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This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A23-1200

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Ramon Roosevelt Blakey,
Appellant.

Filed September 23, 2024
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.
Smith, John, Judge*

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-22-24340

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

Mary F. Moriarty, Hennepin County Attorney, Mark V. Griffin, Assistant County
Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

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

Considered and decided by Worke, Presiding Judge; Larson, Judge; and Smith,
John, 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NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
SMITH, JOHN, Judge
We affirm the conviction of appellant, Ramon Roosevelt Blakey, for domestic
assault by strangulation because the 911 calls from the underlying incident fall within the
excited-utterance exception to the hearsay rule and were therefore properly admitted into
evidence. We reverse and remand Blakey’s sentence because the district court erred by
imposing probationary conditions as part of an executed prison sentence.
FACTS
In the early afternoon on December 3, 2022, Minneapolis police officers were
dispatched to a residence in Minneapolis to address an ongoing assault. L.M.- M. called
911 to report that her mother, J.F., was inside the house and in danger because she was
“assaulted” by Blakey and he was being “aggressive” towards her. J.F. did not feel safe
enough to make a phone call, which is why she was texting L.M.- M. and asking her to call
the police. When police arrived, they knocked on both the front and back doors of the
house with no response, but they could see the silhouette of a large man inside the house,
and they could see the man motioning to someone else inside. The man pulled the curtains
shut, and the police called out that they needed to talk to him and asked him to open the
door. The police knocked again and asked if Blakey and J.F. were there . The man replied
that J.F. was not there and that he was just staying with Blakey, who was also gone. L.M.-
M. called 911 a second time to ask the police to stay at the house , tell them Blakey was
lying about his identity, and reiterate that J.F. was inside and needed help. The man in the
house was in fact later identified as Blakey.
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The police went back to their squad car but did not leave the scene. L.M.- M. called
911 a third time relaying text messages from J.F. and asking the police to break into the
house. Once the police officers received approval from their sergeant , they forced entry
into the house by breaking in the front door . Inside, they also forced entry into the locked
bathroom where they found J.F. “cowering” in the corner. J.F. appeared “ [e]xtremely
frightened” and had red marks and scratches on her chest, bruising a nd cuts on her throat,
and bloodshot and swollen eyes underneath the sunglasses she was wearing. J.F. refused
to leave the bathroom until Blakey was gone, but once police arrested him, she came out
of the bathroom and agreed to talk. J.F. told the police that she and Blakey lived together
and had a romantic relationship. J.F. was taken to the hospital by ambulance and told
medical staff that the man she lives with had strangled her “intermittently” for two to three
hours using both of his hands. She reported headaches, dizziness, pain when swallowing,
and blurry vision.
Blakey was arrested and charged with felony domestic assault by strangulation. On
December 7, a pretrial domestic -abuse no- contact order (DANCO) was put in place. On
January 13, Blakey entered a not guilty plea, and this case proceeded to a two-day jury trial
in April. Relevant to this appeal, neither J.F. nor L.M.- M. were available as witnesses for
trial, so at a motion hearing prior to trial, the parties argued about the admissibility of L.M.-
M.’s three 911 calls and the text messages from J.F. that L.M. -M. referenced during those
calls. The district court ruled that both the 911 calls and the text messages fell within the
excited-utterance exception to the hearsay rule and would therefore be admissible at trial.
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The jury found Blakey guilty of felony domestic assault by strangulation in violation
of Minn. Stat. § 609.2247 (2022) , and the district court sentenced him to prison for 39
months with credit for the 166 days he had already served in jail. The sentencing order
also listed “conditions” such as no contact with J.F. and completion of domestic -abuse
programming.
Blakey appeals.
DECISION
I. The district court did not abuse its discretion by allowing L.M. -M.’s 911 calls
into evidence under the excited-utterance exception to the hearsay rule.

“‘Hearsay’ is a statement other than one made by the declarant while testifying at
the trial or hearing offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted.” Minn. R.
Evid. 801(c). “Hearsay is not admissible except as provided by [Minnesota’s Rules of
Evidence] or by other rules prescribed by the Supreme Court or by the Legislature.” Minn.
R. Evid. 802. One exception to the hearsay rule is “[a] statement relating to a startling
event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by
the event or condition.” Minn. R. Evid. 803(2). There are three requirements for a
statement to meet this excited -utterance hearsay exception: (1) there was a startling event
or condition; (2) the statement relates to the event or condition; and (3) the declarant was
“under a sufficient aura of excitement caused by the event or condition to insure the
trustworthiness of the statement.” Minn. R. Evid. 803(2) 1989 comm. cmt. Even if the
hearsay statement meets the excited-utterance requirements, it is inadmissible if the danger
of unfair prejudice substantially outweighs its probative value. Minn. R. Evid. 403.
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We review a district court’s evidentiary rulings for an abuse of discretion.
State v. Tapper, 993 N.W.2d 432, 437 (Minn. 2023). “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). Blakey bears the burden of demonstrating both that
the district court abused its discretion in admitting the evidence at issue and that he was
prejudiced by the admission. State v. Peltier , 874 N.W.2d 792, 802 (Minn. 2016).
There is no dispute that the 911 calls are hearsay. Instead, Blakey argues that the
district court abused its discretion by admitting the 911 calls, which included references to
the text messages, because they do not fall within a hearsay exception. He argues that
because there was no startling event and L.M.- M. was not under an “aura of excitement”
on the phone , these statements are not excited utterances . In making these arguments,
Blakey points to the fact that L.M.- M. did not witness the assault or s ee anything at the
scene of the alleged incident and that she remained calm and composed while talking with
the 911 dispatcher. Blakey further argues that admission of the 911 calls was highly
prejudicial to him because it was the only direct evidence the state had of his identity and
that without its admission, the jury would not have found him guilty. None of these
arguments persuade us to reverse.
Just prior to trial, the district court heard arguments on the record about the parties’
motions on the admissibility of L.M.- M.’s 911 calls and found that “the assault is not the
startling event; the startling event for the daughter is the receipt of the text message” and
“those text messages caused [L.M.-M.] enough concern, consternation and so forth, for her
to immediately call 911.” The district court also found that “[it’s] an ongoing emergency
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that [Blakey] won’t let the cops in the house . . . and the person [Blakey] who’s saying that
[J.F.’s] not there is lying.” As a result, the district court found that the 911 calls were
admissible as excited utterances under the hearsay exceptions.
The district court also ruled that J.F.’s text messages themselves are excited
utterances because when police got to J.F., she was “completely traumatized . . . can hardly
speak and she’s injured, and she has bruises all over her. So, in the previous 30 minutes
when she was sending those texts, those texts were excited utterances.”
Our supreme court recently addressed the excited-utterance exception in a domestic-
assault case. In Tapper, the supreme court held that it was not an abuse of discretion for
the district court to exclude body- worn camera recordings containing statements made by
the victim because the statements were inadmissible hearsay. 993 N.W.2d at 439. The
victim’s statements were not excited utterances because they were mostly made in response
to questions from law enforcement, the victim “appeared to grow calmer” t hroughout the
interaction, and the victim exhibited an “unexcited demeanor .” Id. at 438. Additionally,
enough time had passed 1 between the incident and the statements that the victim believed
the defendant had fallen asleep, and the victim was , in part, recalling events that happened
“hours previously.” Id.
Blakey argues that this case is analogous to Tapper because part of the assault took
place the previous day, there was no startling event because of the amount of time that

1 While there are no “strict temporal guidelines” to evaluate whether statements qualify as
excited utterances, district courts consider factors such as “the length of time elapsed, the
nature of the event, the physical condition of the declarant, and any possible motive to
falsify.” Tapper, 993 N.W.2d at 438 (quotations omitted).
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passed and the fact that L.M. -M. did not witness the assault, and L.M.- M. was calm and
composed on the phone with the 911 dispatcher. The state argues that this case is
distinguishable from Tapper because the assault was a current, ongoing event that was
happening while L.M.- M. was on the phone with the 911 dispatcher and L.M.-M became
more agitated throughout her calls as her concern for her mother’s safety became more
acute. The state has the better argument.
J.F. was so terrified that she felt unsafe to call 911, locked herself in the bathroom,
and texted her daughter to call 911 for her. In the first call, L.M.- M. provided the address
for the house along with a description of Blakey advising that the police would need two
cars because Blakey is “really aggressive” and “super big.” Even though L.M.- M.
maintained her composure while talking to the dispatcher, she described her mom as being
held “hostage” and called back less than ten minutes later as she conti nued to get text
messages from J.F. During the second 911 call , L.M.-M.’s tone was more urgent telling
the dispatcher, “[Blakey] is lying to [the police]. [J.F.] doesn’t want the police to leave.
She’s in the house, she needs help.”
Just three minutes later, L.M.- M. called 911 for a third time, this time with even
more urgency and frustration in her voice as she told the dispatcher, “I think he’s like,
beating the sh-t out of her in there. . . . [S]he’s like half talking to me.” L.M.-M. was clearly
frustrated that the police were not in the house and reiterated that J.F. could not leave the
bathroom and come outside, so she urged the dispatcher to have the police “kick the damn
door down.” L.M.-M. told the dispatcher, in real-time, that her mom stopped texting her .
8
She also said that while she did not think Blakey would do anything “crazy,” she was
unsure because her mom would not be texting her unless it was serious.
The transcript and recording of the 911 calls support the district court’s decision to
admit the calls, and text messages referenced therein, as excited utterances. The startling
event was when L.M.-M. started getting texts from J.F. about the assault that began the day
before but was ongoing as demonstrated by J.F.’s fear to call 911 herself, the fact that she
was locked in the bathroom, and Blakey lying to the police about his identity and telling
them no one was inside. While L.M.- M. does remain relati vely composed throughout her
calls, her tone has more urgency and frustration as time goes on. And L.M.- M. is relaying
text messages from her mom in real -time. These combined circumstances create the
requisite “aura of excitement” for excited utterances.
But even without the 911 calls, there is ample evidence that Blakey was the person
who assaulted J.F. Blakey and J.F. were the two tenants listed on the lease for the house
they were in; there were two vehicles in the driveway, one was registered to J.F. and the
other to Blakey; Blakey and J.F. were the only two people in the house when the police
arrived; and Blakey lied about his identity t o the police suggesting that he did not want to
be found out . Even without the 911 calls , this evidence would have been enough to
determine Blakey’s identity and find him guilty of assaulting J.F. There is no prejudice by
admitting the 911 calls into evidence.

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II. The probationary terms and conditions listed as part of Blakey’s executed
prison sentence are erroneous.

We review sentencing decisions for an abuse of discretion. State v. Soto, 855
N.W.2d 303, 307-08 (Minn. 2014). But whether a sentence conforms to the requirements
of a statute or the sentencing guidelines is a question of law we review de novo.
State v. Williams, 771 N.W.2d 514, 520 (Minn. 2009)
“The legislature has the exclusive authority to define crimes and offenses and the
range of the sentences or punishments for their violation.” Minn. Stat. § 609.095(a) (2022).
“Minnesota courts therefore do not have inherent authority to impose terms or conditions
of sentences for criminal acts and must act within the limits of their statutory authority
when imposing sentences.” State v. Pugh, 753 N.W.2d 308, 311 (Minn. App. 2008)
(quotation omitted), rev. denied (Minn. Sept. 23, 2008). “A district court may not impose
a no-contact order as part of an executed sentence unless the order is expressly authorized
by statute.” Pugh, 753 N.W.2d at 311. Under Minn. Stat. § 609.2247, subd. 2, a person
who is convicted of felony domestic assault by strangulation can be sentenced, “to
imprisonment for not more than three years or to payment of a fine of not more than $5,000,
or both.”
Blakey argues that the district court erred by imposing probationary conditions as
part of his sentence and that the district court has no authority to include probationary
conditions as part of an executed prison sentence . We agree.
The district court sentenced Blakey to 39 months in prison with credit for the 166
days he had already served, and the district court laid out conditions for Blakey to follow ,
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presumably during his supervised release, including remaining law abiding, not leaving
Minnesota without permission from the parole officer, not possessing guns or ammunition,
and completing a domestic-violence program. The district court also ordered the DANCO
to continue and that Blakey would have no contact in any way with J.F. But nothing in the
statute Blakey was convicted under (Minn. Stat. § 609.2247) provides for “conditions,”
including a DANCO, as part of an executed prison sentence.
The DANCO was proper during the case proceedings, but now t here is a conviction
and an executed sentence. See Pugh, 753 N.W.2d at 311 (stating “a court may impose a
no-contact order in a criminal proceeding for domestic abuse” (emphasis added) ). And
while Blakey will serve the last one -third of his sentence on supervised release in the
community, “[t]he commissioner of corrections shall adopt by rule standards and
procedures for the revocation of supervised or conditional release” meaning that “the
conditions of . . . supervised release [are] imposed by the commissioner.” Minn. Stat.
§ 244.05, subds. 2, 3 (2022). Conditions for supervised release are not within the district
court’s purview and are instead determined by the commissioner of corrections. It was
erroneous for the district court to impose probationary conditions, and Blakey must be
resentenced to have the conditions removed from his executed prison sentence.
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.