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This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A21-0336

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Donald Clifton Jenkins, Jr.,
Appellant.

Filed April 11, 2022
Affirmed
Connolly, Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-18-30875

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

Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Nicole Cornale, Assistant County
Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

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

Considered and decided by Connolly, Presiding Judge; Reilly, Judge; and Smith,
Tracy M., Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
CONNOLLY, Judge
Appellant challenges his conviction following a bench trial on stipulated facts,
challenging the district court’s pretrial orders denying his motion to suppress a custodial
statement for lack of probable cause and denying his motion to admit expert testim ony on
2
false confessions. Because there was probable cause to arrest Jenkins at the time he made
his custodial statement and because the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying
his motion for expert testimony, we affirm.
FACTS
The convicti on of appellant Donald Clifton Jenkins, Jr. resolved a “cold case”
homicide from 1991. The victim was murdered in her Minneapolis apartment on
December 19, 1991. She was scheduled to work at a nearby Burger King at 5:00 p.m. that
day, but never arrived for her shift. She was discovered in her apartment about 11:30 p.m.
by her significant other, D.S., who called 911. She had suffered multiple stab wounds and
was dead when emergency responders arrived.
Police officers documented the scene shortly after arriving. They found no signs of
forced entry into the apartment. The y observed a smear of blood in a short hallway just
inside the door. Immediately beyond the hallway was the living room, where officers
found a large couch, a stereo, a key ring, a watch, a small gold ring, and a jacket drawstring.
Officers discovered a large blood-stained butcher knife underneath a couch cushion. There
was a partially open kitchen drawer containing a knife rack with an empty slot that matched
the butcher knife. In the hallway leading to the bedrooms , officers found a gold necklace
on the floor. There was another blood smear on the wall of the hallway. In the bathroom,
officers found a washcloth on the sink “that appeared to contain blood.”
Officers discovered the victim lying on the floor of the main bedroom near the bed.
She was wearing a blue jacket, a maroon shirt with a Burger King nametag, jeans, and
black boots. There were marks on her hands “that were consistent with defensive wounds.”
3
There were blood smears on the corner of the bed near the victim’s right arm as well as on
her left leg. Officers also found a second necklace, a bag, and a set of keys in the bedroom.
Investigators quickly cleared D.S. of suspicion for the murder. He last spoke to the
victim when he left the apartment the day of the murder around 11:00 a.m. He borrowed
Jenkins’s car, spent the day at his sister’s apartment, went to a barbershop, ate at a
restaurant, and did not come home to the apartment until the time he discovered the victim.
A friend corroborated his whereabouts, and informed investigators that D.S. was borrowing
Jenkins’s vehicle and that Jenkins sent D.S. a page while they were eating at the restaurant.
Investigators first spoke to Jenkins in connection with the murder in January 1992.
Jenkins admitted he knew both the victim and D.S. He stated he loaned D.S. his vehicle
the day before the murder, and D.S. brought it back by 11:00 a.m. He also said he went
with D.S. to Burger King in the afterno on, they returned to Jenkins’s apartment, and then
later Jenkins gave D.S. a ride to the barbershop. Jenkins also recalled speaking to D.S. on
the phone while D.S. was at the restaurant. He stated he did not know about the murder
until he heard about it the morning after.
Investigators at the time closed the case without a resolution. In 2008, the case was
reopened for further investigation. Investigators submitted several of the items found at
the crime scene for forensic testing. In 2009, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA)
conducted DNA testing on the washcloth found in the apartment bathroom and determined
it contained a mixture of DNA from which neither the victim nor Jenkins 1 could be

1 Jenkins’s DNA profile was retrieved from the “Minnesota DNA Convicted Offender
Database.”
4
excluded, but “99.1% of the general population” could b e. In addition, investigators
conducted a second interview with the victim’s sister, who claimed Jenkins at times worked
for D.S. and had been to the victim’s apartment “‘maybe three times.’” The sister also
stated the washcloth found in the bathroom was unusual, because the victim was known to
be a “tidy housekeeper” who would not “have left a wet, bloody washcloth draped on the
sink in the bathroom.”
Based on this information, investigators interviewed Jenkins once again in February
2010. Jenkins claimed to have never been inside the victim’s apartment. He claimed not
to remember the events of December 19, 1991 , whatsoever. He admitted he knew D.S.,
that D.S. “dealt drugs” and that they “smoked weed together,” but denied that D.S. would
have let him into the victim’s apartment. Investigators did not inform Jenkins that his DNA
had been found in the apartment or which items from the apartment were being tested for
DNA, but Jenkins stated “Let’s find out!” when asked whether he thought his DNA would
be recovered from crime scene evidence. The investigators then collected a DNA sample
from Jenkins pursuant to a search warrant.
Later that same day, Jenkins called the investigators from the Ramsey County jail.2
He related an incident on an unknown date 3 where he was working outside an apartment
building on his car. He recalled getting a cut on his knuckle and asking D.S. for something

2 Jenkins was being held on a separate, unrelated offense.
3 The date was close enough to his first interview in January 1992 for him to remember
being asked about it by investigators at the time.
5
to use to clean it up. D.S. apparently went inside the apartment, got a rag , and gave it to
Jenkins. Jenkins could not recall what D.S. did with the rag after he used it.
Additional DNA testing conducted on the washcloth using the sample investigators
collected confirmed that Jenkins “could not be excluded from the DNA mixtur e while, as
they previously reported, 99.1% of the general population could be excluded.” Further
DNA testing also revealed that Jenkins’s DNA was present in a mixture “of four or more
individuals” found on the coat the victim was wearing at the time of death, and that Jenkins
“could not be excluded as a possible contributor.”
Investigators conducted another interview with Jenkins in March 2010 after the
DNA testing was completed. The investigators told Jenkins his DNA was found “near
where some money was missing.” Jenkins then stated “that his DNA must be in the
bathroom or the living room but had no explanation for why it would be there.” He later
stated he believed “his DNA must have come from the rag” that D.S. let him use, but that
he did not rec ognize the washcloth. Based on this second interview, i nvestigators
submitted a case against Jenkins for charging, but the prosecuting attorney did not bring
charges against him at that time.
The case was reopened once again in 2018. Investigators submitted additional items
for DNA testing, including additional cuttings from the washcloth. Two of these cuttings
further confirmed the presence of Jenkins’s DNA—one contained a mixture of DNA from
“three or more individuals” from which “99.0% of the popul ation can be excluded,” but
not Jenkins; and another contained a mixture from “four or more individuals” from which
“99.4% of the population can be excluded” but not the victim or Jenkins.
6
Investigators arrested Jenkins on December 18, 2018. After being read his Miranda
rights, Jenkins elected to speak to the interviewers. The interview lasted two hours and
twelve minutes. Investigators informed Jenkins that “his DNA was on the washcloth and
the victim’s coat.” Despite initially denying that he had ever been to the apartment, Jenkins
confessed to the murder. He repeatedly referred to the DNA evidence, stating , “My DNA
is there, I did it, that’s that” as well as “[Y]ou got DNA on the lady clothes and sh-t, man,
how you deny that?”
When asked to describe what happened, Jenkins stated he was using a lot of drugs
around that time. When he went to the apartment that day, he “was chasin’ dope.” He did
not expect anyone to be home. When the victim let him into the apartment, he became
frightened that D.S. would think he was “goin’ behind your boy’s back, seein’ his girl” if
D.S. found out. 4 He stated: “I saw a knife, and I grabbed it, and I hit her. And she fell.
Then I blacked out.”5 He also stated he remembered stabbing the victim but did not thin k
he did so more than once.
Throughout the interview, Jenkins repeatedly mentioned feeling emotional turmoil
throughout the years since the murder. For example, he said: “You don’t come back from
that. No matter how I try, you don’t come back, man.” H e also said: “I was always sorry.
But who . . . you tell that to? Ain’t nobody wanna hear that . . . you can’t tell nobody you’re
sorry . . . [y]ou live with it, man.” He expressed concern about his family finding out:

4 Jenkins stated “[D.S.] would kill me if s h-t got outta hand, because, they didn’t do my
kind,” which is a reference to gang involvement.
5 Investigators had not previously mentioned the types o f wounds the victim had suffered
during the interview.
7
“How . . . do you tell your daughter s you killed somebody?” He stated : “I think I suffer
behind the things that I did. I hurt people, so hurt gonna come back to me.” Lastly, he
acknowledged that “If I had the balls, I woulda turned myself in, but I just didn’t have the
balls, man.” He als o requested to call and speak to his fiancée, and told her that he had
been arrested about “that thing . . . we talked about” and that “they got me on it.” He also
informed the investigators that he “had let her know” about the murder previously, “but
she didn’t believe me.”
Jenkins was charged with second -degree murder in December 2018. He was
indicted by a grand jury of first- and second-degree murder on March 14, 2019. He filed a
motion to suppress his December 2018 statement a month later, arguing that investigators
did not have probable cause to arrest him and speak to him about the murder . The district
court denied this motion in July. The district court found that investigators had probable
cause to arrest Jenkins in December 2018, citing his 1992 interview, the 2010 interviews,
and the DNA testing.
Jenkins filed a motion to offer expert testimony in November 2019. He sought to
offer Dr. Lawrence White as an expert to testify “about research related to police
interrogations and the factors that can influence a suspect to confess to a crime they did not
commit, including cognitive and psychological factors.” Dr. White would also offer a
report applying this research to the Jenkins’s December 2018 statement. In this report, Dr.
White states he is “neither able nor willing to offer a professional opinion about the
accuracy or truthfulness of [Jenkins’s] ‘confession’ to investigators . . . . Nevertheless,
there are valid reasons to be concerned about the reliability (trustworthiness) of Jenkin s’
8
admissions and self -incriminating statements.” Dr. White’s ultimate opinion was that
Jenkins’s “admission of guilt and self-incriminating statements are not reliable, that is, not
trustworthy.”
The district court denied Jenkins’s motion in April 202 0. The district court
determined that Dr. White’s opinions would not be helpful to the jury because “nothing
offered by Dr. White would help explain something that the jury cannot, on its own,
understand about [Jenkins’s] confession.” Jenkins later moved to admit limited expert
testimony from Dr. White solely on the evidence of risk factors for false confessions,
focusing on what the interrogating officers said and the circumstances of the interrogation
itself. The district court denied this motion as well.
Jenkins waived his right to trial by jury and agreed to submit the issue of his guilt
as to second -degree murder on stipulated facts and evidence. Minn. R. Crim. P. 26.01,
subd. 2. The district court returned a guilty verdict on December 1, 2020. The district
court dismissed the first -degree murder charge, convicted him on the charge for second -
degree murder, and sentenced Jenkins to a 385 -month prison commitment in February
2021. Jenkins appeals.
DECISION
I. Investigators had sufficient probable cause to arrest Jenkins in 2018.

Jenkins argues his warrantless arrest in 2018 requires that his subsequent statement
be suppressed. He contends officers did not have probable cause to arrest him, that his
subsequent statement constitutes the “fruit o f the poisonous tree” of an illegal arrest, and
that the district court erred in its pretrial order when it determined otherwise. Wong Sun v.
9
United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488 (1963). Because Jenkins does not also challenge the
district court’s factual findings, we apply de novo review of its probable cause
determination. See State v. Onyelobi, 879 N.W.2d 334, 342-43 (Minn. 2016) (“Where, as
here, the facts are undisputed, we review the pretrial order on a motion to suppress de
novo.” (quotation omitted)); State v. Milton , 821 N.W.2d 789, 798 (Minn. 2012) (“We
review the district court’s legal determinations, including a determination of probable
cause, de novo.”).
A warrantless arrest on felony charges is valid if the police have probable cause.
State v. Cook, 610 N.W.2d 664, 667 (Minn. App. 2000). Probable cause exists when “a
person of ordinary care and prudence . . . would entertain an honest and str ong suspicion
that a specific individual has committed a crime.” Onyelobi, 879 N.W.2d at 343. We
conduct an objective inquiry into the question of probable cause. State v. Koppi , 798
N.W.2d 358, 363 (Minn. 2011). It “depends on the totality of the circ umstances in each
case” as viewed through “the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which
reasonable and prudent people . . . act.” State v. Lester, 874 N.W.2d 768, 771 (Minn. 2016)
(quotation omitted). The “quantum of proof” required is “more than mere suspicion but
less than the evidence necessary for conviction.” Onyelobi, 879 N.W.2d at 343.
The circumstances present in December 2018 prior to the arrest support an honest
and strong suspicion that Jenkins was the perpetrator in the 1991 murder. These
circumstances demonstrate the victim was killed in her apartment without any sign of
forced entry. From his interview in 1992, investigators knew that Jenkins was familiar
enough with the victim and D.S. to have been to their apartment, loan his car to D.S., and
10
give him rides. From conversations with the victim’s sister, investigators had reason to
believe that Jenkins had been to the apartment a handful of times before the murder and
occasionally worked for D.S. This information ga ve officers a strong suspicion that
Jenkins was a person who was known to the victim as someone who could and occasionally
did go to and from the apartment.
The other person with evident access to the apartment was D.S. But the whereabouts
of D.S. were verified throughout the day of the murder, and the last time he was at the
apartment prior to discovering the victim was 11:00 a.m., when the victim was still alive.
The next time the victim was seen alive was around 2:20 in the afternoon that day, when
her sister stopped by for a visit. At that time the victim was dressed for work and was
wearing a jacket and boots. Her sister remembered seeing Jenkins pulling into the parking
lot of the apartment building as she was leaving about 20 minutes later. The victim was
supposed to start her shift at 5:00 p.m. but did not show up. This information provided
officers with a strong suspicion that Jenkins was in the apartment building after the victim
had dressed for work, but before she left.
Jenkins’s previous statements also contribute to an honest and strong suspicion of
his connection to the crime prior to December 2018. In the first 2010 interview, Jenkins
denied loaning his car to D.S., that he had ever been to the apartment, and that he was ever
involved in D.S.’s drug dealings. That same day—without having been informed that DNA
testing had been conducted on the washcloth —Jenkins called the investigators and told
them about a rag he had used to clean up a cut on his knuckle around the time the murder
11
took place. In this phone call, he also admitted that D.S. had borrowed his car the day
before the murder and brought it back the day of.
In another interview conducted just over a month later, Jenkins once again related a
different version of events. Jenkins now denied knowing the victim but stated he had been
to the apartment “a couple times,” and remembered using the bathroom. Jenkins had still
not been informed about his DNA on the washcloth found in the bathroom at the crime
scene. He then stated: “If my DNA is anywhere, it’s in the bathroom and the living room,
that’s it, by the front door, that’s as far as I went.” These drastic changes in his recollection
regarding whether he had been to the apartment raise a strong suspicion about his
connection to the murder.
Lastly, the victim’s sister pointed to the washcloth from the bathroom as suspicious.
The victim was known as a tidy housekeeper who would not have left a bloody washcloth
on the sink. This tends to connect the washcloth with the pe rpetrator. DNA testing
revealed that Jenkins’s DNA was present on three separate cuttings from the washcloth. In
addition, Jenkins’s DNA was present on the jacket the victim was wearing when she was
discovered. Such DNA evidence leads to a strong suspicion that Jenkins was connected to
the murder.
Accordingly, the totality of the circumstances known before Jenkins’s arrest
included that Jenkins was someone who was known to the victim and D.S., that he had
access to their apartment, that he was evasive about his connection to D.S. and the
apartment when questioned, that he had been near the apartment close to when the victim
had last been seen alive and before she would have left for work, and that his DNA was
12
present on the washcloth suspected to be tied to the perpetrator as well as the jacket the
victim was wearing when she was murdered. These circumstances amount to “more than
mere suspicion” that Jenkins committed the crime , and support his warrantless arrest on
probable cause. Onyelobi, 879 N.W.2d at 343.
II. The district court did not abuse it s discretion by excluding “false
confession” expert testimony.

Jenkins argues that the district court abused its discretion and committed prejudicial
error when it excluded proffered expert testimony on the psychology of false confessions.
Specifically, Jenkins contends his expert should have been permitted to testify as to “1) ‘to
educate the jury on why people may make false self-incriminating statements’; and 2) ‘the
psychological factors involved in false confessions, and jurors’ intuitive tendency to
consider false confession evidence even when there is compelling evidence undermining
it.’”
Criminal defendants have the right to a meaningful opportunity to present a
complete defense, including to call and examine expert witnesses. State v. Mosley , 853
N.W.2d 789, 798 (Minn. 2014); State v. Penkaty , 708 N.W.2d 185, 201 (Minn. 2006).
Rulings on the admissibility of expert testimony rest within the district court’s discretion
and will not be reversed absent an abuse of that discretion. State v. Hanks , 817 N.W.2d
663, 667 (Minn. 2012). A district court abuses its discretion if its decision is based on an
erroneous view of the law, is arbitrary or capricious, or if its findings are clearly erroneous.
Fox v. State, 938 N.W.2d 252, 256 (Minn. 2020). We conclude the district court did not
abuse its discretion by excluding the proffered expert testimony on false confessions.
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Expert testimony is permitted “[i] f scientific, technical, or other specialized
knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understa nd the evidence or to determine a fact in
issue.” Minn. R. Evid. 702. “Under this rule, expert testimony is admissible if . . . it is
helpful to the trier of fact.” Mosley, 853 N.W.2d at 799. Expert testimony is not helpful if
it is “within the knowled ge and experience of a lay jury and the testimony of the expert
will not add precision or depth to the jury’s ability to reach conclusions.” State v. Obeta,
796 N.W.2d 282, 289 (Minn. 2011) (quotation omitted). The supreme court has made clear
it is “very reluctant to allow experts to testify about matters that are generally for the jury’s
determination and are susceptible to cross -examination.” State v. Ritt , 599 N.W.2d 802,
812 (Minn. 1999). One such matter that is “ordinarily within the understanding of a lay
jury” is the “[a]ssessment of credibility.” Id. at 811.
The basic contention of Dr. White’s proffered expert opinion is that certain
circumstances and characteristics may make a criminal suspect more likely to confess to a
crime they did not commit. In effect, Dr. White’s testimony seeks to undercut the
credibility of Jenkins’s confession. The assessment of credibility is within the
understanding of a lay jury. Id. The district court determined Dr. White’s testimony
regarding the psychology of making false self -incriminating statements “would not be
helpful to the jury” because a jury does not “need an expert like Dr. White to explain that
false confessions exist, or that someone who is tired or anxious may be more likely to
falsely confess” and because “the jury will be able to watch the entire video of the
confession.” Because the jury would be able to “determine for itself whether [Jenkins’s]
emotional and mental state led him to falsely confess to the murder,” whether the
14
interrogators falsely exaggerated the strength of the evidence against Jenkins, or w hether
the confession contained factual inaccuracies, Dr. White’s testimony would not be helpful
on the issue of whether the confession is credible. Moreover, as in Ritt, any jurors in
Jenkins’s case would have been able to watch the full videotape of his confession, including
“the surrounding physical environment and circumstances.” Id. Accordingly, the district
court did not abuse its discretion by excluding the proffered expert testimony as to the
credibility of the confession.6
Affirmed.

6 We also note that Ritt appears to prohibit expert testimony on confessions as a matter of
law. The Ritt court faced the issue of whether expert testimony may be introduced to
establish that the defendant had been coerced into making a false confession through
interrogation techniques allegedly “coercive enough to make an ordinary innocent person
confess” to something they did not do. Ritt, 599 N.W.2d at 812. The Ritt court made plain
that “the possibility that the jury may be unduly influenced by an expert’s opinion mitigates
against admission,” and that “the credibility of witnesses in criminal trials” should not “turn
on the outcome of a battle among experts.” Id. at 811 (quotation omitted).