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This opinion will be unpublished and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
A19-1362

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Delaney Ledell Johnson,
Appellant.

Filed August 10, 2020
Affirmed
Bratvold, Judge

Ramsey County District Court
File No. 62-CR-18-6351

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

John J. Choi, Ramsey County Attorney, Alexandra Meyer, Assistant County Attorney,
St. Paul, Minnesota (for respondent)

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

Considered and decided by Bratvold , Presiding Judge; Bjorkman , Judge; and
Halbrooks, Judge.*

* Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to
Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.
2
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
BRATVOLD, Judge
In this appeal from two final judgments of conviction for first-degree criminal
sexual conduct, both of which were sentenced during the same hearing, appellant argues
the district court erroneously imposed a lifetime- conditional-release term on his second
conviction. Appellant contends that his “adjudications were entered simultaneously ” and
he had no “prior sex offenses,” as that phrase is defined in Minn. Stat. § 609.3455,
subd. 1(g) (2018). Because the district court convicted Johnson of one sex offense before
it convicted Johnson of the second offense, we affirm.
FACTS
In February through June 2017, appellant Delaney Ledell Johnson lived with his
girlfriend and her two children, ages nine (child A) and ten (child B). Approximately one
year later, the children told their brother that Johnson had sexually abused them in 2017.
The brother told their father about the abuse in July 2018 and the father reported the abuse
to police.
The state charged Johnson with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct
(penetration; significant relationship; multiple acts over time) under Minn. Stat. § 609.342,
subd. 1(h)(iii) (2016), against child A (count one) and child B (count two) for conduct that
occurred at a St. Paul residence, and two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct
(sexual contact; significant relationship; multiple acts over time) under Minn. Stat.
§ 609.342, subd. 1(h)(iii), against child A (count three) and child B (count four) for conduct
that occurred at a Maplewood residence.
3
Johnson initially pleaded not guilty and the case went to trial. The parties reached a
plea agreement shortly after jury selection began. Johnson pleaded guilty to counts one
(child A) and two (child B). In exchange, the state agreed to dismiss counts three and four
at sentencing. The district court found that Johnson entered his plea “knowingly,
intelligently, and voluntarily” and stated there was a “sufficient basis” to support the guilty
plea on counts one and two. The district court did not accept Johnson’s plea, ordered a
presentence investigation, and set a sentencing hearing.
During a sentencing hearing several months later, the district court accepted the plea
agreement and, on count one, committed Johnson to the commissioner of corrections for
234 months with a ten- year conditional-release term. On count two, the district court
committed Johnson to the commissioner of corrections for 306 months with a
lifetime-conditional-release term. This appeal follows.
D E C I S I O N
Johnson appeals from his sentence and argues that the district court erroneously
imposed a lifetime-conditional-release term as part of his sentence for count two because
the district court simultaneously entered his convictions. Johnson asks this court to reverse
the lifetime-conditional-release term on his second conviction as unlawful. “Resolving the
issue of whether convictions that are adjudicated simultaneously can result in [both] a prior
conviction and a present offense is a matter of statutory interpretation, which is an issue of
law that we review de novo.” State v. Brown, 937 N.W.2d 146, 156 (Minn. App. 2019);
see also State v. Williams, 771 N.W.2d 514, 520 (Minn. 2009) (applying de novo review
to determine whether a sentence conforms to statutes).
4
The Minnesota Legislature “has the exclusive authority to define crimes and
offenses and the range of the sentences or punishments for their violation.” Minn. Stat.
§ 609.095(a) (2018). District courts must sentence defendants in accordance with state
statutes, the sentencing guidelines, and other applicable laws. See State v. Noggle,
881 N.W.2d 545, 547 (Minn. 2016). By statute, district courts “shall” impose a
lifetime-conditional-release term when committing an offender to the custody of the
commissioner of corrections for certain sex offenses if that offender has a “prior sex offense
conviction.” Minn. Stat. § 609.3455, subd. 7(b) (2018).
A conviction is considered to be a “prior sex offense conviction” if “the offender
was convicted of committing a sex off ense before the offender has been convicted of the
present offense,” so long as each conviction “ involved separate behavioral incidents.” Id.,
subd. 1(g) (2018). This occurs “regardless of whether the offender was convicted for the
first offense before the commission of the present offense.” Id. A “sex offense” includes
convictions under section 609.342 for first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Id., subd. 1(h)
(2018).
Johnson argues on appeal that he “had no prior sex offense convictions” at the time
he was sentenced and “the district court never formally adjudicated [him] guilty of either
count one or count two.” Reasoning from these facts, Johnson contends that his convictions
were “simultaneously adjudicated in the district court’s Warrant of Commitment” filed
after the sentencing hearing. Johnson relies on this court’s ruling in Brown that a
simultaneously-entered conviction cannot serve as a prior sex- offense conviction.

5
937 N.W.2d at 156-57 (concluding “no conviction can be prior to the other” when entered
simultaneously during same hearing). Brown also held that a district court errs by imposing
a lifetime-conditional-release term following the simultaneous entry of two convictions.
Id. The state argues that “the district court’s language indicates [Johnson] was convicted
sequentially, not simultaneously.” The state points to federal caselaw and unpublished
appellate decisions to support its position that the district court “implicitly accepted a plea
on each count just before imposing sentence.”
We agree with the state based on our analysis of when Johnson was convicted of
each offense. A criminal “conviction” occurs when either a guilty plea or a guilty verdict
is “accepted and recorded by the court.” Minn. Stat. § 609.02, subd. 5 (2018). A district
court accepts a guilty plea on the record by using “clear and unambiguous language.” State
v. Jeffries, 806 N.W.2d 56, 62-63 (Minn. 2011) (holding conviction occurred when district
court stated, “I’ll accept your plea of guilty and find you guilty of the fifth-degree domestic
assault . . . . So you are convicted of that”). No “magic words” are required to formally
accept a guilty plea, record a conviction, and establish a prior conviction. Id.
The district court did not accept Johnson’s guilty plea during the plea hearing. When
a defendant “tenders a valid guilty plea,” the district court “may order any of three separate
dispositions: accept the plea on the terms of the plea agreement, reject the plea, or defer its
decision to accept or reject the plea pending completion of a presentence investigation.”
Id. at 62; see Minn. R. Crim. P. 15.04, subd. 3(2). At Johnson’s plea hearing, the district
court found that Johnson’s plea was valid and then set the sentencing hearing. We conclude

6
that the district court deferred acceptance of Johnson’s plea until sentencing. See, e.g., State
v. Thompson, 754 N.W.2d 352, 356 (Minn. 2008) (deferring acceptance of plea until
sentencing). The parties do not contend otherwise.
We turn to Johnson’s argument that his convictions were entered simultaneously
during the sentencing hearing. The state maintains that the district court implicitly entered
each conviction, one after the other. To resolve this issue, we consider the record of the
sentencing hearing.
After hearing from both parties and giving Johnson his right of allocution, the
district court stated, “[Y]ou pled guilty before me to Count 1 criminal sexual conduct in
the first-degree, victim under 16, a significant relationship and multiple acts. You also pled
guilty to Count 2, criminal sexual conduct in the first-degree with a victim under 16,
significant relationship and multiple acts.” Next, the district court summarized the plea
agreement, discussed Johnson’s in-custody credit, and stated that the presumptive sentence
for count one was 199 to 280 months. The district court then stated:
On Count 1 I am going to sentence you to the Custody of the
Commissioner of Corrections for a period of 234 months with
credit for 246 days that you’ve already served. There will be a
ten-year conditional release period that would apply to this
count. And by operation of law you will have to . . . register as
a predatory offender for your lifetime.

Count 2, the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines lists this [] as a
severity level A offense. You have a criminal history score of
7. The presumptive guidelines range 306 to 360 months.

I am going to impose [the] following sentence for Count 2:
Commit you to custody of the Commissioner [of] Corrections
for a period of 306 months with credit for 246 days that you’ve
7
already served on this count. On this count, a lifetime
conditional release period applies, and you will need to register
as a predatory offender for your lifetime.

No objection was made during the sentencing hearing.
Based on this record, we determine that Johnson was convicted when the district
court pronounced each sentence. The Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure explicitly
provide that a sentence “is an adjudication of guilt.” Minn. R. Crim. P. 27.03, subd. 8
(emphasis added). Although this rule is not cited by either party, it governs sentencing
proceedings. We conclude that the district court adjudicated Johnson’s guilt and convicted
him on each count when it imposed a sentence for each count. And because the district
court sentenced Johnson on count one before sentencing Johnson on count two, the
convictions were not entered simultaneously.
Our decision is consistent with State v. Nodes , which held that a “prior sex offense
conviction” under section 609.3455 “unambiguously includes a conviction for a separate
behavioral incident entered before a second conviction, whether at different hearings or
during the same hearing.” 863 N.W.2d 77, 82 (Minn. 2015) (emphasis added). The
supreme court reasoned that no “particular temporal g ap” is required to establish a prior
conviction. Id. So long as one conviction is entered before a second conviction, the former
qualifies as a “prior sex offense conviction.” Id. Brown is inapplicable to Johnson’s
circumstances because its holding hinged on the determination that no prior conviction
occurs when there is “no temporal gap whatsoever between a district court’s adjudication
of offenses.” See 937 N.W.2d at 156 (emphasis added). At Johnson’s sentencing hearing,
there was a temporal gap between the entries of the two convictions.
8
We reject Johnson’s argument that he was convicted when the warrant of
commitment was filed. He relies on caselaw that addresses “whether the defendant had
been formally convicted of a particular [lesser-included] offense, not when [the] conviction
occurred.” Nodes, 863 N.W.2d 77 at 81 (discussing State v. Hoelzel, 639 N.W.2d 605
(Minn. 2002) and State v. Pflepsen, 590 N.W.2d 759 (Minn. 1999)). Although Johnson
correctly states that a conviction is formally adjudicated once it appears in an official
judgment of conviction, see Hoelzel, 639 N.W.2d 605, the official judgment itself is “not
required to satisfy the requirement that the guilty plea be recorded.” Thompson,
754 N.W.2d at 356 n.4 (citing Minn. Stat. § 609.02, subd. 5).
In sum, because Johnson’s conviction of count one was entered before his
conviction of count two, Johnson had a prior sex-offense conviction when the district court
imposed a lifetime-conditional-release term under Minn. Stat. § 609.3455, subd. 7(b), on
count two.
Affirmed.