Mo Savoy Hicks, petitioner, Appellant,

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A21-0749

Mo Savoy Hicks, petitioner,
Appellant,

vs.

State of Minnesota,
Respondent.

Filed December 6, 2021
Affirmed
Segal, Chief Judge

Anoka County District Court
File No. 02-CR-11-3045

Mo Savoy Hicks, Bayport, Minnesota (pro se appellant)

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

Anthony C. Palumbo, Anoka County Attorney, Kelsey R. Kelley, Assistant County
Attorney, Anoka, Minnesota (for respondent)

Considered and decided by Smith, Tracy M., Presiding Judge; Segal, Chief Judge;
and Bjorkman, Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
SEGAL, Chief Judge
In this appeal from the district court’s order denying his fourth petition for
postconviction relief, appellant ar gues that the district court erred in concluding that his
claims for relief were Knaffla- and time-barred. We affirm.
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FACTS
In August 2007, J.R.’s sister reported to law enforcement that J.R. was missing. The
police executed a search warrant at J.R.’s apartment and discovered a large volume of blood
in various rooms in the apartment, including on a mattress in her bedroom. A medical
examiner determined that J.R. could not have survived after she lost the amount of blood
discovered in the apartment . J.R. was declared legally dead in July 2008. Three years
later, human remains were discovered at a park and a DNA analysis confirmed the y were
the remains of J.R. A medical examiner determined that the cause of death was a blunt
force injury to the head.
Respondent State of Minnesota charged appellant Mo Savoy Hicks with second -
degree intentional murder and second-degree unintentional murder. Hicks waived his right
to a jury trial and the district court held a court trial. At trial, two individuals wi th whom
Hicks had been incarcerated testified that Hicks told them that he had hit J.R. over the head
with a hammer and buried her near a place where he used to live. The state’s theory at trial
was that Hicks killed J.R. in her bedroom and only then was her body moved and buried in
the park. The state presented physical evidence linking Hicks to the crime, as well as a
chronology of the places Hicks had lived, to show that J.R.’s remains were discovered near
one of his previous addresses.
The district court found Hicks guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, but not
guilty of second -degree intentional murder. The district court sentenced Hicks to 420
months in prison, an upward durational departure, after finding that the concealment of
J.R.’s body constituted an aggravating factor. This court affirmed Hicks’s conviction and
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sentence on direct appeal , and the supreme court granted review and affirmed on the
sentencing issue. State v. Hicks, 837 N.W.2d 51, 65 (Minn. App. 2013), aff’d, 864 N.W.2d
153, 163 (Minn. 2015).
Hicks filed his first petition for postconviction relief in 2017. In that petition , he
challenged the constitutionality of both the statute under which he was convicted and the
sentencing guidelines. The district court denied the petition without a hearing. Hicks filed
a second petition for postconviction relief in 2019, which was denied without a hearing.
His third petition for postconviction relief was filed in 2020. He argued in his third petition
that he was entitled to relief because “the facts upon which the conviction rest s are false”
and the result of perjury and “discarded evidence.” In the petition, Hicks challenged the
state’s blood and DNA evidence and argued that the two witnesses who had been
incarcerated with him had committed perjury. The district court also denied Hicks’s third
petition without a hearing.
In March 2021, Hicks filed the petition that is the subject of t his appeal, his fourth
petition for postconviction relief (the petition). He again asserted that the facts upon which
he was convicted “were false or discarded and violated [his] rights guaranteed by the 5 th
and 14th amendments of the Constitution.” In his memorandum he argued that he wa s
presenting novel legal issues of “excited utterance recantation” and “forensic exposition”
related to bloodstain evidence. Hicks provided no sworn evidence in support of the petition
aside from his own affidavits.
In connection with his recantation argument, Hicks pointed to two letters written by
one of the witnesses Hicks had been incarcerated with and who had testified against Hicks
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at trial. The letters were sent to the county attorney in 2013 and imply that the witness’s
testimony was not truthful. The letters gave the county attorney “30 days to get me out of
here” or the witness would go to the press and “expose” that the county sheriff’s office
rigged the witness’s polygraph exam to falsely show that the witness had passed the exam.
Copies of the letters were provided to Hicks’s appellate counsel during the pendency of
Hicks’s direct appeal in 2013.
As to the bloodstain evidence, Hicks cited to publications on bloodstain patterns
that he claimed discredit the state’s the ory that J.R. died on the mattress in her bedroom.
He asserted that this should be treated as new evidence because he only became aware of
the publications shortly before he filed the petition.
The district court denied the petition without a hearing after determini ng that the
claims were both Knaffla- and time-barred. Hicks now appeals.
DECISION
Hicks challenges the district court’s denial of his fourth petition without a hearing.1
We review a summary denial of a petition for postconviction rel ief for an abuse of
discretion. Riley v. State, 819 N.W.2d 162, 167 (Minn. 2012). “A [district] court abuses
its discretion when its decision is based on an erroneous view of the law or is against logic
and the facts in the record.” Id. (quotation omitted).

1 In his brief, Hicks asserts that he is appealing the denial of his third and fourth petitions
for postconviction relief. The district court denied the third petition in April 2020, and
Hicks did not timely appeal that decision. See Minn. R. Crim. P. 28 .02, subd. 4(3)(c)
(stating that “an appeal by the defendant from an order denying a petition for
postconviction relief must be filed within 60 days after entry of the order”). The denial of
the third petition is therefore not before this court.
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Knaffla Bar
Hicks’s first argument is that the district court erred in determining that the petition
was Knaffla-barred because his claims fall within an exception. Minnesota statutes provide
that “[a] petition for postconviction relief after a direct appeal has been completed may not
be based on grounds that could have been raised on direct appeal of the conviction or
sentence.” Minn. Stat. § 590.01, subd. 1 (20 20). The statute reflects the rule established
in State v. Knaffla, which states that after a direct app eal has been taken, all claims raised
in that appeal and all claims known at the time of that appeal “will not be considered upon
a subsequent petition for postconviction relief.” 243 N.W.2d 737, 741 (Minn. 1976). The
bar also applies to claims that were raised, or could have been raised, in previous petitions
for postconviction relief. Schleicher v. State, 718 N.W.2d 440, 449 (Minn. 2006). There
are two exceptions to the Knaffla bar that allow consideration of claims : “(1) if a novel
legal issue is pre sented, or (2) if the interests of justice require review.” Taylor v. State,
691 N.W.2d 78, 79 (Minn. 2005) . Hicks’s argument on appeal is that the petition comes
within the novel -legal-issue exception based on his theories of “excited utterance
recantation” and “forensic exposition” of bloodstain evidence.
Turning first to Hicks’s arguments about the two “recantation” letters, the record
shows that copies of the two letters, which were sent to the county attorney’s office by the
witness in September and October 2013, were provided to Hicks’s appellate counsel during
the pendency of his direct appeal . Hicks has thus been aware of the letters since 2013.
Hicks does not deny that he was aware of the letters back in 2013, but argues that the
petition comes within the novel -legal-issue exception to Knaffla because he is now
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asserting a new theory —that the letters constitute an “excited utterance recantation.” It
appears, however, that Hicks made this same type of argument in his third petition for
postconviction relief. He asserted in that petition that the witness committed perjury and,
in referencing the letters, argued that the “recantations are more akin to an excited
utterance.” Hicks thus raised the issue in a prior petition for postconviction relief and it
does not qualify as a “novel legal issue.”2
Hicks’s second argument is that the petition raised the novel issue of “forensic
exposition.” Hick s points to two publications, Forensic Biology and Bloodstain Pattern
Analysis with an Introduction to Crime Scene Reconstruction .3 He claims that he only
recently became aware of these publications. He argues that, according to the publications,
if J.R. had died on the mattress as theorized by the state, there should have been a void in
the bloodstain on the mattress where her body would have lain. He argue s that, because
he was previously unaware of the information in the publications, this argument about
bloodstain patterns should be treated as coming within an exception to the Knaffla bar. The
publications relied on by Hicks, however, are not new and were published prior to the date
Hicks filed his first petition for postconviction relief. In essence, Hicks’s argument

2 We also note that review is not required by the interests of justice. There is well-settled
law governing witness -recantation claims in petitions for postconviction relief that take
into account whether the recantation bears indicia of trustworthiness. See, e.g., Campbell
v. State, 916 N.W.2d 502, 508-09 (Minn. 2018).

3 See Richard Li, Forensic Biology (2d ed. 2015); Tom Bevel & Ross M. Gardner,
Bloodstain Pattern Analysis with an Introduction to Crime Scene Reconstruction (3d ed.
2008).
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constitutes no more than a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence for conviction and
does not qualify under either exception to the Knaffla bar.
The district court thus did not err in concluding that the claims in the petition were
procedurally barred under Knaffla. See Schleicher, 718 N.W.2d at 449.
Timeliness
The district court also denied the petition for postconviction relief as untimely. A
petition for postconviction relief must be filed within two years after “the entry of judgment
of conviction or sentence if no direct appeal is filed” or “an appellate court’s disposition of
petitioner’s direct appeal.” Minn. Stat. § 590.01, subd. 4(a) (2020). Hicks filed a direct
appeal, and the supreme court affirmed in June 2015. Hicks, 864 N.W.2d at 163. Hicks
did not file the current petition for postconviction relief until March 2021, and it is therefore
untimely under Minn. Stat. § 590.01, subd. 4(a).
Untimely petitions may still be considered if the petitioner establishes that he meets
one of five listed statutory exceptions. Minn. Stat. § 590.01, subd. 4(b) (2020). The
petitioner bears the burden of proving that he meets one of the statutory exceptions. State
v. Rainer, 502 N.W.2d 784, 787 (Minn. 1993). Under Minn. Stat. § 590.01, subd. 4(b)(2),
a district court may hear an otherwise untimely petition if
the petitioner alleges the existence of newly discovered
evidence, including scientific evidence, t hat could not have
been ascertained by the exercise of due diligence by the
petitioner or petitioner ’s attorney within the two -year time
period for filing a postconviction petition, and the evidence is
not cumulative to evidence presented at trial, is not for
impeachment purposes, and establishes by a clear and
convincing standard that the petitioner is innocent of the
offense or offenses for which the petitioner was convicted.
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Hicks argue d to the district court that the bloodstain publications should be
considered “new evidence” because it is new to him and “ is of a complicated scientific
nature that is not easily accessible or easily understood.” The district court correctly
concluded that this does not make it “newly discovered evidence.”
Hicks’s argument also fails because at most the bloodstain theories contained in the
publications amount to a challenge to the state’s forensic evidence and testimony . The
evidence would thus be for “impeachment purposes.” Hicks knew that testimony
concerning the blood on the mattress would be presented by the state at trial and had the
opportunity to counter that evidence at that time. E vidence “for impeachment purposes”
does not constitute newly discovered evidence under Minn. Stat. § 590.01, subd. 4(b)(2).
On this record, we discern no abuse of discretion by the district court in summarily
denying the petition for postconviction relief as untimely.
Affirmed.