State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by
Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A20-0136

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Leonard Steven Sanchez,
Appellant.

Filed February 1, 2021
Reversed
Ross, Judge

Pennington County District Court
File No. 57-CR-18-995

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

Seamus Duffy, Pennington County Attorney, Kristin J. Hanson, Assistant County
Attorney, Thief River Falls, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Davi E. Axelson, Assistant Public
Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Segal, Chief Judge; Ross, Judge; and Bryan, Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
ROSS, Judge
Police found random ammunition components in the trailer home where Leonard
Sanchez had recently moved in to live with his fiancée shortly after his fiancée’s father had
moved out, leaving many of his possessions. Sanchez, a felon prohibited from possessing
ammunition, appeals from his ammunition-possession conviction on evidence-sufficiency
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and other grounds. Because the state did not submit evidence sufficient to exclude the
alternative reasonable hypothesis that the ammunition belonged to Sanchez’s fiancé e’s
father, we reverse the conviction.
FACTS
Leroy Stromgren owned and resided for 20 years in a trailer home in Thief River
Falls. He lived there with his wife and stepdaughter until his wife died in September 2018.
He moved out soon after she died, but h e says he still kept “pretty much everything [he]
owned” at the trailer home. That same month, Leonard Sanchez moved into the home to
live with Stromgren’s stepdaughter, his fiancée.
Stromgren visited a pawnshop a few months after moving out and saw some of his
tools, which he had been keeping at the trailer home. Concerned that Sanchez had stolen
and sold his tools, Stromgren reported the events to police. Police investigating the stolen
tools discovered an outstanding warrant for his arrest, and they went to the trailer home to
execute it. Once inside to make the arrest, police found drug paraphernalia and a single
bullet casing in plain sight, prompting them to obtain a search warrant.
When police searched the home, they di scovered a single .243 complete bullet, a
.243 bullet that was missing only its primer, a bullet casing, and a box of ammunition
primers. The state charged Sanchez with theft and unlawful possession of ammunition by
a prohibited person.
The district court held a jury trial during which the state provided evidence that both
Stromgren and Sanchez are felons prohibited from possessing guns or ammunition.
Stromgren testified that he had asked his wife to remove his guns and ammunition from
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the home, and he denied ever having owned a gun that fired .243 ammunition. Stromgren’s
daughter and Sanchez both testified that they knew nothing about the ammunition found in
the home. During the state’s closing argument, the prosecutor suggested that, by residing
in a home , a person possesses the objects inside, stating, “[I]n a house, where you live,
there is possession,” and, “[I]f you live in a house . . . you are in control of the items in that
house.”
The jury found Sanchez guilty of unlawful ammunition possession, and the district
court sentenced him to serve 60 months in prison. This appeal follows.
DECISION
Sanchez argues that the state presented insufficient evidence to establish that he
possessed the ammunition police found in the home. To convict Sanchez, the state had to
produce evidence proving that he knowingly possessed ammunition or a firearm . Minn.
Stat. § 609.165, subd. 1b(a) (2018); State v. Salyers, 858 N.W.2d 156, 161 (Minn. 2015)
(recognizing the mens rea element ). “Ammunition” includes “ cartridge cases, primers,
bullets, [and] propellent powder designed for use in any firearm.” Minn. Stat. § 609.02,
subd. 17 (2018). Sanchez does not deny that the state proved that he is ineligible to possess
ammunition or that the items seized during the search constitute ammunition. He argues
only that the state did not prove that he knowingly possessed the ammunition.
To address Sanchez’s argument, we must first characterize the type of evidence the
state relied on to show that he possessed the ammunition knowingly. Where, as here, a n
element of the offense rests on circumstantial rather than direct evidence, we apply a
heightened, two-step standard of review to determine whether the evidence is sufficient to
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sustain the guilty verdict. Loving v. State , 891 N.W.2d 638, 643 (Minn. 2017) . We first
determine the circumstances proved based on the evidence presented and on the verdict,
construing the evidence in the ligh t most favorable to the verdict. State v. Griffin ,
887 N.W.2d 257, 263–64 (Minn. 2016). We then independently determine whether these
circumstances proved are consistent with guilt and inconsistent with any reasonable
alternative hypothesis. Id. at 264. We do so by affording no deference to the fact-finder’s
choice between reasonable inferences. Id. Sanchez’s conviction cannot survive our review
under that standard.
Sanchez proposes that the circumstances proved would permit the reasonable
conclusion that someone other than he exclusively possessed the ammunition, focusing on
Stromgren’s and Stromgren’s wife’s recent occupancy and Stromgren’s continued access
to the residence. The circumstances proved at trial consist in relevant part of the following.
Stromgren and his wife resided in the home until September 2018. Stromgren’s move out
was not complete, in that he left “pretty much everything [he] owned” in the trailer home
and exercised his right to continued access, return ing multiple times from September
through December 2018, retrieving mail and clothes . Sanchez had been living steadily in
the home for less than three months when the police discovered the ammunition inside.
Police found the items of ammunition on a TV stand in the living room and on the floor
nearby. Stromgren never owned a .243- caliber firearm or ammunition, and he had asked
his wife to remove his ammunition from the trailer. These circum stances leave two
significant gaps in the state’s case.
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The first gap in the state’s case flows from the manner it sought to prove that
Sanchez possessed the ammunition. It is true, as the state argues, that the state may prove
Sanchez’s possession by establishing that he either actually or constructively possessed the
ammunition. See Salyers, 858 N.W.2d at 159. The constructive -possession argument
offered by the state to the jury —that Sanchez’s merely occupying the home where police
found the ammunition established his possession of it — is legally flawed. By persuading
the jury that “in a house, where you live, there is possessi on” and “if you live in a
house . . . you are in control of the items in that house,” th e prosecutor relied on a
bright-line theory of possession that the law does not support. Instead, when a defendant
occupies a home shared by or accessed by others, the defendant’s guilt cannot rest merely
on the contraband’s presence and his occupancy. See id. The proof offered by the state to
show Sanchez’s possession was basically that.
The state’s probative evidence of Sanchez’s constructive possession is not much
more than its improper argument of possession. Sanchez would be guilty of constructively
possessing the ammunition either if the ammunition was in a location under his exclusive
control and to which others did not normally have access or if the evidence creates the
strong probability that he consciously exercised “dominion and control” over the object s
when police found them . Id. (quotation omitted). The state did not establish either.
Stromgren’s partial move out and his continued access to the home (returning about once
every other week) prevented the state from establishing constructive possession merely
based on Sanchez’s alleged control over the home, because his control was not exclusive.
The state emphasizes that, like Sanchez, Stromgren testified that he knew nothing of the
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ammunition. We disregard Sanchez’s testimony, of course, because we consider only the
evidence that is consistent with the circumstances proved. State v. Hawes , 801 N.W.2d
659, 669 –70 (Minn. 2011) (noting that testimony contrary to the verdict is not a
circumstance proved). But Stromgren ’s testimony does not itself establish Sanchez’s
possession because Stromgren never recounted any facts tending to indicate that Sanchez
had exercised any dominion and control over the ammunition; Stromgren merely denied
his own ownership or possession. The location of the items also does not suggest any
relationship to Sanchez’s things or to Sanchez, so it too does not prove Sanchez’s exercise
of any control over the items. And although Stromgren testified that he asked his wife to
remove his ammunition, the state offered no testimony that she actually removed all
ammunition from the home on Stromgren’s request.
This is not a close case. T hese gaps in evidence, coupled with the photographic
evidence depicting a very cluttered, unkempt environment inside the home, do not allow
us to say that there is a strong probability that Sa nchez exercised dominion and control
over the small and few isolated bits of ammunition that might have been in the home before
he arrived. We see only paper- thin evidence in the record that Sanchez possessed the
contraband. In addition to the lack of evidence of Sanchez’s possession, we are not satisfied
that the circumstances proved foreclose the possibility that Stromgren’s wife failed to clear
the home of all remnants of ammunition that belonged to someone other than Sanchez.
Sanchez also challenges his conviction based on the prosecutor’s misleading
statements during closing argument. We need not reach that issue in light of our holding.
Reversed.