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This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A23-1613

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Elijah Willard James Guinn, Sr.,
Defendant,

Midwest Bonding, LLC,
Appellant.

Filed July 1, 2024
Affirmed
Ede, Judge

St. Louis County District Court
File No. 69DU-CR-20-3668

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

Kimberly J. Maki, St. Louis County Attorney, Victoria Wanta, Assistant County Attorney,
Duluth, Minnesota (for respondent)

James McGeeny, Doda & McGeeney, P.A., Rochester, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Wheelock, Presiding Judge; Ede, Judge; and Jesson,
Judge.*

* Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to
Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.
2
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
EDE, Judge
Appellant challenges the district court’s denial of its petition to reinstate and
discharge a bail bond. Because we conclude that the district court did not abuse its
discretion in determining that three of the four Shetsky1 factors support bond forfeiture and
in denying appellant’s bond-reinstatement petition, we affirm.
FACTS
In December 2020, respondent State of Minnesota charged defendant Elijah Willard
James Guinn Sr. 2 with two counts of second- degree controlled-substance crimes. Guinn
failed to make his first appearance at a scheduled hearing in January 2021. The district
court issued a bench warrant for Guinn’s arrest and set bail at $5,000.3
In June 2021, Guinn again failed to appear for a hearing, and the district court issued
another warrant for his arrest. Appellant Midwest Bonding LLC posted a $5,000
appearance bond on Guinn’s behalf. In July 2021, Guinn again failed to appear, and the
district court issued another bench warrant, ordering forfeiture of the $5,000 bond that
Midwest Bonding had posted.
Guinn was later apprehended by law enforcement. In August 2021, Midwest
Bonding posted a $10,000 bond for Guinn. Guinn’s next hearing was scheduled for

1 Shetsky v. Hennepin County, 60 N.W.2d 40 (Minn. 1953).

2 Guinn is not a party to this appeal.

3 The record does not reflect the resolution of this bench warrant.
3
September 2021, but he again failed to appear. The district court issued another bench
warrant for Guinn’s arrest and ordered forfeiture of the $10,000 bond that Midwest
Bonding had posted.
Over the next two months, Midwest Bonding filed separate petitions to reinstate and
discharge the $5,000 and $10,000 bonds. Meanwhile, Guinn yet again failed to appear for
his next hearing in December 2021, and the district court issued another bench warrant for
his arrest.
In May 2022, the district court held a hearing regarding Midwest Bonding’s
petitions to reinstate the $5,000 and $10,000 bonds. Following the hearing, the district court
denied Midwest Bonding’s request to reinstate and discharge the bonds, but did order the
bonds reinstated. The district court ordered that it would revoke and discharge both bonds
if Midwest Bonding could recover Guinn and bring him back into the jurisdiction of the
district court within 90 days. But the district court also ordered that, if Midwest Bonding
failed to return Guinn to the district court’s jurisdiction, it would revoke and forfeit the
$5,000 bond and it would revoke and discharge the $10,000 bond.
By June 2022, law enforcement had again apprehended Guinn and taken him into
custody. In August 2022, Midwest Bonding filed another petition to reinstate and discharge
the $5,000 bond. In September 2022, Midwest Bonding posted another bond on Guinn’s
behalf, this time in the amount of $25,000.
But Guinn failed to appear for a November 2022 hearing, and the district court
issued another bench warrant for his arrest. In December 2022, noting that it had stayed
4
forfeiture of the $5,000 and $25,000 bonds to provide Guinn an opportunity to appear in
court and that he had not done so, the district court ordered forfeiture of both those bonds.
In January 2023, Midwest Bonding posted a $110,000 bond for Guinn. And in
March 2023, Midwest Bonding petitioned the district court to reinstate and discharge the
$5,000 and $25,000 bonds.
In June 2023, the district court held a hearing on Midwest Bonding’s petition and
motion to reinstate and discharge the $5,000 and $25,000 bonds. At the hearing, the district
court decided that it would not reconsider reinstatement of the $5,000 bond because it had
resolved that issue in its May 2022 order, which provided that Midwest Bonding’s failure
to return Guinn to the district court’s jurisdiction would result in revocation and forfeiture
of that bond. Following the June 2023 hearing, the district court filed an order, supported
by a memorandum, in which the district court denied Midwest Bonding’s latest petition to
reinstate and discharge the $5,000 and $25,000 bonds.
Midwest Bonding appeals from the district court’s June 2023 order, challenging the
denial of its petition to reinstate and discharge the $25,000 bond.4

4 As explained above, the district court’s June 2023 order denied Midwest Bonding’s
March 2023 petition to reinstate and discharge the $5,000 and $25,000 bonds. As to
Midwest Bonding’s request that the district court reinstate and discharge the $5,000 bond,
however, the June 2023 order merely notes that the district court’s May 2022 order had
provided for the revocation and forfeiture of the $5,000 bond if Midwest Bonding failed to
return Guinn to the district court’s jurisdiction. And in December 2022, the district court
ordered forfeiture of the $5,000 bond because Guinn had failed to appear in court. At oral
argument before this court, Midwest Bonding conceded that, because it had failed to appeal
the district court’s May 2022 and December 2022 orders relating to the $5,000 bond, only
the $25,000 bond remains at issue. Based on this procedural history, we accept Midwest
Bonding’s concession and focus our analysis below on the district court’s decision to deny
reinstatement and discharge of the $25,000 bond.
5
DECISION
Midwest Bonding contends that the district court abused its discretion in denying
its petition to reinstate and discharge the $25,000 bail bond.5 As explained below, we are
unconvinced by Midwest Bonding’s arguments in support of reversal.
We review a district court’s “denial of a petition for reinstatement of a forfeited bail
bond for [an] abuse of discretion.” State v. Askland, 784 N.W.2d 60, 62 (Minn. 2010).
“[The] district court abuses its discretion when it bases its conclusions on an erroneous
view of the law.” Id.
To determine whether to reinstate a forfeited bond, district courts apply the four
Shetsky factors. See id.; see also State v. Storkamp, 656 N.W.2d 539, 542 (Minn. 2003). In
“light of the facts of the individual case,” district courts consider: (1) “the purpose of bail
and the civil nature of the proceedings and the burden of proof as well as the cause, purpose,
and length of defendant’s absence;” (2) “the good faith of the surety as measured by the
fault or wil[l]fulness of the defendant;” (3) “the good faith efforts of the surety— if any—
to apprehend and produce the defendant;” and (4) “the prejudice— by way of delay or
otherwise—to the state, in its administration of justice.” Shetsky, 60 N.W.2d at 46.
Below, we review the district court’s analysis of each Shetsky factor for an abuse of
discretion.

5 Because the state did not file a brief, we determine the case on the merits, as provided by
Minnesota Rule of Civil Appellate Procedure 142.03.
6
(1) The Purpose of Bail; the Civil Nature of the Proceedings; the Burden of
Proof; and the Cause, Purpose, and Length of Guinn’s Absence

Midwest Bonding challenges the district court’s determination that, “[w]ithout any
evidence of the cause or purpose of [Guinn’s] absences and an absence of over 6 months,
the first factor weighs in favor of bond forfeiture.” Midwest Bonding maintains that the
district court abused its discretion by criticizing the bonding company for not taking steps
to ensure Guinn’s appearance at the December 2021 hearing and by stating that Guinn was
absent for six months. We disagree.
“The primary purpose of bail in a criminal case is not to increase the revenue of the
state or to punish the surety but to insure the prompt and orderly administration of justice
without unduly denying liberty to the accused whose guilt has not been proved.” Shetsky,
60 N.W.2d at 46. “The procurement or use of bail to enable the accused to evade, delay, or
cripple the prompt and effective administration of justice is directly contrary to any
legitimate purpose for which bail is authorized in any criminal proceeding.” Id. “One
purpose of a bail bond is to encourage a surety to voluntarily pay the penalty for the failure
to ensure the presence of the accused without requiring the state to undergo the expense of
litigation to recover the defaulted amount.” State v. Vang, 763 N.W.2d 354, 358 (Minn.
App. 2009) (citing Shetsky, 60 N.W.2d at 45). Bail “also serves to encourage sureties to
locate, arrest, and return defaulting defendants to the authorities to facilitate the timely
administration of justice.” Storkamp, 656 N.W.2d at 542. “The surety bears the burden of
proof to establish a justification for a mitigation of forfeited bail.” State v. Rosillo, 645
N.W.2d 735, 740 (Minn. App. 2002) (quotation omitted).
7
The district court did not abuse its discretion by determining that the first Shetsky
factor favors forfeiture. It is unclear from the record when and for how long Guinn was in
custody each time he posted bail and later failed to appear at multiple hearings. But the
record does reve al that, from the time Guinn was originally charged in December 2020
until the June 2023 hearing on Midwest Bonding’s petition and motion to reinstate and
discharge the $5,000 and $25,000 bonds, Guinn failed to appear six times, including at his
first appearance. After each of Guinn’s failures to appear, he was apprehended by law
enforcement—not Midwest Bonding—and Midwest Bonding again posted bonds on his
behalf. These failures to appear led to delays, such that Guinn’s criminal case did not
progress to the pretrial stage until September 2023, nearly three years after the state first
charged him. Considering the facts of this individual case, reinstatement of the $25,000
bond is inconsistent with “the prompt and orderly administration of justice.” Shetsky , 60
N.W.2d at 46. Instead, the procurement and use of bail enabled Guinn “to evade, delay,
[and] cripple the prompt and effective administration of justice.” Id.
In support of its argument that the length of Guinn’s absence should not favor
forfeiture, Midwest Bonding cites Farsdale v. Martinez. 586 N.W.2d 423, 424-25 (Minn.
App. 1998). In Farsdale, the defendant was at large for more than two months. Id. at 425.
Focusing on the period following Midwest Bonding’s posting of the $25,000 bond,
Midwest Bonding argues that Guinn was absent for 56 days, “from November 1st to
December 26th when he was rearrested by the St. Louis County Sheriff.” But Farsdale is
distinguishable because, in that case, the defendant failed to appear for sentencing. Id.
at 424. Unlike Farsdale, Guinn failed for months to make even a first appearance on the
8
controlled-substance charges he faced. Moreover, the defendant’s absence at sentencing in
Farsdale followed the district court’s decisions to grant “the state’s motion to postpone
sentencing” and to grant the defendant’s “request to go to Texas to relocate his family.” Id.
No such facts exist here, where Midwest Bonding presented no evidence of “the cause,
purpose, and length of [Guinn’s] absence[,]” Shetsky, 60 N.W.2d at 46, despite its “burden
of proof to establish a justification for a mitigation of forfeited bail[,]” Rosillo, 645 N.W.2d
at 740 (quotation omitted).
Nor is there evidence that Midwest Bonding itself ever located, recovered, and
returned Guinn to custody at any point throughout this case. Instead, Guinn’s
apprehensions were accomplished by law enforcement each time. And following Guinn’s
arrests after failing to appear, Midwest Bonding posted additional bonds for Guinn.
Reinstatement of the $25,000 bond under these circumstances therefore conflicts with the
purpose of bail as encouraging “sureties to locate, arrest, and return defendants who have
absconded.” Storkamp, 656 N.W.2d at 543. And the district court’s determination that the
first Shetsky factor favors forfeiture aligns with the purpose of bail as “encourag[ing] a
surety to voluntarily pay the penalty for the failure to ensure the presence of the accused
without requiring the state to undergo the expense of litigation to recover the defaulted
amount.” Vang, 763 N.W.2d at 358.
Even assuming without deciding that the district court erred in finding that Guinn
was absent for six months as to the $25,000 bond, we are not persuaded that the district
court abused its discretion in determining that the first Shetsky factor favors forfeiture.
“Where a decisive finding of fact is supported by sufficient evidence and is adequate to
9
sustain the conclusions of law, it is immaterial whether some other findings are not so
sustained.” Hanka v. Pogatchnik, 276 N.W.2d 633, 636 (Minn. 1979). As explained above,
we conclude that the district court’s decisive findings of fact on this factor are that there is
no evidence of the cause or purpose of Guinn’s absence and that the facts of this individual
case reflect that reinstatement of the $25,000 bond runs contrary to the prompt and orderly
administration of justice. These findings adequately sustain the district court’s conclusion
of law that the first factor favors forfeiture.
We therefore discern no abuse of discretion in the district court’s treatment of this
factor.
(2) Midwest Bonding’s Good Faith, as Measured by Guinn’s Fault or
Willfulness

Midwest Bonding asserts that, because it made good-faith efforts to locate and
apprehend Guinn, and because the district court relied on an erroneous view of the law,
this factor supports reinstatement and discharge of the entire bond. We are unconvinced.
Under the second Shetsky factor, a “[d]efendant’s willfulness or bad faith is
attributable to the surety.” Vang, 763 N.W.2d at 358 (citing Shetsky, 60 N.W.2d at 46); see
also State v. Williams, 568 N.W.2d 885, 888 (Minn. App. 1997) (“A willful and
unjustifiable default by the defendant weighs against forgiveness of a bond penalty.”), rev.
denied (Minn. Nov. 18, 1997). And “even an untimely apprehension and return of
defendant [by the surety] would not require that the forfeited bail bond be fully reinstated
and discharged.” Vang, 763 N.W.2d at 358.
10
Here, the district court considered “the good faith of the bond company as measured
by the fault or willfulness of the defendant.” The district court found that Midwest Bonding
had “not provided any information regarding the reasons for [Guinn’s] failures to appear
in court.” And the district court noted that Midwest Bonding “issued additional bonds
despite knowledge that [Guinn] had multiple failures to appear, and while filing petitions
asking for reinstatement of previously forfeited bonds.” Because Midwest Bonding
presented no evidence of measures taken to minimize the risk of bond forfeiture, the district
court determined that this factor favored forfeiting the bonds.
Midwest Bonding relies on Storkamp, 656 N.W.2d at 542-43, maintaining that “bad
faith by a defendant’s willful failure to appear does not automatically outweigh the surety’s
good faith efforts at apprehending and producing a defendant.” Midwest Bonding insists
that the appropriate test for this factor is whether the surety made good-faith efforts, not
whether those efforts were ultimately successful. In Storkamp, the district court “focused
on the fact that the defendant had acted in bad faith” and denied the surety’s motion to
reinstate the forfeited bond. 656 N.W.2d at 542. Because the district court did not explain
why the defendant’s bad-faith conduct was determinative over the surety’s good -faith
efforts and the lack of prejudice to the state, the supreme court concluded that the district
court abused its discretion “when it found that the defendant’s bad faith controlled its
decision.” Id. at 542-43.
Storkamp does not support Midwest Bonding’s position on the second Shetsky
factor. Nothing in the district court’s June 2023 order denying Midwest Bonding’s petition
suggests that the district court determined that Guinn’s apparent bad faith outweighed
11
Midwest Bonding’s alleged good-faith efforts to locate him. Instead, as explained above,
the district court’s determination that this factor favored forfeiture turned on the lack of
evidence of measures taken by Midwest Bonding to minimize the risk of forfeiture.
Based on our careful review of the record, we conclude that the district court did
not base its decision on the second Shetsky factor on an erroneous view of the law. Thus,
the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that this factor favors bond
forfeiture.
(3) Midwest Bonding’s Good-Faith Efforts to Apprehend and Produce Guinn

Arguing that it made good-faith efforts to apprehend and produce Guinn, Midwest
Bonding contends that the district court relied on an erroneous view of the law in
determining that this factor favors forfeiture. This assertion is unavailing.
The district court found that an affidavit Midwest Bonding submitted with its March
2023 petition “mirror[ed] the many other affidavits filed by [Midwest Bonding] in prior
cases” and did “not appear to be specific” to Guinn because it did “not detail what measures
were taken by the fugitive recovery agency to locate [Guinn] other than seeing if he’s in
custody already.”
In that affidavit, Midwest Bonding alleged that its agents learned of Guinn’s failure
to appear at the November 2022 hearing before receiving notice of the bail bond forfeiture
and “immediately began investigative efforts” to locate him. According to the affidavit,
these efforts included “further attempts to contact [Guinn] and [the] Indemnitor via
telephone and running an elect ronic search of all the jails in Minnesota.” When those
efforts failed, Midwest Bonding hired “a professional fugitive recovery agency . . . at [its
12
own] added expense . . . to locate and apprehend” Guinn. According to Midwest Bonding,
the recovery agency’s efforts to apprehend Guinn included “investigating the contact
information collected at the time the Bond was posted” and using “investigative software
to search” for Guinn.
Vang is instructive as to our analysis of Midwest Bonding’s documented efforts to
recover Guinn. 763 N.W.2d at 355-59. There, a surety posted a $10,000 appearance bond,
the defendant later failed to appear for sentencing, and the district court ordered forfeiture.
Id. at 355. The surety petitioned for two separate extensions of the bond, submitting an
affidavit with each request that detailed specific recovery efforts such as “looking for
defendant at Wisconsin addresses where defendant had been known to live” and “doing
surveillance on a new address in an attempt to apprehend defendant.” Id. at 355-56. The
surety ultimately petitioned for reinstatement and discharge of the bond, submitting a new
affidavit detailing its attempts to locate the defendant, “including re-interviewing
defendant’s parents in Wisconsin and interviewing other relatives of defendant in
Wisconsin[,]” which revealed “that defendant was living in Toronto.” Id. at 356. The surety
never apprehended the defendant and “the district court forfeited $9,500 of the bond.” Id.
On appeal, we analyzed the four Shetsky factors. Id. at 358-59. As to the third factor,
because there was no evidence that the surety’s fugitive-recovery expenses were more than
$500, we concluded that “the district court did not abuse its discretion in reinstating a
fraction of the bail bond[,]” despite noting that “it [was] difficult to tell how the district
court arrived at the reinstatement and discharge figure of $500, because there [were] no
findings of fact or conclusions of law in its order.” Id. at 359. In particular, we observed
13
that, “although [the surety] detailed the steps it took to regain custody of [the] defendant,
[the surety] never itemized its expenses in attempting to locate and apprehend [the]
defendant.” Id.
Here, Midwest Bonding claimed that it hired a professional fugitive-recovery
agency to locate and apprehend Guinn. But other than checking jail rosters and calling
Guinn and the indemnitor, Midwest Bonding’s efforts to find Guinn did not appear to be
specific and in no way approached the detailed measures taken by the surety in Vang. At
the same time, like the surety in Vang, Midwest Bonding did not itemize any of its
purported fugitive-recovery expenses in its affidavit, and Midwest Bonding did not
apprehend Guinn.
Consistent with our decision in Vang, we therefore conclude that the district court
did not abuse its discretion in determining that this factor favors forfeiture.
(4) Prejudice to the State in its Administration of Justice

Finally, Midwest Bonding challenges the district court’s determination that,
although the fourth Shetsky “factor weighs in favor of reinstatement and discharge,” it
“should be given the least weight in the negative as delays in the administration of justice
are always problematic for the system even if there is no actual prejudice.” Midwest
Bonding maintains that “there is no case law supporting the contention that the fourth
Shetsky factor should be given the least weight in this type of analysis” and that “[t]he
district court’s conclusion in this regard is erroneous.” This contention does not lead us to
reverse.
14
We agree with Midwest Bonding that “the prejudice -to-the-State factor in the
Shetsky analysis is concerned solely with prejudice to the state in prosecuting the
defendant.” Askland, 784 N.W.2d at 63. And “the burden is on the State to prove any
claimed prejudice.” Id. at 62. As the district court acknowledged and Midwest Bonding
points out, the state did not identify “any particular prejudice in this matter other than the
general prejudice of delay which creates backlogs,” such that “[t]his factor weighs in favor
of reinstatement and discharge[.]”
That said, “the question of whether to reinstate a forfeited bond is committed to the
sound exercise of judicial discretion.” Id.; see also State v. Anthony, No. A22-0132, 2022
WL 3581660, at *3 (Minn. App. Aug. 22, 2022) (affirming the district court’s denial of a
petition to reinstate a forfeited bond where “three of the four Shetsky factors weigh[ed]
against reinstatement of the bail bond”); State v. Gill, No. A19-1356, 2020 WL 1130321,
at *3 (Minn. App. Mar. 9, 2020) (affirming the district court’s denial of a petition to
reinstate a forfeited bond where the district court determined that the prejudice-to-the-state
factor favored reinstatement of the bond). 6 Based on the district court’s thorough and
reflective analysis of all four Shetsky factors and given the individual facts of this case, we
cannot say that the district court unsoundly exercised its discretion in deciding how to
weigh the fourth factor against the other three.

6 Under Minnesota Rule of Civil Appellate Procedure 136.01, subdivision 1(c), we cite
these nonprecedential opinions not as binding authority but for their persuasive value.
15
In sum, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining
that three of the four Shetsky factors favor bond forfeiture and in denying Midwest
Bonding’s bond-reinstatement petition.
Affirmed.