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This opinion will be unpublished and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
A19-0751

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Ellric Alfred Giroux,
Appellant.

Filed March 30, 2020
Affirmed
Smith, Tracy M., Judge

Big Stone County District Court
File No. 06-CR-18-223

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, Karen B. McGillic, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul,
Minnesota; and

Joseph P. Glasrud, Big Stone County Attorney, Ortonville, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Pub lic Defender, Jennifer Workman Jesness,
Assistant Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Rodenberg, Presiding Judge; Johnson, Judge; and
Smith, Tracy M., Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
SMITH, TRACY M., Judge
Appellant Ellric Alfred Giroux challe nges his conviction under Minn. Stat.
§ 243.166, subd. 5(a) (2018), fo r knowingly violating his pr edatory-offender registration

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requirement. Giroux argues that (1) the facts are insufficient to support his conviction and
(2) the district court committed plain error by admitting hearsay evidence that the parties
agreed to before trial. We affirm.
FACTS
In 1998, the State of North Dakota co nvicted Giroux of gross sexual imposition.
Due to this conviction, Giroux was required to register as a predatory offender according
to the rules of the state where he resided. Since his conviction, Giroux has variously lived
in both North Dakota and Minnesota. Minnesota originally required Giroux to register until
2008 but eventually extended his registration requirem ent to 2026 after various other
offenses and failures to update his address. In March 2018, the Clay County District Court
issued a warrant for his arrest for a shoplifting charge. In August 2018, Giroux moved from
North Dakota to Clint on, Minnesota. He did not regist er as a predatory offender in
Minnesota. On October 18, 2018, respondent State of Minnesota charged Giroux under
Minn. Stat. § 243.166, subd. 5( a), with the felony offense of knowingly violating his
registration requirement with a previous offense of the same statute.
At trial, an agent from the predatory crim es section of the Bureau of Criminal
Apprehension (BCA)—who did not work on Giroux’s file—testified about Minnesota’s
predatory registration requirements and the contents of Giroux’s BCA packet. The
admissibility of this packet was discussed between the attorneys and judge before trial and
again in a bench meeting during the agent’s testimony. The judge decided to admit the
packet as “Exhibit 1,” subjec t to defendant’s particularized objections when the state
sought to publish pages of the exhibit to the jury. Defense counsel agreed to this approach.

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In a bench conference before closing ar guments, the state sa id, “Your Honor, I’d
just note for the record, [defense counsel] and I have removed several pages from exhibit
one that we are both in agreem ent should be removed and we ask that everything that’s
now in exhibit one be receiv ed without objection.” The ju dge confirmed with defense
counsel and admitted into evidence everything that remained in Exhibit 1.
In the state’s closing argument, the state asked the jury to take their time in going
through the written evidence. After deliberati ons, the jury found Gi roux guilty of the
charged offense.
This appeal follows.
D E C I S I O N
I. The district court did not commit pl ain error by admitting Exhibit 1 into
evidence.

Giroux argues that the district court e rred by admitting Exhib it 1 although he did
not object to its admission. “A ppellate review of an eviden tiary issue is forfeited when a
defendant fails to object to the admission of evidence.” State v. Vasquez, 912 N.W.2d 642,
649 (Minn. 2018). But appellate courts review forfeited issues for plain error. Minn. R.
Crim. P. 31.02; Vasquez, 912 N.W.2d at 650. On plain-e rror review, appellants bear the
burden of showing that “(1) there was an erro r, (2) the error was plain, and (3) the error
affected the defendant’s substantial rights.” State v. Myhre, 875 N.W.2d 799, 804 (Minn.
2016). If those elements are met, appellate cour ts consider “whether it should address the
error to ensure fairness and the integrity of the judicial proceedings.” State v. Griller, 583
N.W.2d 736, 740 (Minn. 1998).

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Giroux argues that admitting Exhibit 1 wa s error because it contained hearsay and
hearsay is plainly inadmissible. Establishing plain error on hearsay grounds is particularly
difficult because “[t]he number and variety of exceptions to the hearsay exclusion make
objections to such testimony particularly import ant to the creation of a record of the trial
court’s decision-making process in either admitting or excluding a given statement.” State
v. Manthey, 711 N.W.2d 498, 504 (Minn. 2006). The absence of an objection may deprive
the state of the opportunity to establish that challenged statements are, in fact, admissible.
Id. With these considerations in mind, we a ssess whether Giroux has established that the
district court plainly erred by admitting Exhibit 1.
Hearsay is an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted.
Minn. R. Evid. 801(c). Hearsay is generally inadmissible at trial unless it satisfies a hearsay
exception. Minn. R. Evid. 802 . Irrespective of the hearsay rule, Minnesota’s predatory
offender registration statute provides that “[c]ertified copies of predatory offender
registration records are admissible as substa ntive evidence when n ecessary to prove the
commission of a violation of this secti on.” Minn. Stat. § 243.166, subd. 11 (2018).
“Certified copies of predatory offender registration records” has not been defined by statute
or caselaw.
Giroux argues that “[a]t least thirty-five pages” of Exhibit 1 are not certified copies
of predatory offender registration records but instead are “copies of criminal complaints,
sentencing and probation revocation documents, file notes from the BCA, an e-mail from
the BCA, BCA non-compliance reports, a conviction history prepared by the North Dakota

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Attorney General, and an incarceration repo rt.” These documents, Giroux argues, should
be treated under the hearsay rule like a police report.
His argument is unpersuasive. First, Giroux does not point to the specific documents
that he believes are inadmissible hearsay. Se cond, he does not consider the documents in
the context of how the state used them, and, to the extent that the documents were used to
show Giroux’s knowledge or so mething other than the truth of the matter they asserted,
they were not hearsay. Finally, Giroux does not convincingly show why the documents are
more analogous to police reports than to registration records. Especially in light of Giroux’s
agreement to have the conten ts of Exhibit 1 admitted into evidence following several
discussions with the district c ourt, we cannot conclude that th e district court erred, much
less plainly erred, in admitting the evidence.
II. The evidence is sufficient to supp ort the “knowing” element of Giroux’s
failure-to-register conviction.

To convict someone for failing to register under the predatory reporting statute, the
state must show that the defe ndant needed to register as a predatory offender and the
defendant knowingly violated a registration requirement. Minn. Stat. § 243.166, subd. 5(a);
State v. Mikulak , 903 N.W.2d 600, 603-04 (Minn. 2017 ). Giroux argues that the state
provided insufficient ev idence to prove that he knowingly failed to register. Defendants
knowingly fail to register when they are aware they are violating the reporting statute at
the time of the offense. Mikulak, 903 N.W.2d at 603-04.
States of mind like knowledge are generally shown through circumstantial evidence.
Cf. State v. Essex, 838 N.W.2d 805, 809 (Minn. App. 2013), review denied (Minn. Jan. 21,

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2014). When a disputed element of an offense is proved in part by circumstantial evidence,
appellate courts apply a heightened standard of review. See State v. Horst, 880 N.W.2d 24,
39 (Minn. 2016). Under the circ umstantial-evidence standard, appellate courts follow a
two-step analysis. State v. Moore , 846 N.W.2d 83, 88 (Minn. 2 014). The first step is to
identify the circumstances that the state proved. See State v. Anderson, 784 N.W.2d 320,
329 (Minn. 2010). In doing so, appellate courts “defer to the jury’s acceptance of the proof
of these circumstances.” Id. (quotation omitted). Appellate courts “construe conflicting
evidence in the light most favor able to the verdict and assume that the jury believed the
[s]tate’s witnesses and disbelieved the defense witnesses.” Moore, 846 N.W.2d at 88
(quotation omitted). The second st ep is to “determine whet her the circumstances proved
are consistent with guilt and inconsistent with any rational hypothesis except that of guilt.”
Id. (quotations omitted). If they are not, appella te courts must reverse the conviction. See
State v. Al-Naseer, 788 N.W.2d 469, 481 (Minn. 2010).
Here, the circumstances proved are that Giroux committed a crime in 1998 that
required him to remain registered on the Minnesota predatory o ffender list until 2008.
Because of later convictions and failures to follow the reporting rules, Giroux’s reporting
requirement in Minnesota was extended to 2026. Giroux twice moved to Minnesota from
North Dakota. In 2016, the North Dakota attorn ey general’s office sent Giroux a letter
relieving him of his North Dakota reporting obligations. The letter stated, “This notification
does not release you from your requirements to register with North Dakota Tribal agencies
or other states. If applicable, pl ease continue to register w ith them until further notified.”
Giroux initialed and signed many documents with the Minnesota BCA between 2004 and

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2009 stating that he understood his Minne sota reporting obligation. The Clay County
District Court issued a warrant for Giroux’s a rrest in March 2018 fo r failing to appear at
an arraignment on a shoplifting charge. Giroux knew about this warrant when he moved
back to Minnesota in August 2018. He did not report his move to the Minnesota BCA.
Giroux argues that the circumstances proved lend themselves to a rational
hypothesis that Giroux believed his Minnesota registration requirement was removed with
his North Dakota requirement. But the evidence, when taken as a whole, does not support
this alternative theory. First, the North Dakota letter expressly explained that the
notification did not relieve Giroux of his re gistration obligations in other states. And,
second, the theory does not account for Giro ux’s outstanding arrest warrant and the
disincentive it gave him to register. When viewed as a whole, th e circumstances proved
support only one rational theory: Giroux knew he needed to register upon returning to
Minnesota but he did not do so because it w ould have led to his arrest under the pending
arrest warrant.
In sum, under the circumst antial-evidence standard of review, the evidence was
sufficient to support Giroux’s conviction.
Affirmed.