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This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A20-0583

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Mitchell Dale Saltzman,
Appellant.

Filed March 29, 2021
Affirmed
Slieter, Judge

St. Louis County District Court
File No. 69HI-CR-19-800

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

Mark S. Rubin, St. Louis County Attorney, Tyler J. Kenefick, Assistant County Attorney,
Hibbing, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Leah C. Graf, Assistant Public
Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Johnson, Presiding Judge; Hooten, Judge; and Slieter,
Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
SLIETER, Judge
Mitchell Dale Saltzman directly appeals from a judgment of conviction for fleeing
an officer in a motor vehicle. Saltzman claims that, by using the incorrect legal standard,
the district court erred in denying him a new trial based upon juror misconduct. However,

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the district court properly denied the new trial motion despite its use of the wrong standard
because applying the correct standard reveals no reasonable probability the results of the
proceedings would have been different. Therefore, we affirm.
FACTS
Respondent State of Minnesota charged appellant Mitchell Dale Saltzman with one
count of fleeing an officer in a motor vehicle, in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.487, subd. 3
(2018). The sole issue on appe al involves juror mi sconduct that occu rred during a trial
recess. The following ev idence was presented to the jury prior to the misconduct. Two
witnesses, sheriff’s deputies D. D. and R.S., testified that they assisted with pursuing
Saltzman’s vehicle and the videos capturing the pursuit from their squad cars were viewed
by the jury.
Following a tip deputy R.S. attempted to locate Saltzman, who had an active warrant
for his arrest, at a residence in Iron Mountain . At the residence, R.S. observed Saltzman
in the driver’s seat of a vehicle coming down the driveway. R.S. ordered Saltzman out of
the car and, in response, Saltzman “revved” th e engine and “took off” at a high rate of
speed, hitting a parked car. R.S. communicated by radio th at “Saltzman was running [in
the vehicle].” Deputy D.D. observed Saltzman’s vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed
and saw it illegally drive through an intersection. D.D. activated his squad car’s emergency
lights and siren and pursued Saltzman’s vehicle. D.D. noted Saltzman’s vehicle was
traveling “in excess of 90 miles per hour.” “Five or six” marked squad cars were in pursuit
by the time R.S. joined the pursuit of Saltzman’s vehicle.

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After an officer laid “stop strips” across the road in an attempt to deflate the
vehicle’s tires, Saltzman drove his vehicle into the ditch to avoid the strips. The officer
remained next to the stop strips in a fully -marked squad car with its emergency lights
flashing. Saltzman’s vehicle was eventually stopped after deputies executed a second
pursuit interven tion technique .1 Law enforcement pursued Saltzman for 27 miles over
approximately 19 minutes.
During a recess—after the jury heard th is testimony and watc hed both squad car
videos—the bailiff informed th e judge that a juror reported “some of the jurors [were]
discussing the case.” The judge directed the reporting juror (Juror M.) into the courtroom
to be questioned. Juror M. informed the court that two jurors were discussing the case and
the court questioned Juror M. as to what was said. Juror M. indicated that two jurors said
it was “ridiculous” Saltzman did not pull over and that “it [] seems like a joke.” After Juror
M. recounted the other jurors ’ conversation, defense counsel moved for a mistrial. The
district court denied the motion based upon th e manifest-necessity standard. The court
then recalled the jury into the courtroom and issued a curative inst ruction reminding the
jurors not to discuss th e case with each other before de liberation. The state rested and
appellant presented no evidence.
The jury returned a guilty verdict and the district court sentenced Saltzman to
24 months’ imprisonment. This appeal follows.

1 D.D. described a PIT maneuver as a “technique used to stop a vehicle’s motion. It is
designed to spin a vehicle out and cause it to kind of stall out, to slow the vehicle down.”
See Sotona v. Gibbs , No. A16-1384, 2017 WL 1842838, at *2 n.3 (Minn. App. May 18,
2017), review denied (Minn. July 18, 2017).

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DECISION
“A mistrial should be granted only if there is a reasonable probability, in light of the
entirety of the trial including the mitigating effects of a curative instruction, that the
outcome of the trial would have been different had the incident resulting in the motion not
occurred.”2 State v. Griffin, 887 N.W.2d 257, 262 (Minn. 2016). A “district court is in the
best position to evaluate the pr ejudicial impact, if any, of an event occurring during the
trial.” State v. Bahtuoh, 840 N.W.2d 804, 819 (Minn. 2013). As such, “[a district] court’s
decision to deny a motion for a new trial on the basis of jury misconduct will not be
overturned absent an a buse of discretion.” State v. Kelley, 517 N.W.2d 905, 910 (Minn.
1994).
The district court determined that the “s tandard for granting a mistrial is manifest
necessity.” The parties agree that jury misconduct occurre d as a result of the jurors
disregarding the district court’s preliminary instructions, and that the use of the manifest-
necessity standard to evaluate Saltzman’s su bsequent mistrial motion was incorrect. We
agree. See State v. Jaros, 932 N.W.2d 466, 474 n.5 (Minn. 2019) (“The manifest-necessity
standard is used only when a mistrial is declared without the defendant’s consent .”)
(quotation omitted) (emphasi s in original). Like Jaros, Saltzman moved for a mistrial.
However, “even if a district court applies the wrong legal standard, if the ruling was

2 Saltzman argues on appeal that either the actual-bias standard or improper-outside-
influence standard should apply. However, th e actual-bias standard is generally applied
during voir dire, and this jury was not exposed to ou tside information. The state argues,
and we agree, that the proper standard under which to anal yze Saltzman’s claim is the
reasonable-probability standard articulated in Griffin.

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warranted under the proper standard and no prejudice results, reversal is not required.” Id.
Though the state agrees th at misconduct occurred, it disagrees that Saltzman was
prejudiced by the juror misconduct.
Juror M. reported that she overheard two ot her jurors discussing the facts of the case
during a recess. She overheard these two jurors state that “there were several times for the
defendant to pull over, and that it was ridiculous that he didn’t.” She next overheard that
“it just seems like a joke.” Af ter questioning of Juror M. by the district court, all jurors
were ordered to return to the courtroom and the court provided a curative instruction which
reminded the jurors not to discuss the matter with each other until the end of the case.
Based upon the record it is evident that, even absent the juror misconduct, there is
no “reasonable probability” that the jury would have reach ed a different verdict. Griffin,
887 N.W.2d at 262. Therefore, though the di strict court applied the wrong standard in
denying the mistrial motion, the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying
Saltzman’s motion for a mistrial.
To find Saltzman guilty of fleeing an officer in a moto r vehicle, the jury was
required to find that he “fle[d] or attempt[ed ] to flee a peace officer who [was] acting in
the lawful discharge of an official duty,” that Saltzman did so in a motor vehicle, and that
Saltzman knew or should reasonably have known that he was fleeing a peace officer. Minn.
Stat. § 609.487, subd. 3.
Prior to the improper discussion about the facts of the case between two jurors, the
jury learned that deputies were attempting to locate Saltzman on an arrest warrant and they
watched two videos of the 19-minute, 27-mile pursuit during which at least five marked

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squad cars attempted to stop Saltzman’s vehicle. The jury heard substantial testimony from
two deputies conducting the pursuit, including that Saltzman was pursued by at least five
marked squad cars with sirens and lights flashing. No other witnesses testified at trial.
Additionally, upon learning of the juror misconduct, the district court recalled the jury and
immediately provided the curati ve instruction. Appellate c ourts “presume that juries
follow instructions given by the [district] court.” State v. Matthews, 779 N.W.2d 543, 550
(Minn. 2010).
On this record, there is no reasonable pr obability that the resu lt of the proceeding
would have been different absent the juror misconduct. The district court did not abuse its
discretion by denying the mistrial motion.
Affirmed.