Christopher Anthony Davis, 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This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A21-1495

Christopher Anthony Davis,
Appellant,

vs.

Mark Empting, Clay County Sheriff,
Respondent.

Filed May 31, 2022
Affirmed
Klaphake, Judge*

Clay County District Court
File No. 14-CV-21-2882

Christopher Anthony Davis, Grand Forks, North Dakota (pro se appellant)

Bryan Joseph Melton, Clay County Attorney, Moorhead, Minnesota (for respondent)

Considered and decided by Bjorkman, Presiding J udge; Bratvold, Judge; and
Klaphake, Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
KLAPHAKE, Judge
Appellant Christopher Anthony Davis challenges an order denying his petition for
reconsideration of respondent Cl ay County sheriff’s denial of Davis’s application for a

* Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Ap peals, serving by appointment pursuant to
Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.

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permit to carry a handgun. In 2017, Davis pleaded guilty to felony controlled-substance
distribution in North Dakota. The Clay County sheriff denied his application for a permit
to carry because of this felony conviction. Davis argues that the North Dakota district court
that convicted him has restored his right to bear firearms, so he no longer has a conviction
of a crime of violence. We affirm because Mi nnesota law, rather than North Dakota law,
dictates what constitutes a crime of violence.
DECISION
This appeal requires us to interpret the statutory scheme for obtaining a permit to
carry firearms in Minnesota. “The interpreta tion of a statute is a que stion of law that we
review de novo.” Cocchiarella v. Driggs, 884 N.W.2d 621, 624 (Minn. 2016). The goal
of statutory interpretation is to “ascertain and effectuate the intention of the legislature.”
Minn. Stat. § 645.16 (2020). To do so, “courts must first look to see whether the statute’s
language, on its face, is clear or ambiguous. A statute is only ambiguous when it is subject
to more than one reasonable interpretation.” State v. Wiltgen, 737 N.W.2d 561, 570 (Minn.
2007) (quoting In re PERA Police & Fire Plan Line of Duty Disability Benefits of Brittain,
724 N.W.2d 512, 516 (Minn. 2006)). “The statutory language in dispute is not examined
in isolation; rather, all provisions in the stat ute must be read and interpreted as whole.”
State v. Pakhnyuk, 926 N.W.2d 914, 920 (Minn. 2019).
In Minnesota, nonresidents may apply to any county sheriff for a permit to carry
firearms. Minn. Stat. § 624.714, subd. 2(a) (2020). Subject to exceptions not at issue in
this appeal, the sheriff must issue the applicant a permit if they meet certain requirements.

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Id., subd. 2(b) (2020). One such requirement is that the app licant must not be prohibited
from possessing a firearm under section 624.713 (2020). Id., subd. 2(b)(4)(v).
Under Minn. Stat. § 624.713, subd. 1(2), a person convicted of a crime of violence
is ineligible to possess a firearm. A “crime of violence” means a felony conviction for one
of the offenses enumerated in Minn. Stat. § 624.712, subd. 5 (2020). All
controlled-substance felony convictions constitute crimes of violence. Id. Additionally,
“crimes in other states or jurisdictions which would have been crimes of violence as herein
defined if they had been committed in this state” constitute crimes of violence. Minn. Stat.
§ 624.713, subd. 1(2). Because this statute is unambiguous, it should be applied literally.
See Arlandson v. Humphrey, 27 N.W.2d 819, 823 (Minn. 1947) (stating that a court should
enforce a statute literally if its language embo dies a definite meani ng which involves no
absurdity or contradiction).
So, Minnesota law prevents a county sheriff from issuing a permit to carry a firearm
to anyone convicted of a crime of violen ce, which includes a felony conviction for
distribution of a controlled substance. He re, in 2017, Davis pl eaded guilty to felony
delivery of a controlled substance in North Dakota. Because Davis was convicted of a
crime of violence, he is prohibited from possessing a firearm and is thus ineligible for the
permit.
Davis argues that because his civil rights have been restored in North Dakota, his
felony controlled-substance conviction is not considered a conviction for purposes of his
firearm eligibility. He relies on Minn. Stat . § 624.712, subdivision 10 (the expungement
exception), which states:

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What constitutes a conviction of a crime shall be
determined in accordance with the law of the jurisdiction in
which the proceedings were he ld. Any conviction which has
been expunged, or set aside, or for which a person has been
pardoned or has had civil rights restored shall not be
considered a conviction for purposes of this definition, unless
such pardon, expungement, or restoration of civil rights
expressly provides that the person may not ship, transport,
possess, or receive firearms.

Minn. Stat. § 624.712, subd. 10 (2020).
1 Davis argues that th e expungement exception
applies to the entire statute and demonstrates that Minnesota consid ers the authority of
other jurisdictions to sever and restore firearm rights for convictions that occurred in those
jurisdictions.
Davis argues that the expungement exception applies to the entire statute. While it
is true that we examine statutory language as a whole, here, the statute is divided into
subdivisions with separate titles. The expung ement exception a ppears only in the
subdivision titled “crime punishable by imprisonment term exceeding one year” and does
not appear in the “crime of vi olence” subdivision. Minn. Stat . § 624.712 subds. 5, 10.
Because the expungement exception is self-c ontained in a separate subdivision and does
not indicate or suggest in any way that it applies to the crime-of-violence subdivision, we
cannot conclude that the expu ngement exception applies to convictions for crimes of
violence. If the legislature had intended to apply this exception to other subdivisions in the
statute, it could have done so. See Rohmiller v. Hart, 811 N.W.2d 585, 590 (Minn. 2012)
(stating that this court “cannot add words or meaning to a statute that were intentionally or

1 Davis also cites an equivalent federal provision to support this point. See 18 U.S.C. § 921
(2018).

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inadvertently omitted”). Thus, the expungeme nt exception does not apply to Davis’s
conviction of a crime of violence.
Davis also argues that, because he has permits to carry from Florida and North
Dakota, his firearm rights have been restored in a manner consistent with federal law. This
argument fails on public-policy grounds. As the supreme court observed, Minnesota
firearm-prohibition statutes are “designed to protect the public safety by keeping firearms
out of the hands of convic ted criminals who have comm itted crimes which, in the
legislature’s judgment, are indica tions of future dangerousness.” State v. Moon , 463
N.W.2d 517, 520 (Minn. 1990). The Minnesota legislature, not the North Dakota judiciary
and not a federal statute, determined which cr imes are indicative of future dangerousness
in Minnesota. Because the legislature, by th e plain language of the statute, intended that
Minnesota law controls what qualifies as a crime of violence, we affirm the district court’s
denial of reconsideration of Davis’s application for a pe rmit to carry a firearm in
Minnesota.
Affirmed.