Public
Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Hooten, Presiding Judge; Connolly, Judge; and Smith,
Tracy M., Judge.

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U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
CONNOLLY, Judge
Appellant challen ges his sentences for second -degree assault, two counts of
violating an order for protection (OFP), and three counts of violating a Domestic Abuse
No Contact Order (DANCO), arguing that the assault and one OFP violation were part of
the same behavioral incident and that the three DANCO violations were also part of the
same incident. Because the district court did not err in sentencing appellant on any of the
offenses, we affirm.
FACTS
In April 2017, appellant Jason Kingsley committed acts against A.S. that resulted in
his being placed on probation for a gross misdemeanor violation of interfering with a 911
call. In March 2018, an OFP was issued prohibiting appellant from any contact with A.S.
The OFP was in effect on July 29, 2018, when appellant went to A.S.’s residence.
They had drinks together while she got ready to go out; they then went downtown to a club
where they purchased bottle service. At the club, they got into a fight and returned in
separate cabs to her residence. There, appellant slammed A.S.’s head into a wall, tore off
her clothes, pinned her to the ground, punched her, choked her, and threatened to kill her
by holding a knife over her. She escaped and ran to a neighbor’s house.
Appellant was charged with second-degree assault and violation of an OFP with two
or more prior convictions. On August 7, 2018, he committed an offense t hat resulted in
another charge of felony violation of an OFP with two or more prior convictions.

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A DANCO prohibiting appellant from any contact wi th A.S. was in effect on
August 18, 19, and 20, 2018. On each of those dates, appellant committed offenses that
resulted in his being charged with three violations of the DANCO within ten years of the
first of two or more convictions. In November 2018, appellant pleaded guilty to the charges
based on the offenses of July 29 and August 7, 18, 19, and 20.
In February 2019, he was sentenced for those offenses. For the July 29 offenses, he
was sentenced to a 33-month commitment to prison for the second-degree assault and a
concurrent 21 -month prison commitment for the OFP violation; for the August 7 OFP
violation he was sentenced to a one-year-and-one-day commitment to prison con secutive
to the sentences for the July 29 offenses; and for the August 18, 19, and 20 DANCO
violations, he was sentenced to a one-year-and-one-day commitment to prison, consecutive
to the sentences for the July 29 offenses , and to two 33 -month prison commitments,
concurrent to the sentences for the July 29 offenses. Thus, he was committed to prison for
a total of 57 months (33 + 12 + 12) and two days for all the offenses.
Appellant challenges this sentence, arguing that the district court erred in sentencing
him for both the assault and the OFP violation committed on July 29 because they were
part of a single behavioral incident, and for the three DANCO violations of August 18, 19,
and 20, which he argues were also part of a single behavioral incident.
D E C I S I O N
Standard of Review
Multiple sentences, even if concurrent, are generally prohibited for two or more
offenses that were committed as part of a single behavioral incident. See Minn. Stat.

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§ 609.035 (2016); see also State v. Norregaard , 384 N.W.2d 449, 449 (Minn. 1986) .
Offenses are part of a single course of conduct if the offenses occurred at substantially the
same time and place and were motivated by a single criminal objective. State v. Jones, 848
N.W.2d 528, 533 (Minn. 2014). “Whether . . . offenses were part of a single behavioral
incident is a mixed question of law and fact, so we review the district court’s findings of
fact for clear error and its application of the law to those facts de novo.” State v. Bakken,
883 N.W.2d 264, 270 (Minn. 2016). The state bears the burden of showing by a
preponderance of evidence that the offenses in question were not part of a single behavioral
incident. Id.
1. July 29 offenses
On July 29, an OFP prohibiting appellant from any contact with A.S. was in force.
Appellant testified that, on that date:
[W]e were drinking before we left [A.S.’s] house because we
were celebrating that we got back together and that . . . I did a
side job that day and I made money . . . [a]nd we decided to go
out to a club downtown . . . . We got bottle service there and
. . . I don’t recall a lot because I was so intoxicated . . . .

Appellant answered “no” when asked if he denied that he assaulted A. S. and that it was a
bad assault; he also agreed with A.S.’s statement to law enforcement that appellant
threatened to kill her on a number of occasions that night and straddled her while holding
a box cutter.
Appellant’s testimony shows that his intent when he went to A.S.’s residence was
to celebrate their reunion and his recent earnings; his intent when he assaulted her was to
harm her physically if not kill her. This does not reflect a “single criminal objective”

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throughout the time he was violating the OFP by being with her that evening. Moreover,
the OFP violation lasted for hours before the assault occurred, so the two violations were
not at a single time, and the OFP violation occurred both at A.S.’s residence and at the
downtown club, while the assault occurred only at her residence, so the violations did not
occur at a single place. Absent a single time, place, and criminal objective for the two
offenses, the district court did not err in sentencing appellant on both.
2. August 18-20 offenses
A DANCO prohibiting appellant’s contact with A.S. was issued at the end of July.
While appellant was in jail during August, he spoke with different inmates on August 18,
19, and 20 and asked each of them to contact his significant other and have that pe rson
contact A.S. on appellant’s behalf. On August 18, A.S. received a message from a number
ending in 2111 saying “He [appellant] just wants me to let you know that he is so ashamed
and he love s you very, very much.” On August 19, she received the messa ge from a
number ending in 2617, and on August 20, the message came from a number ending in
8108.
Appellant testified that, for each of these, (1) he contacted an inmate and asked him
to have his wife or girlfriend text A.S. several times, (2) he receiv ed reply messages back
from A.S., (3) he arranged for the second and third messages because he received reply
messages to his first and second messages, and (4) he knew each contact was a violation
of the DANCO. Because the three violations occurred on th ree different days with three
different inmates, and two of them occurred as the result of a prior violation, they were not
a single behavioral incident. “[T]he mere fact that [appellant] committed multiple crimes

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over time for the same criminal objective [here, making contact with A.S. in violation of
the DANCO] does not mean he committed those crimes to attain a single criminal
objective.” Id. at 271. The district court did not err in sentencing appellant on the three
DANCO violations of August 18, 19, and 20.
Affirmed.