State of Minnesota, 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This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A23-1254

State of Minnesota,
Appellant,

vs.

Terry Izeal Heggs,
Respondent.

Filed July 22, 2024
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded
Bjorkman, Judge

Mower County District Court
File No. 50-CR-22-2267

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

Kristen Nelsen, Mower County Attorney, Heather Kjos Schmit, Austin, Minnesota (for
appellant)

Anders J. Erickson, Johnson Erickson Criminal Defense, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for
respondent)

Considered and decided by Slieter, Presiding Judge; Bjorkman, Judge; and Smith,
Tracy M., Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
BJORKMAN, Judge
Appellant State of Minnesota challenges the district court’s grant of a judgment of
acquittal after a jury returned guilty verdicts against respondent Terry Izeal Heggs on
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charges of failing to register as a predatory offender and domestic assault. We affirm with
respect to the domestic-assault charge, but we reverse with respect to the predatory-
offender registration charge and remand for entry of a judgment of conviction based on the
guilty verdict.
FACTS
Shortly before 8:00 a.m. on November 19, 2022, a 911 hang-up call was placed from
a restaurant in Austin. Before the call disconnected, dispatchers could hear arguing and
yelling. When the responding officers arrived, the restaurant was not yet open to the public,
but they heard arguing and screaming inside, so they entered. They first encountered
Heggs, who was in the kitchen area wearing only a T-shirt and boxer shorts and covered in
flour. A sock was on the floor near Heg gs and flour covered a large area of the floor. In
the next room they encountered S.W., who was in an intimate relationship with Heggs and,
like him, worked at the restaurant. S.W. was intoxicated and visibly “upset.” The officers
noted that she had a bloody lip, had blood on her sweatshirt, was covered in flour, and was
missing a sock. The officers could see “flour from her” on the edge of the freezer next to
where she was standing. Nobody else was in the restaurant.
While inside, the officers observed a back room that looked like “living quarters.”
The room contained a bed with rumpled sheets and blankets, multiple other items of
furniture, a television, and several items of men’s clothing. A later warranted search
revealed additional men’s clothing, including undergarments, and shoes; a speaker system;
personal care items such as razors, hair products, and deodorant; and an iron, laundry
basket, and other domestic items. The officers also found a suitcase containing a “good
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amount of documents,” both mail and personal documents, with Heggs’s name on them;
similar personal documents related to Heggs were “scattered throughout the living area.”
Because these items are not commonly found in a workplace break room, t he
officers believed that Heggs was living at the restaurant. And because Heggs is required
to register as a predatory offender, including registering any secondary addresses where he
stays overnight at least occasionally, the officers checked to see if Heggs had registered the
restaurant as a secondary address. They discovered that in October 2022 Heggs changed
his registered primary residence from Austin to Albert Lea and listed the Austin restaurant
as his place of employment but did not register it as a secondary address.
Heggs was charged with failing to register as a predatory offender and domestic
assault-harm, both enhanced because of prior qualifying convictions.
1 Following a three-
day trial, a jury found him guilty of both offenses. Heggs moved for a judgment of
acquittal, which the district court granted, reasoning that the state had offered only
circumstantial evidence of both offenses and that evidence does not preclude rational
inferences inconsistent with guilt.
The state appeals.
DECISION
The state may appeal “from a judgment of acquittal by the district court entered after
the jury returns a verdict of guilty.” Minn. R. Crim. P. 28.04, subd. 1(5). Because a motion

1 Heggs was also charged with violating a domestic-abuse no-contact order and
interference with an emergency call. But the district court granted Heggs’s motion for a
directed verdict on those counts after the close of the state’s evidence, and that decision is
not at issue in this appeal.
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for judgment of acquittal presents a question of law regarding the sufficiency of the
evidence, our review is de novo. State v. McCormick, 835 N.W.2d 498, 506 (Minn. App.
2013), rev. denied (Minn. Oct. 15, 2013).
A motion for a judgment of acquittal “is properly denied where the evidence, viewed
in the light most favorable to the state, is sufficient to sustain a conviction.” State v.
DeLaCruz, 884 N.W.2d 878, 890 (Minn. App. 2016). Where, as here, a guilty verdict rests
entirely or largely on circumstantial evidence, we review the sufficiency of the evidence
under a two-part standard. McCormick, 835 N.W.2d at 506. First, we determine what
factual circumstances the state proved. Id. This involves “winnow[ing] down the evidence
presented at trial by resolving all questions of fact in favor of the jury’s verdict, resulting
in a subset of facts that constitute the circumstances proved.” State v. Harris, 895 N.W.2d
592, 600 (Minn. 2017) (quotation omitted). Second, we independently evaluate those
circumstances to determine whether they are consistent with guilt a nd inconsistent with
any reasonable inference other than guilt. McCormick, 835 N.W.2d at 506. “[T]here is
sufficient evidence to sustain a conviction if and only if no other reasonable, rational
inferences exist that are inconsistent with guilt.” State v. Sam, 859 N.W.2d 825, 831 (Minn.
App. 2015) (quotation omitted).
I. Sufficient circumstantial evidence proves that Heggs failed to register as a
predatory offender.

To convict Heggs of the registration offense, the state was required to prove that he
(1) was required to register; (2) was given notice, knew, or reasonably should have known
of the duty to register ; (3) was “regularly or occasionally stay[ing] overnight” at the
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restaurant “when not staying at [his] primary address,” making it a “secondary address” for
him; (4) “knowingly” failed to fulfill the requirement that he provide this secondary
address to law enforcement; and (5) was previously convicted of failure to comply with
predatory-offender registration requirements. Minn. Stat. § 243.166, subds. 1a(a)(j), 4a(a),
5(a)(1), (c) (2022). Only the third of these elements—whether Heggs regularly or
occasionally stayed overnight at the restaurant—is in dispute.
Viewing the evidence in favor of the jury’s verdict, the state proved the following
circumstances. A back room of the restaurant where Heggs worked contained a bed that
appeared to have been recently used, other furniture and domestic items, many items of
men’s clothing and shoes, and an array of men’s personal-care products. There was also a
suitcase full of mail and other personal documents bearing Heggs’s name, as well as similar
documents scattered around the “living” space. These are not the types of items normally
found in a workplace break room. Heggs was alone (except for S.W.) in the restaurant
outside of working hours, clad only in a T-shirt and boxer shorts. And his primary address
was in another city.
Heggs asserts that these circumstances “suggest, at most, that [he] worked at the
restaurant, and possibly stayed overnight the night before he was arrested.” Alternatively,
he asserts that the circumstances do not disprove a reasonable inference that Heggs stayed
overnight at the restaurant for one or two nights, which is distinct from regularly or
occasionally. Neither argument is availing.
Given the nature and volume of personal property in the break room, the only
reasonable inference is that a man was regularly staying overnight in that room, had been
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doing so for some time, and planned to continue doing so. And given Heggs’s presence in
the restaurant outside of working hours, his state of undress, the restaurant’s distance from
his primary address, and the large volume and dispersion of personal documents bearing
his name, the only reasonable inference is that Heggs was the man staying there regularly.
As such, sufficient evidence supports the jury’s determination that Heggs is guilty of failing
to register as a predatory offender, and the district court erred by granting judgment of
acquittal as to that charge.
II. The record lacks sufficient circumstantial evidence to prove that Heggs
committed domestic assault against S.W.

A person commits domestic assault when (1) they intentionally cause or attempt to
cause another bodily harm, meaning “physical pain or injury, illness, or any impairment of
physical condition”; (2) the other person is a family or household member, which includes
a person with whom they are “involved in a significant romantic or sexual relationship”;
and (3) they have a prior qualifying conviction. Minn. Stat. § 609.2242, subds. 1(2), 2
(2022); see Minn. Stat. §§ 518B.01, subd. 2(b)(7) (defining family or household member),
609.02, subd. 7 (defining bodily harm) (2022). Again, only one of these elements is
disputed— whether Heggs intentionally inflicted bodily harm on S.W.
The intent element “is generally proven by circumstantial evidence.” State v.
Lampkin, 994 N.W.2d 280, 291 (Minn. 2023). Assault-harm is a general-intent crime,
meaning the state need not prove that the actor intended the harm, but only that he
“intentionally applied force to another person without her consent.” Id. (quotation
omitted).
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S.W. testified about what happened between her and Heggs at the restaurant, and
the responding officers testified about their observations and interactions with her.
Viewing their testimony in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict, the state proved
the following circumstances. Heggs and S.W. were arguing “face to face,” and it became
“physical” in some unspecified way. At some point, S.W. called 911 because she “didn’t
want it to escalate,” but the call ended without S.W. reporting anything, and they continued
fighting. During the fight, Heggs threw flour “up” in the air, which covered both him and
S.W. and a large portion of the floor. Also during the fight, S.W. fell to the floor, lost a
sock, came into contact with the freezer, incurred a bloody lip, and got blood on the
shoulder of her sweatshirt. S.W. explained that the bloody lip was from her falling and
that she fell “due to the flour being thrown.” After the fight, S.W. was visibly intoxicated
and upset.
These circumstances are reasonably consistent with guilt insofar as it is conceivable
that, during the “physical” fighting, Heggs applied unwanted force to S.W., causing her to
fall and sustain bodily harm in the form of a bloody lip. But the circumstances do not
preclude the reasonabl e possibility that S.W. merely slipped in the flour and fell down,
making the fall accidental and not a result of any physical contact from Heggs. Because
the circumstances proved are consistent with a reasonable inference other than guilt, the
circumstantial evidence is insufficient to prove that Heggs committed domestic assault.
In sum, we affirm the judgment of acquittal for the domestic-assault charge but
reverse the judgment of acquittal for failure to register. Accordingly, we remand for the
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district court to reinstate the jury’s guilty verdict and enter a judgment of conviction for
the registration offense.
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.