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This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A20-0286

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Jamal Tyshawn Jackson,
Appellant.

Filed April 19, 2021
Affirmed
Ross, Judge

St. Louis County District Court
File No. 69DU-CR-18-2928

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, Peter Magnuson, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul,
Minnesota; and

Mark S. Rubin, St. Louis County Attorney, Duluth, Minnesota (for respondent)

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

Considered and decided by Ross, Presiding Judge; Smith, Tracy M., Judge; and
Rodenberg, Judge.*

* Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to
Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.
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NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
ROSS, Judge
Jamal Jackson left a bar in Duluth, began talking to a man who was sitting in a car,
and then shot another man in the face. Jackson appeals from his conviction of
second-degree intentional murder. He argues that the district court improperly prohibited
him from introducing evidence that a gun and money were inside the car, preventing him
from proving that he shot the man in self -defense. He also argues that the district court
improperly allowed the state to introduce evidence that he engaged previously in a violent
incident. He adds the contentions in a supplemental brief that his trial counsel was
ineffective and the jury-selection process was biased. We conclude that the district court
acted within its discretion by excluding the car-content evidence, that there is no reasonable
likelihood evidence of Jackson’s prior conduct impacted the jury’s verdict, and that
Jackson’s other arguments lack support in the record. We therefore affirm.
FACTS
Jamal Jackson left a bar in downtown Duluth after midnight in September 2018. He
approached a car parked in front of another bar across the street and began speaking to the
driver, whom we will call Occupant, and with another man who stood about five feet away,
whom we will call Victim. Jackson shot Victim in the face, killing him.
Jackson fled, hid the handgun in a park under a bush, and asked a friend to drive
him to his mother’s house in Champlin. Jackson turned himself in to police the next day.
The state charged Jackson with second-degree murder under Minnesota Statutes section
609.19, subdivision 1(1) (2018).
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The district court granted the state’s motions in limine, prohibiting Jackson from
introducing evidence about money and a gun that were inside Occupant’s car. The district
court also granted the state’s motion to present Spreigl evidence of a 2018 incident when
Jackson allegedly violently accosted bystanders who examined his car believing it to have
been stolen. The district court did so because it determined that the 2018 incident, like the
shooting, revealed a pattern of Jackson’s responding to challenges with “extreme and
unreasonable” violent conduct that he later portrays as self-defense.
The district court held a seven-day jury trial where more than ten on-scene
witnesses, six police officers, and Jackson testified. The jury found Jackson guilty based
on evidence tending to prove the following facts.
Jackson and Victim had been inside the bar, but both went outside. Occupant was
parked in front waiting inside his car to pick up someone. A fourth man was speaking with
Victim, standing near Occupant’s car. Jackson approached Occupant, supposedly to clear
the air about a burglary that Occupant had suspected Jackson of being involved in. Jackson
then walked toward Victim and shot him in the face.
Jackson’s version differs. He told jurors that Occupant waved Victim over and
Victim blew cigarette smoke in Jackson’s face, flicked his cigarette toward Jackson, and
told him to “[m]ove the f --k around before I kill you .” Jackson said he saw Victim reach
for a gun. This, Jackson said, caused him to panic, pull his own gun, and shoot Victim.
Jackson left, hid his gun under a bush in a park, and called his friend to take him to his
mother’s house in Champlin. Jackson claimed that Occupant blamed him for burglarizing
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his house and that he “had . . . a hit out on” Jackson. This Jackson knew, he said, because
he had received “weird” phone calls telling him to “watch [his] back.”
Occupant contradicted Jackson’s account. He told the jury that he never accused
Jackson of burglary or threatened to harm him. He also denied having waved Victim over
to his car.
On cross-examination, Jackson said that he had gotten the gun after a man punched
him in the eye in 2018. Jackson’s counsel asked him about that encounter, and Jackson
recounted that the man punched him because he “tried to sway them away from [his] car.”
The prosecutor asked Jackson to elaborate about the alleged punching incident, and
Jackson denied having squared off with the person and denied pushing past him to get to
the person who was dialing 9-1-1. The prosecutor called the man to testify who had
punched Jackson. He said that he had seen a car parked in front of his apartment with a
detached bumper and broken window. He testified that he poked his head into the car and
that Jackson came out of an apartment combatively, approaching him. He told jurors that,
once Jackson realized that his roommate was calling the police, Jackson became more
aggressive, squared up as if to ready himself to fight. He said that Jackson began to throw
a punch, prompting him to punch Jackson on the chin.
After the jury’s guilty verdict, the district court sentenced Jackson to 367 months’
imprisonment. This appeal follows.
DECISION
Jackson challenges his conviction on four theories. He first argues that the district
court wrongly refused to allow him to offer evidence about his self-defense claim. He next
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contends that the district court wrongly allowed the state to present evidence that he had
aggressively confronted bystanders who called the police after suspecting that his car had
been stolen or crashed. He also argues that he is entitled to a new trial because his attorney
did not provide him with effective representation. He argu es f inally that a purportedly
biased jury-selection process rendered his trial unfair. The arguments are unpersuasive.
I
We reject Jackson’s contention that the district court wrongly prevented him from
submitting evidence that supported his self -defense theory— the fact that Occupant had a
gun and money inside his car, supposedly supporting the speculation that Occupant and
Victim were engaged in some sort of conspiracy to shoot Jackson. We will not reverse a
district court’s evidentiary ruling unless we see an abuse of discretion. State v. Zumberge,
888 N.W.2d 688, 694 (Minn. 2017). Evidence of a specific, alleged act is relevant to a
self-defense theory to support the notion that the defendant acted in reasonable fear of
imminent danger of death or great bodily harm only if the defendant also “proves that he
knew of the specific act at the time of the alleged offense.” Id. Jackson admits that he did
not know that Occupant possessed the supposedly relevant items in his car. Jackson’s
ignorance that Occupant possessed the gun and money means that the evidence of the
possession could not have given Jackson reason to fear that he was in any imminent danger
of anything. The purported hit-man evidence was therefore irrelevant to Jackson’s defense.
II
Likewise unavailing is Jackson’s contention that the district court wrongly allowed
the state to submit evidence of his 2018 incident as evidence of prior misconduct, or Spreigl
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evidence. See Minn. R. Evid. 404(b); State v. Spreigl, 139 N.W.2d 167 (Minn. 1965). The
district court has considerable discretion when deciding whether to admit Spreigl evidence.
State v. Ness, 707 N.W.2d 676, 685 (Minn. 2006). But we need not decide whether the
district court abused its discretion by erroneously admitting Spreigl evidence if the error
was harmless, meaning it had no reasonable possibility of contributing to the conviction.
Zumberge, 888 N.W.2d at 694. And it is clear to us that the allegedly improper admission
of evidence had no reasonable likelihood of impacting the jury’s decision.
The overwhelming strength of the state’s case, including the underwhelming
strength of Jackson’s self-defense strategy, convince us that the Spreigl evidence could not
have reasonably affected the verdict. We assess the strength of the state’s case to determine
whether the erroneous admission of evidence may have influenced the jury’s verdict. See
State v. Larson, 389 N.W.2d 872, 875 (Minn. 1986). The state’s case here is obviously
strong. Jackson undisputedly shot Victim in the face, and seven eyewitnesses did not hear
Victim engage in any threat or see him engage in any hostility immediately before Jackson
shot him. Other than from Jackson, no witness testified that Victim drew a gun or appeared
to be reaching for one before Jackson shot him. Of course, attempting to conceal
involvement in a shooting tends to weaken a self -defense theory, see State v. Pearson,
775 N.W.2d 155, 162 (Minn. 2009), and here, Jackson did so by fleeing the scene, hiding
his gun, and leaving the city. There being essentially no evidence or rational theory
supporting the idea that Jackson shot Victim because Jackson feared imminent danger, we
have no doubt that the Spreigl evidence did not prejudice the verdict.
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III
The arguments in Jackson’s supplemental brief fare no better. He maintains that
his attorney provided ineffective assistance by failing to pre sent evidence of a
surveillance-camera video that he says would have corroborated his self-defense claim by
showing Victim reaching into his waistband area. The Sixth Amendment guarantees
criminal defendants the effective assistance of counsel. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S.
668, 687, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 2064 (1984). To secure reversal based on ineffective assistance
of counsel, Jackson must show that his attorney’s representation was objectively
unreasonable and that a reasonable probability exists that the result would have been
different but for his attorney ’s poor performance. State v. Rhodes, 6 57 N.W.2d 823, 842
(Minn. 2003 ). Jackson’s contention fails on the second Strickland element because he
cannot demonstrate that the result of the proceeding would have been different.
Even assuming that the alleged surveillance video existed, Jackson has not shown
that it would have produced evidence leading to a different trial outcome. The jury viewed
a surveillance-camera video referenced by Jackson’s counsel. The state introduced the
video and a police officer narrated its footage. If there was a different video available,
Jackson has not identified it. If he is referring to the same video, there was no need for his
attorney to also introduce the same footage. See Minn. R. Evid. 403 (allowing district court
to exclude cumulative evidence). We have no reason to conclude that failing to introduce
the alleged footage had any impact on the verdict.
Jackson also argues that his attorney did not heed his request to contest the omnibus
hearing on self -defense grounds and instead moved to dismiss the claim due to lack of
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evidence. But we consider ineffective-assistance claims on the strong “presumption that,
under the circumstances, the challenged action might be considered sound trial strategy.”
Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S. Ct. 2065 (quotation omitted). Jackson offers nothing to
rebut this presumption.
IV
Jackson also appears to argue in his supplemental brief that he is entitled to a new
trial because the jury selection was racially biased against him. The Sixth Amendment
entitles criminal defendants to be tried by a jury derived from a pool of potential jurors that
reflect a fair cross-section of the community. Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 530,
95 S. Ct. 692, 697 (1975). But Jackson has the burden of showing “that the group allegedly
excluded is a ‘distinctive’ group in the community, that the group in question was not fairly
represented in the venire, and that the underrepresentation was the result of a ‘systematic’
exclusion of the group in question from the jury selection process.” State v. Williams,
525 N.W.2d 538, 542 (Minn. 1994). To establish systematic exclusion, Jackson must show
that the allegedly excluded group of jurors “has been significantly underrepresented on the
[jury] panels” as a result of the state’s unfair selection procedures. Id. at 543. Jackson has
offered only conclusory assertions of bias without attempting to meet the evidentiary
threshold necessary to support his accusation. We therefore need not address it further.
Affirmed.