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This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A20-0216

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Billy Joe Coleman,
Appellant.

Filed January 25, 2021
Affirmed
Johnson, Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-18-27983

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

Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Brittany D. Lawonn, Assistant County
Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Leslie J. Rosenberg, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Larkin, Presiding Judge; Johnson, Judge; and Bjorkman,
Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
JOHNSON, Judge
A Hennepin County jury f ound Billy Joe Coleman guilty of first-degree damage to
property based on evidence that he threw a hammer and a crowbar at another person’s
pickup truck, denting a door and breaking two windows. Coleman argues that he is entitled

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to a new trial on the ground that the pros ecutor engaged in misconduct by eliciting
inadmissible evidence. We conclude that the prosecutor did not engage in misconduct
because the evidence at issue is not inadmissible. Therefore, we affirm.
FACTS
In September 2018, the state charged Colema n with first-degree damage to property,
in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.595, subd. 1( 4) (2018). The case was tried to a jury on
two days in October 2019. The state called four witnesses: T.T., the owner of a damaged
pickup truck; Officer Dykstra, a patrol officer who responded to T.T.’s 911 call; Officer
Johnson, an investigator wh o reviewed another officer’s written report and conducted an
investigation; and D.M., an estimator for an auto-body shop who testified about the value
of the damage to T.T.’s pickup truck.
T.T. testified that he wa s a contractor and that Cole man was working for him in
September 2018. T.T. lent a vehicle to Co leman and, on the morning of September 18,
2018, sent him a text message to coordinate its return. In response, Coleman texted T.T.
about money that T.T. owed him for work he had performed. T.T. went to Coleman’s
home and picked up the lent vehicle by using a spare key. T.T. returned to Coleman’s
home a short time later in his pickup truck to re trieve some of his tools and to discuss the
money he owed Coleman. On T.T.’s second visit, he and Coleman argued while standing
on the sidewalk. Coleman became upset and went inside his home. As T.T. was in his
pickup truck preparing to leave, Colema n came outside carrying a hammer and a
crowbar—the tools that T.T. had wanted to re trieve. Coleman threw the tools at T.T.’s

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pickup truck, breaking both the front and rear passenger-side windows and denting the rear
passenger door. Coleman went back inside his home, and T.T. called 911.
Officer Dykstra testified that he respo nded to a 911 call about damage to a pickup
truck. When he arrived at the scene of th e incident, he spoke to the caller, T.T., and
observed the damage to his pickup truck. Officer Dykstra attempted to speak with Coleman
by knocking on the door of his home, but no one answered. He testif ied that he did not
write a report because he was merely assisting another officer on the call.
Officer Johnson testified that he was a ssigned to the case and that he began his
investigation by reviewing the police reports, contacting T.T. and Coleman, and collecting
the hammer and crowbar. Officer Johnson also reviewed the video-recording from Officer
Dykstra’s body-worn camera, which showed that the incident took place outside
Coleman’s residence and showed the broken windows and dent ed door of T.T.’s pickup
truck. The prosecutor asked Officer Johnson why he did not identify any other suspects,
take fingerprints from the tools, or conduct DNA testing of the tools. Officer Johnson
responded by stating, among other things, that T.T. had made a clear statement about the
incident and that fingerprint and DNA testi ng likely would not have yielded any useful
evidence. On cross-examination, Coleman’s trial attorney challenged the thoroughness of
Officer Johnson’s investigation in various ways. On re-direct examination, the prosecutor
elicited additional testimony from Officer Johnson about his investigation and his reasons
for not conducting a more extensive investigation.
Coleman did not testify, but he called his gi rlfriend as a witness. She testified that
Coleman left home to run errands on the mo rning of the incident while she was still

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sleeping, that she later heard police knock on the door but did not answer it, and that
Coleman returned home about an hour later.
The jury found Coleman guilty. At sent encing, the district court stayed imposition
of sentence, placed Coleman on probation for three years, ordered him to serve 30 days in
jail, and ordered him to pay $1,197 in restitution. Coleman appeals.
DECISION
Coleman argues that he is entitled to a ne w trial on the ground that the prosecutor
engaged in misconduct by intentionally elic iting inadmissible evid ence. Specifically,
Coleman argues that the prosecutor elicited testimony from Officer Johnson in which he
vouched for T.T.’s credibility. In response, the state argues that the prosecutor’s questions
were appropriate because Coleman was cha llenging Officer Johnson’s investigation and
T.T.’s credibility.
The right to due process of law includes the ri ght to a fair trial, and the right to a fair
trial includes the absence of prosecutorial misconduct. Spann v. State, 704 N.W.2d 486,
493 (Minn. 2005). One way in which a pros ecutor may engage in misconduct is “to
knowingly offer inadmissible evidence for the purpose of bringing it to the jury’s
attention.” State v. Mosley, 853 N.W.2d 789, 801 (Minn. 2014) (quotation omitted). If a
prosecutor intentionally elicits inadmissible evidence, a new trial may be ordered if the
inadmissible evidence was prejudi cial in the sense that it “played a substantial part in
influencing the jury to convict.” State v. McDaniel, 777 N.W.2d 739, 749 (Minn. 2010)
(quotation omitted).

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Whether a witness is credible or not credible is “strictl y the domain of the jury.”
State v. Blanche, 696 N.W.2d 351, 374 (Minn. 2005). Accordingly, one witness may not
“vouch for or against the cred ibility of another witness.” State v. Ferguson, 581 N.W.2d
824, 835 (Minn. 1998). For example, in Van Buren v. State, 556 N.W.2d 548 (Minn. 1996),
the district court erred by admitting testimony from multiple witnesses concerning whether
members of the young victim’s family believed her allega tions of sexual abuse by her
uncle. Id. at 550-52. In State v. Koskela, 536 N.W.2d 625 (Minn. 1995), the district court
erred by admitting a police officer’s testimony that the defendant was telling the truth when
he confessed to the alleged crime. Id. at 630. And in State v. Ellert , 301 N.W.2d 320
(Minn. 1981), the district court erred by ad mitting a police officer’s testimony that the
defendant lied when he gave an exculpatory statement. Id. at 323.
In this case, Coleman challenges three of the questions the prosecutor posed to
Officer Johnson. First, Coleman challeng es the prosecutor’s question about whether
Officer Johnson considered doing DNA testing on the hammer and the crowbar and, if not,
why not. Officer Johnson answered in the negative and explained as follows:
A couple reasons. I had a really clear statement from
the victim in this case. You know, the incident happened right
outside the address of the defendant, so . . . we had a good idea
on a suspect. The other issue is, you know, you have to do
some kind of an analysis of the cost-reward ratio when you’re
doing this kind of complex testing, so that’s part of the issue.
And the other issue was that th e items were handled by the
victim . . . by the time I had cont act with him. So the main
issue was that we had a very good identity of a suspect in this
case.

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Second, Coleman challenges the prosecuto r’s question on re-direct examination
concerning whether Officer Johnson was relying solely on T.T.’s statement, which elicited
the following testimony:
I wasn’t solely basing my decision to submit this for charging
based on what the victim told me. There were a number of
things. He handed me physical evidence that matched the
description of the items that were used; I watched the body-
cam video; heard the officer talking about seeing the items in
the car; saw the damage to the windows; the proximity of the
damage report was at his reside nce; the relationship they had,
the knowledge they had about each other. There were a lot of
things that came together that made it very reasonable to
believe what I thought sounded like a very credible recounting
of the incident from the victim. So there were things in
addition to what the victim told me that I to ok into account
when deciding whether he was the appropriate suspect.

Third, Coleman challenges the prosecutor’s follow-up question about whether it would be
“unusual to move forward with a case based on the type of evidence” he had described.
Officer Johnson answered:
Oh, not at all. And, in fact, I could tell you, I’m very
hesitant to move forward with a number of my cases. There
are a number of my cases that never get submitted for charging.
I have to feel pretty confident th at the county attorney or city
attorney will agree to charge it, because I don’t want to look
ridiculous as an investigat or submitting things that are
inappropriate. And I don’t want to do that. . . .

Coleman concedes that he did no t object to the prosecutor’s alleged misconduct at trial.
Accordingly, we apply the modified plain-error test. See Mosley , 853 N.W.2d at 801
(citing State v. Ramey, 721 N.W.2d 294, 299-300 (Minn. 2006)).
The testimony elicited by the prosecutor’s questions to Offi cer Johnson is not
inadmissible for four reasons. First, the pu rpose of the officer’s testimony was not to

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establish T.T.’s credibility. Rather, the apparent purpose of the testimony was to describe
the officer’s investigation. We refer to the apparent purpose of the prosecutor’s
examination of Officer Johnson because Co leman did not object to the prosecutor’s
examination, so the prosecutor was not given an opportunity to explain her purpose. But
the challenged questions are consistent with th e general rule that ev idence concerning a
law-enforcement officer’s investigation is admissible to give jurors context. See, e.g., State
v. Ali, 855 N.W.2d 235, 249 (Minn. 2014); State v. Griller, 583 N.W.2d 736, 743 (Minn.
1998); State v. Czech, 343 N.W.2d 854, 856-57 (Minn. 1984).
Second, the prosecutor elicited testimony from Officer Johnson to respond to
Coleman’s attorney’s attack on the officer’s investigation. In his opening statement,
Coleman’s attorney reminded the jury of the state’s burden of proof and told the jury that
two police officers “were given one account fro m this so-called victim, . . . took that
account as God’s given word, a nd did no subsequent investigation whatsoever.” It is
apparent that the prosecutor sought to blunt the defense theory of the case during the direct
examination of Officer Johnson by asking him to carefully explain his investigation. After
the direct examination, Cole man’s attorney cross-examined Officer Johnson by focusing
on tasks that Officer Johnson did not perfor m. It was only natural that, on re-direct
examination, the prosecutor followed up by asking additional questions of Officer Johnson
about the manner and scope of his investigation.
In Ali, the defense theory was that police officers had misidentified the defendant as
the person who shot and killed a shopkeeper. 855 N.W.2d at 248. The supreme court held
that the state’s evidence c oncerning the investigation was not inadmissible because,

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“[w]ithout police being able to testify as to why they ruled out . . . a possible alternate
perpetrator, the jury might have wondered why police did not furt her investigate [the
alternate perpetrator] and why police decided to focus the i nvestigation on [appellant] as
the possible shooter.” Id. at 249. Similarly, the direct and re-direct examinations of Officer
Johnson were appropriately responsive to the defense theory and were designed to ensure
that the jury did not wonder why Officer Johns on did not investigate further. In a sense,
Coleman “opened the door” to the evidence at issue, which justifies its admission even if
it were otherwise inadmissible. See State v. Bailey , 732 N.W.2d 612, 622 (Minn. 2007);
State v. Valtierra, 718 N.W.2d 425, 435-36 (Minn. 2006).
Third, some of the testimony that Colema n contends is inadmissible actually was
sought by Coleman’s trial attorney. The second excerpt from Officer Johnson’s testimony
was responsive to a question originally asked by Coleman’s attorney on cross-examination.
Coleman’s attorney asked Officer Johnson to ag ree that he “didn’t have any independent
verification” but nonetheless “chose to believe the victim witness.” But Coleman’s
attorney did not allow Office r Johnson to answer the ques tion before asking questions
about other issues. On re-dir ect examination, the prosecutor began by stating to Officer
Johnson, “It appeared that you weren’t able to finish your response when defense counsel
was asking you about why yo u made this determination based just on the victim’s
statement, and I’m wondering if there is anything else that was part of that determination.”
It was not inappropriate for the prosecutor to give the witness an opportunity to answer
Coleman’s attorney’s prior que stion because the jury otherw ise might have believed that
Officer Johnson did not have a good answer.

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Fourth, Officer Johnson did not comment di rectly on T.T.’s credibility. Throughout
his testimony, Officer Johnson generally described his inves tigation without reference to
whether T.T. was credible or not credible . Officer Johnson’s testimony that he had
received “a really clear statem ent from the victim” was phrased in terms of the clarity of
T.T.’s statement, not its truthfulness. Officer Johnson once used the word “credible” when
saying that he had received “a very credible r ecounting of the incident from the victim.”
But on the whole, the focus of his testimony was his investigation and the decisions he
made during the investigation. This case is different from Van Buren, in which several of
the state’s witnesses were asked bluntly whether certain other persons believed the victim’s
accusations of sexual abuse. 556 N.W.2d at 550-52. This case also is very different from
Koskela, in which a police officer testified, “I had no doubt whatsoever that I was taking a
truthful statement.” 536 N.W.2d at 630.
Thus, the testimony elicited by the prosecut or is not inadmissible. Because the
testimony is admissible, the prosecutor did not engage in misconduct by eliciting it.
Accordingly, there is no error, let alone plain error. Therefore, Coleman is not entitled to
a new trial.
Affirmed.