A19-1230

This opinion will be unpublished and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
A19-1079
A19-1230

Donald Lester Milks, III, petitioner,
Appellant,

vs.

State of Minnesota,
Respondent.

Filed March 23, 2020
Affirmed
Florey, Judge

Wabasha County District Court
File No. 79-CR-16-1053

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

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

Karrie Kelly, Wabasha County Attorney, Wabasha, Minnesota (for respondent)

Considered and decided by Worke, Presiding Judge; Larkin, Judge; and Florey,
Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
FLOREY, Judge
In this consolidated appeal from orders denying postconviction relief in two district
court files, appellant argues that guilty -plea withdrawal was required because his plea to

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terroristic threats was inaccurate where he did not remember sending the text message, and
the recipient of the message understood that it was the product of his mental illness and
suicidal state. Appellant also argues that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated when
his attorney failed to follow his directive to move to withdraw his guilty plea to terroristic
threats before the sentencing hearing. We affirm.
FACTS
In Nov ember 2016, police responded to the home that Donald Lester Milks III
shared with his girlfriend, S.B. S.B. told the police that Milks had been “increasingly
agitated of late” and had been screaming and breaking windows. She also told police about
text messages that Milks sent her a week earlier, including one stating, “I’m gonna end
your life when I see you Not joking.” Milks was charged with terroristic threats , and a
domestic abuse no -contact order (DANCO) was issued. In December, S.B. filed a letter
with the district court requesting that the DANCO be lifted. She wrote that she did not feel
unsafe “or afraid in any way for myself, my children or my home life,” and that she called
the police only for a welfare check on Milks. S.B.’s request was denied. In February 2017,
Milks pleaded guilty to terroristic threats. He stated that after receiving bad news, he “said
something in the lines to my future wife about threatening her life.” Milks was sentenced
to 15 months in prison, stayed for five years. The district court revoked the stay and
executed Milks’s sentence in October.
In November 2018, Milks filed a petition for postconviction relief, asserting that his
guilty plea was inaccurate and that his attorney violated his Sixth A mendment rights. In

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May 2019, after an evidentiary hearing, the postconviction court denied Milks’s petition to
withdraw his guilty plea.
In February 2017, Milks was also charged with a felony -level DANCO violation.
In March, Milks pleaded guilty to the DANCO charge. Milks filed a postconviction
petition to withdraw that plea in May 2019. That petition was denied in June 2019. This
consolidated appeal follows.
D E C I S I O N
“A defendant has no absolute right to withdraw a guilty plea after entering it.
Withdrawal is permitted in two circumstances. First, a court must allow withdrawal of a
guilty plea if withdrawal is necessary to correct a ‘manifest injustice.’ Second, a court may
allow withdrawal any time before sentencing if it is ‘fair and just’ to do so.” State v.
Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d 90, 93 (Minn. 2010) (citations omitted). “A manifest injustice exists
if a guilty plea is not valid. To be constitutionally valid, a gu ilty plea must be accurate,
voluntary, and intelligent. A defendant bears the burden of showing his plea was invalid.
Assessing the validity of a plea presents a question of law that we review de novo.” Id. at
94 (citations omitted). We review the denial of a postconviction petition for an abuse of
discretion. Davis v. State, 784 N.W.2d 387, 390 (Minn. 2010).
Milks challenges the accuracy of his plea. For a guilty plea to be accurate, it must
be supported by a proper factual basis, with “sufficient f acts on the record to supp ort a
conclusion that defendant’ s conduct falls within the charge to which he desires to plead
guilty.” State v. Iverson , 664 N.W.2d 346, 349 (Minn. 2003) (quotation omitted). We

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review the sufficiency of the factual basis for t he plea from the record made when the
defendant entered the plea. State v. Lillemo, 410 N.W.2d 66, 69 (Minn. App. 1987).
A defendant commits a terroristic threat when he: (1) threatens to commit any crime
of violence (2) “with purpose to terrorize another . . . or in a reckless disregard of the risk
of causing such terror.” Minn. Stat. § 609.713, subd. 1 (2016).
Milks contends that he lacked the requisite intent because he did not re member
sending the messages, because he never intended to terrorize S.B., and because S.B. never
felt terrorized by the text messages. While a finding of intent generally cannot be based
entirely on the effect the actor ’s cond uct had on the victim, a victim’ s reaction to that
conduct is circumstantial evidence that is relevant to intent. State v. Schweppe, 237 N.W.2d
609, 614 (Minn. 19 75). Intent may be inferred “from the idea that a person intends the
natural consequences of his or her actions.” Nelson v. State, 880 N.W.2d 852, 860 (Minn.
2016) (quotation omitted).
At the plea hearing, Milks stated the following: “I had sent a text message. . . . I
had gotten some pretty bad news that had shocked me . . . and I said something in the lines
to my future wife about threatening her life. Guilty.” The cour t asked if Milks had “put
into one of those texts, ‘I’m going to end your life when I see you Not joking. ’” Milks
responded, “I assume so, yeah. Yes. I don’t remember that day much, but it was my phone.
I did send messages. It was a pretty stressful d ay and I’m not going to say that I didn’t
send it.”
Based on Milks’s statements, the postconviction court determined that it was
reasonable to infer that Milks recklessly disregarded the risk of terrorizing S.B. The

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postconviction court also noted that other evidence supported this conclusion, including
the multiple messages that Milks sent before and after the quoted text which were all
threatening to S.B. Here, the postconviction court did not abuse its discretion by denying
Milks’s petition because the facts in the record are sufficient to support the conclusion that
Milks’s conduct falls within the charge of terroristic threats. Milks’s plea was valid.
Because we conclude that Milks’s guilty plea to the terroristic -threats charge is
valid, the DANCO put in place was appropriate. Thus, there is no basis for Milks to contest
the validity of his plea to the DANCO violation. Accordingly, we affirm the postconviction
court’s denial of Milks’s petition to withdraw his guilty plea to the DANCO violation.
Milks asserts that the postconvictio n court failed to address his Sixth A mendment
claim. But the postconviction court construed this claim as one of ineffective assistance of
counsel and concluded that Milks did not establish that postconviction r elief was
warranted, because he did not overcome the strong presumption that counsel’s performance
was reasonable.
[W]hen we review a postconviction court’s denial of relief on
a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, we will consider
the court’s f actual findings that are supported in the record,
conduct a de novo review of the legal implication of those facts
on the ineffective assistance claim, and either affirm the court’s
decision or conclude that the court abused its discretion
because postconviction relief is warranted.

State v. Nicks, 831 N.W.2d 493, 503-04 (Minn. 2013).
Here, the record reflects that Milks’s attorney stated that she might file a motion to
withdraw his guilty plea before the sentencing, but would need to further discuss the matter
with Milks first. S everal weeks later, Milks had the opportunity to address the court at

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sentencing. He did not state that he wished to withdraw his plea, or that he had asked his
attorney to do so , and she refused. Here, the postconviction court did not fail to address
Milks’s argument, nor did it abuse its discretion by concluding that Milks failed to establish
that postconviction relief on grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel was warranted.
Affirmed.