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This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A23-1736

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

George Marten Williamson,
Appellant.

Filed September 23, 2024
Affirmed
Slieter, Judge

Nicollet County District Court
File No. 52-CR-21-216

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, Thomas R. Ragatz, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul,
Minnesota; and

Michelle Zehnder Fischer, Nicollet County Attorney, St. Peter, Minnesota (for respondent)

Andrew C. Wilson, Wilson & Clas, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Slieter, Presiding Judge; Wheelock, Judge; and Kirk,
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NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
SLIETER, Judge
In this appeal from the final judgment of conviction for fleeing police in a motor
vehicle and second- degree controlled-substance crime, appellant argues that his
convictions must be reversed because the district court abused its discretion by allowing
the state to amend the complaint after he had signed a petition to plead guilty to the charges
in the original complaint. Alternatively, appellant challenges his sentence, arguing that he
is entitled to resentencing using a corrected criminal-history score. Because the district
court acted within its discretion by allowing the state to amend the complaint and by
calculating appellant’s criminal-history score, we affirm.
FACTS
On June 4, 2021, officers attempted to apprehend appellant George Marten
Williamson based on several arrest warrants. Williamson fled in his motor vehicle, and
officers chased him with their squad cars. After driving southbound in the northbound lane
of a divided highway, Williamson crashed his vehicle and fled on foot. Officers caught
and arrested Williamson. Two bags of methamphetamine were found in his backpack.
Respondent State of Minnesota charged Williamson by complaint with: (1) fleeing
a peace officer in a motor vehicle in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.487, subd. 3 (2020);
(2) fifth-degree controlled-substance possession in violation of Minn. Stat. § 152.025,
subd. 2(1) (2020); (3) reckless driving in violation of Minn. Stat. § 169.13, subd. 1(a)
(2020); (4) careless driving in violation of Minn. Stat. § 169.13, subd. 2(a) (2020); and
(5) criminal vehicular operation in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.2113, subd. 3(1) (2020).
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On June 22, Williamson appeared with counsel for a hearing pursuant to Rule 8 of
the Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure and, although there was no agreement with the
state, he informed the district court that he would like to plead guilty to all five offenses
and that he had a written plea petition that he would file with the district court. The district
court told Williamson that it would order a presentence investigation (PSI) after he filed
the plea petition. Williamson filed the signed plea petition that same day and the district
court ordered the completion of a PSI.
On June 25, the state moved to amend the complaint, which Williamson opposed.
Williamson began completing the PSI questionnaire before the state filed the amended
complaint. At a hearing on the state’s motion to amend the complaint, the district court
noted that it had not formally accepted Williamson’s plea. The district court granted the
request to amend the complaint and told the PSI author to “put the PSI on hold”.
The amended complaint added two counts: second-degree controlled-substance
possession in violation of Minn. Stat. § 152.022, subd. 2(a)(1) (2020), and third-degree
controlled-substance possession in violation of Minn. Stat. § 152.023, subd. 2(a)(1) (2020).
Approximately one and a half years later, the case proceeded to a trial on stipulated facts.
The district court found Williamson guilty of all seven charges. Pursuant to its agreement
with Williamson preceding the stipulated-facts trial, the state dismissed all of the charges
except for fleeing an officer in a motor vehicle and second- degree controlled-substance
possession.
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Williamson challenged the use of four criminal-history points attributed to his
out-of-state convictions, but the district court determined that the four points should be
included. The district court sentenced Williamson to 92 months’ imprisonment.
Williamson appeals.
DECISION
I. The district court acted within its discretion by allowing the state to amend its
complaint.

“The district court has broad discretion to grant or deny leave to amend a complaint,
and its ruling will not be reversed absent a clear abuse of that discretion.” State v. Baxter,
686 N.W.2d 846, 850 (Minn. App. 2004).
Williamson argues that the district court abused its discretion by permitting the state
to amend its complaint, claiming that the case had moved out of pretrial proceedings
because he filed a petition to plead guilty to the original counts, and that continuing under
the amended complaint violated his right against self-incrimination. We address each
claim in turn.
Pursuant to the Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure, the state may add new
charges to a complaint if the case is in pretrial proceedings. Minn. R. Crim. P. 3.04,
subd. 2. The state may also amend a complaint “at any time before verdict or finding if no
additional or different offense is charged and if the defendant’s substantial rights are not
prejudiced.” Minn. R. Crim. P. 17.05.
Williamson argues that, by ordering a PSI after he filed the signed petition to enter
a guilty plea, the case moved out of the pretrial phase such that rule 17.05, not rule 3.04,
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applies. He focuses on the phrase “pre -sentence investigation,” and claims that the case
could not have been in the pretrial phase because PSIs guide sentencing decisions rather
than pretrial matters. But the cases on which Williamson relies all involve defendants that
had actually entered valid guilty pleas. State v. Jeffries, 806 N.W.2d 56, 59 (Minn. 2011)
(“At his plea hearing on June 13, 2008, Jeffries was arraigned, entered a guilty plea,
presented his written plea petition, placed the required waivers on the record, and testified
to the factual basis for the plea.”); State v. Bertsch, 707 N.W.2d 660, 663 (Minn. 2006)
(“On August 11, 2003, Bertsch pleaded guilty to all charges and the district court accepted
his plea.”). These cases are not persuasive.
Williamson did not enter a valid guilty plea by filing a signed plea petition because
his guilty plea was not formally accepted by the district court pursuant to the criminal rules.
See Minn. R. Crim. P. 15.01, subd. 1 (listing the requirements for a valid guilty plea in
felony cases, including that the defendant be “sworn and questioned by the judge with the
assistance of counsel”). Accordingly, Williamson’s case was still in the pretrial phase
when the state sought to amend its complaint, and so the state was permitted—pursuant to
the Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure—to add charges. The district court, therefore,
acted within its discretion by permitting the state to amend its complaint.
Williamson also claims that the district court abused its discretion by allowing the
state to amend the complaint because he had made self-incriminating statements when
providing answers in a PSI questionnaire, which he completed prior to the filing of the
amended complaint.
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The Fifth Amendment, applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment,
provides that no person “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against
himself[.]” U.S. Const. amend. V; see also Minn. Const. art. I, § 7.
[S]tatements, made by a defendant for a presentence
investigation report ordered by the court as part of the
proceedings to determine whether or not the plea agreement
will be accepted, are inadmissible in a subsequent trial after the
guilty plea is withdrawn, whether offered as substantive
evidence or for impeachment purposes.

State v. Jackson, 325 N.W.2d 819, 823-24 (Minn. 1982). Thus, because Williamson’s case
proceeded to a stipulated-facts trial after he completed the PSI questionnaire, the statements
within the PSI questionnaire could not be used to determine his guilt.
The record shows , moreover, that the district court was not provided with
Williamson’s questionnaire and so it therefore could not have considered its contents in
determining Williamson’s guilt. Williamson acknowledged that the questionnaire was not
included in the evidence that the district court considered during his stipulated-facts trial
and the statements were not disclosed to the district court. Because there is no indication
that the district court considered Williamson’s statements within the questionnaire,
allowing the state to amend the complaint did not prejudice Williamson in this manner.
II. The district court acted within its discretion when calculating Williamson’s
criminal-history score.

We review a district court’s determination of a defendant’s criminal -history score
for an abuse of discretion. State v. Edwards, 900 N.W.2d 722, 727 (Minn. App. 2017),
aff’d mem., 909 N.W.2d 594 (Minn. 2018). Interpretation of the sentencing guidelines,
however, is reviewed de novo. State v. Scovel, 916 N.W.2d 550, 554 (Minn. 2018).
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Williamson argues that, in calculating his criminal-history score, his four Nebraska
convictions should accrue only two criminal-history points, rather than the four points
recommended in the sentencing worksheet and calculated by the district court.
Pursuant to the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines, “When multiple offenses arising
from a single course of conduct involving multiple victims were sentenced, include in
criminal history only the weights from the two offenses at the highest severity levels.”
Minn. Sent’g Guidelines 2.B.1.d.2 (2020). To determine whether offenses occurred during
a single course of conduct, district courts consider “time, place, and whether the offenses
were motivated by a desire to obtain a single criminal objective.” State v. Drljic, 876
N.W.2d 350, 353 (Minn. App. 2016).
The record shows that two of the Nebraska burglaries occurred on May 1, 2009, and
the other two occurred on May 3. Each of the four locations that were burglarized had
different addresses, and each of the businesses had its own distinct business name. See id.
(concluding that burglaries within a single building were not part of a single course of
conduct, in part, because “[e]ach of the three businesses had its own address and was owned
and operated separately”). Because Williamson burglarized distinct businesses , with
distinct addresses, at different times, and because there is no apparent unifying criminal
goal aside from obtaining money and personal property, they were not part of the same
behavioral act. The district court, therefore, acted within its discretion by calculating
Williamson’s criminal-history score to include four points from the Nebraska burglaries.
Williamson argues that Wooden v. United States, 595 U.S. 360 (2022), “draws into
question whether Drljic is still good law.” We are not persuaded. Wooden applies the
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same multi-factor test that examines time, proximity, and criminal motive as set forth in
Drljic to determine whether offenses are part of the same behavioral act. The
distinguishing fact between the two cases is that the appellant in Wooden had burglarized
a series of abutting storage units, while the appellant in Drljic had burglarized different
businesses with different addresses . In short, Wooden does not change the analysis we
must apply to consider whether a series of offenses were part of a single course of conduct.
And, because the district court properly considered the time, place, and objective associated
with Williamson’s prior convictions, Drljic, 876 N.W.2d at 353, it acted within its
discretion when calculating Williamson’s criminal-history score.
Affirmed.