Edbert Neal Williams v. State of Minnesota

STATE OF MINNESOTA

IN SUPREME COURT

A23-0851

Ramsey County Anderson, J.
Took no part, Thissen, J.
Edbert Neal Williams,

Appellant,

vs. Filed: April 24, 2024
Office of Appellate Courts
State of Minnesota,

Respondent.

________________________

Zachary A. Longsdorf, Longsdorf Law Firm, PLC, Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, for
appellant.

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, Saint Paul, Minnesota; and

John J. Choi, Ramsey County Attorney, Alexandra Meyer, Assistant Ramsey County
Attorney, Saint Paul, Minnesota, for respondent.

________________________

SYLLABUS

1. The district court did not abuse its discretion by denying the appellant’s

petition for postconviction relief because the petition was time-barred, and the evidence

proffered under the newly-discovered-evidence exception failed to establish, by a clear and

convincing standard, that the appellant is innocent.

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 2. The district court did not abuse its discretion by denying the petition for

postconviction relief because appellant did not establish that the interests of justice require

a new trial.

Affirmed.

OPINION

ANDERSON, Justice.

Appellant Edbert Neal Williams was convicted of first-degree murder and

first-degree attempted murder in the death of Genelda Campeau and the attack on her adult

granddaughter, S.C. Williams was sentenced to life in prison for murder and received a

180-month consecutive sentence for attempted murder. He appealed, and we affirmed his

convictions. State v. Williams (Williams I), 593 N.W.2d 227 (Minn. 1999).

In this postconviction proceeding, Williams seeks a new trial or an evidentiary

hearing based on new DNA evidence not available at the time of trial. Williams asserts

the DNA evidence exonerates him and implicates an alternative perpetrator. Williams,

whose postconviction petition was summarily rejected by the district court, claims that his

appeal satisfies either the newly-discovered-evidence or the interests-of-justice exceptions

to the 2-year time limit for postconviction relief petitions established in Minnesota Statutes

section 590.01, subdivisions 4(b)(2) and 4(b)(5) (2022). The State counters that the

evidence does not satisfy the newly-discovered-evidence exception because it is not

exculpatory and that Williams did not establish that the interests of justice require a new

trial.

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 Because we agree with the State that Williams has not met the clear and convincing

standard required to satisfy the newly-discovered-evidence exception, and because

Williams cannot show that the interests of justice require a new trial, we affirm.

FACTS

The facts underlying the crime are fully set out in our decision in the original appeal.

See Williams I, 593 N.W.2d at 229–32. To briefly summarize as relevant to this

postconviction proceeding: in January 1996, Genelda Campeau and her granddaughter,

S.C., were attacked and stabbed at Genelda’s home; 1 Genelda died, but S.C. survived.

Edbert Neal Williams was S.C.’s former boyfriend and the two shared a child together.

Williams had visited the Campeau household that night to see his child with S.C. S.C.

claimed that Williams had visited earlier in the day, returned, and then became increasingly

agitated and threatened to take the child away from the home. Williams stabbed Genelda

when S.C. was briefly in another room; S.C. returned and witnessed Williams continuing

his attack. S.C. testified Williams then stabbed her. A passerby observed S.C. in a struggle

with Williams outside Genelda’s home and heard S.C. yelling that Williams had killed

Genelda. The witness also testified to hearing Williams threaten to kill S.C.

The limited forensic testing available in 1996 confirmed only that Genelda’s DNA

was found in the blood spatter samples from two items police found in the kitchen of

Genelda’s home: a broken knife blade and a man’s athletic sock containing the knife

handle. These items, however—the ostensible murder weapon—could not be linked to

1
Consistent with Williams I and to avoid confusion with S.C., we will refer to the
grandmother by her first name.

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Williams through forensic evidence. Although police photographed a blood-like substance

on Williams’s hands when he was apprehended in a nearby alleyway on the night of the

crime, no DNA testing was performed on this substance.

Based on the testimony of S.C., the passerby, and a jailhouse informant who stated

that Williams had confessed his guilt to him, Williams was found guilty by a jury and

convicted. Williams filed multiple postconviction relief petitions. In 2005, the first of

these petitions reached our court. The jailhouse informant who testified that Williams had

confessed to the murder provided an affidavit recanting his trial testimony and alleging a

conspiracy to frame Williams, but then recanted that affidavit, claiming that he had only

disavowed his trial testimony due to threats from fellow prisoners. Williams v. State

(Williams II), 692 N.W.2d 893, 895 (Minn. 2005). We affirmed the denial of this first

postconviction petition because assertions in the affidavit were grounded on hearsay

evidence and because, setting aside issues regarding the reliability of the informant’s

testimony or his recantations, his testimony in the original trial was not essential to the

conviction. Id. at 896–97. The eyewitness testimony of two witnesses, S.C. (who

identified Williams as the person who stabbed her) and the passerby, as well as the lack of

evidence of an alternative perpetrator, supported the denial of the petition for

postconviction relief.

Williams filed a second postconviction petition that reached our court in 2015. In

that petition, he alleged multiple grounds for relief and, as relevant here, ineffective

assistance of trial and appellate counsel because both attorneys failed to sufficiently pursue

an alternative-perpetrator defense. Williams v. State (Williams III), 869 N.W.2d 316,

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317–18 (Minn. 2015). We concluded that those claims were barred because they were

known to Williams but not raised in earlier proceedings. Id.; see also State v. Knaffla,

243 N.W.2d 737 (Minn. 1976). We also rejected his claim that mental illness prevented

him from timely making his claims, concluding that he was sufficiently competent to

pursue multiple prior appeals and petitions, and rejected his claim that the interests of

justice also justified disregarding the Knaffla bar. Williams III, 869 N.W.2d at 319.

In 2019, Williams filed a motion under Minnesota Statutes section 590.01,

subdivision 1a (2022), seeking forensic testing of evidence from the 1996 crime scene.

Although DNA testing at the time of trial was unable to connect the DNA evidence to a

perpetrator, advances in contemporary DNA testing meant that the limited samples

available were now sufficient to yield more definitive results. The district court granted

the motion, and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (“BCA”) analyzed evidence that it

had retained from the crime scene, including the knife blade, the sock that contained the

handle of the knife, and the shoes Williams wore on the night of the crime. The BCA

released three reports in August 2020, September 2020, and November 2022, and a private

lab Williams hired released one report in October 2022. Williams asserts that these reports

corroborate his claims that he was not at the scene of the crime when it occurred and that

an alternative perpetrator killed Genelda.

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 August 2020 BCA Report

The August 2020 BCA report included results from the BCA’s DNA testing and

analysis of the knife blade, two samples taken from Williams’s shoes, 2 and two samples

taken from the sock. 3 The knife blade did not have sufficient genetic information to

generate results at the time of testing.

The first shoe sample contained a mixture of DNA from three or more individuals

from which S.C. was excluded as a contributor, but Genelda and Williams could not be

excluded. The second shoe sample contained a mixture of DNA from three or more

individuals, with a major profile match for Genelda, not S.C. or Williams. But the mixture

contained insufficient genetic information for further analysis of the minor profiles.

Two samples from the sock were tested and each contained a mixture of DNA from

two or more individuals. The major profile matched Genelda, not S.C. or Williams. There

was insufficient genetic information to analyze other contributors to the DNA mixture

beyond the major profile. The BCA also did Y-chromosomal DNA analysis. 4 While

Y-chromosomal DNA from the sock samples showed that Williams was not a match for

the major Y-chromosomal profile, at the time the BCA did not have an approved method

of testing minor Y-chromosomal DNA profiles. Therefore, although the BCA concluded

2
The two samples taken from the shoes Williams was wearing on the day of the
murder were labeled 6-1 and 6-2 by the BCA.
3
The two 1996 samples taken from the sock that contained the knife handle were
labeled 11-1 and 11-2 by the BCA.
4
Y-chromosomal DNA analysis, as implied by its name, specifically identifies male
contributors to traces of DNA.

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the major male DNA profile on the sock did not match Williams, it was unable to test

whether his DNA matched the minor profiles.

September 2020 BCA Report

Additional testing by the BCA in September 2020 included a third, new sample

taken from the sock. 5 This third sample contained a mixture of DNA from four or more

individuals, and Genelda and Williams could not be excluded as contributors. Although

Y-chromosome testing showed a mixture of DNA from three or more male individuals, no

further analysis of the contributors to the Y-chromosomal mixture of DNA was possible,

consistent with the August 2020 report.

Williams, noting the presence of unidentified male DNA profiles on the sock

sample, sought to connect the evidence to S.C.’s boyfriend at the time of the crimes: G.B.

At trial, Williams had sought to question S.C. about her relationship with G.B. and to

implicate him. Williams I, 593 N.W.2d at 232. But at the time of trial, Williams was

unable to pursue the alternative-perpetrator theory focusing on G.B. because no evidence

connected G.B. to the crime scene. Id. at 232–33. As part of the proceedings connected

to Williams’s present petition, G.B. was asked to provide a DNA sample; he declined to

do so. G.B. was also identified by the recanted affidavit in Williams II as the guilty party

in S.C.’s stabbing and Genelda’s death. 692 N.W.2d at 895–96.

5
The new sample taken from the sock was labeled 11-A by the BCA.

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 October 2022 Private Lab Report

In October 2022, a private lab retained by Williams analyzed test data only from the

knife blade and the second sock sample. The private lab’s analysis showed that these two

samples were highly unlikely to contain DNA from Williams.

November 2022 BCA Report

The State then requested that the BCA re-examine its 2020 report data. The BCA

finished its report in November 2022, and it examined a wider swath of evidence than the

private lab. It not only re-analyzed the same samples as the private lab—the knife blade

and the second sock sample—but also re-analyzed the shoe samples and all the sock

samples. As in the 2020 tests, the knife blade did not contain sufficient genetic information

to generate results at that time.

Analysis of the first shoe sample yielded new results. The BCA determined that the

sample had potentially been contaminated by a BCA employee in 1996, explaining the

inconclusive initial test results in August 2020. But the second shoe sample yielded results

consistent with the 2020 report; it contained a mixture of DNA from three or more

individuals with a major DNA profile matching Genelda. The BCA was able to analyze

the minor profiles, which was beyond the capabilities of the BCA in 2020. As a result, the

BCA identified Williams as a potential contributor to the DNA mixture gathered from the

second shoe sample.

The first sock sample contained one female DNA profile matching Genelda, like the

2020 results. Consistent with the 2020 results, the second sock sample contained a mixture

of DNA from two or more individuals, and the major female profile again matched

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Genelda. Like the 2020 analysis, due to insufficient genetic information, no conclusion

could be made concerning an additional male contributor present in the DNA mixture. Put

another way, neither the private DNA testing conducted by Williams, nor the BCA DNA

testing, linked the second sock sample to Williams.

But new testing by the BCA on the third sock sample yielded results adverse to the

claims of innocence by Williams. The third sock sample (tested for the first time as part

of these postconviction proceedings, 24 years after the trial) was determined to contain a

mixture of DNA from four individuals. The BCA concluded that neither Genelda nor

Williams could be excluded as contributors. In addition, the BCA noted that “[t]he

probability of observing this DNA profile is 56 thousand times more likely if Edbert Neal

Williams and three unknown, unrelated individuals are the source than if four unknown,

unrelated individuals are the source.” It also concluded that “[t]he probability of observing

this DNA profile is greater than 100 billion times more likely if Genelda L. Campeau,

Edbert Neal Williams, and two unknown, unrelated individuals are the source than if four

unknown, unrelated individuals are the source.”

Despite the 2022 BCA analysis both identifying Genelda’s DNA on Williams’s shoe

and pointing to Williams as a contributor to the DNA mixture found on the sock, Williams

filed a petition for postconviction relief. Williams argued, based on the 2020 BCA reports

and the private lab report, that he could be excluded as a contributor to the DNA found on

the socks and that S.C. was excluded as a contributor to DNA on the knife that she testified

was used to stab her. The district court summarily denied his petition. The court concluded

that Williams’s petition was barred by the 2-year time limit for postconviction relief

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petitions set out in Minnesota Statutes section 590.01, subdivision 4(a) (2022), and that

neither the newly-discovered-evidence exception nor the interests-of-justice exception to

the time bar applied.

The newly-discovered-evidence exception requires that evidence proffered in a

postconviction relief petition establish “by a clear and convincing standard” that the

petitioner is innocent, and the district court concluded that Williams failed to establish his

innocence. Minn. Stat. § 590.01, subd. 4(b)(2). Additionally, if Williams did meet that

standard, the court held he would still have to meet the test established by our court in

Rainer v. State, which, among other things, requires new evidence to “probably produce

an acquittal or a more favorable result.” 566 N.W.2d 692, 695 (Minn. 1997). According

to the district court, Williams also failed the Rainer test.

The interests-of-justice exception permits an otherwise time-barred postconviction

relief petition to be granted when “the petitioner establishes to the satisfaction of the court

that the petition is not frivolous and is in the interests of justice.” Minn. Stat. § 590.01,

subd. 4(b)(5). Williams claimed that his history of mental illness, resulting in periods of

involuntary commitment, in addition to findings that he lacked the capacity to make

decisions regarding his use of medications, satisfied the interests-of-justice requirements.

But the district court, citing Williams III, noted that similar arguments had previously

been rejected. In Williams III, Williams claimed he had been unable to raise an

ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim in his first petition in 2003 because of mental

illness. Williams III, 869 N.W.2d at 319. And here, similarly, Williams had demonstrated

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in the past his ability to file direct appeals and multiple petitions for postconviction relief,

thus leading to the district court rejecting his mental illness argument.

Williams now argues that the district court erred by summarily rejecting his petition

for postconviction relief. In particular, he claims that the court erred by (1) finding that the

new evidence he presents with his petition does not prove, by a clear and convincing

standard, that he is innocent of the murder of Genelda Campeau and attempted murder of

S.C., and (2) rejecting his argument that he is entitled to relief based on his petition in the

interests of justice because of his history of mental illness.

ANALYSIS

“This court reviews a district court’s summary denial of a postconviction petition

for an abuse of discretion.” Munt v. State, 984 N.W.2d 242, 249 (Minn. 2023). Both

parties agree that Williams must meet one of the two exceptions to the 2-year time bar for

postconviction proceedings—for newly discovered evidence or in the interests of justice.

Both parties also agree that Williams acted within 2 years after receiving the additional

testing results.

I.

We turn first to the claim of Williams that newly discovered evidence establishes

that he is innocent, and that this evidence meets the clear and convincing standard required

by the postconviction statute. For the reasons noted below, we are not persuaded on either

score.

To prevail under the newly-discovered-evidence provision in subdivision 4(b)(2),

Williams must (1) allege the existence of newly discovered evidence that (2) could not

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have been discovered through due diligence by the petitioner or the petitioner’s attorney

within the 2-year postconviction petition time limit, (3) is not cumulative to evidence

presented at trial, (4) is not for impeachment purposes, and (5) establishes “by a clear and

convincing standard” that he is innocent of the offenses for which he was convicted. Minn.

Stat. § 590.01, subd. 4(b)(2).

Both parties agree that the DNA reports meet the first four requirements but dispute

whether the “clear and convincing” exoneration requirement is met here. Our case law

establishes that the new evidence should “render[] it more likely than not that no reasonable

jury would convict.” Riley v. State, 819 N.W.2d 162, 170 (Minn. 2012). We must also

accept the evidence the petitioner presents, evaluating then whether the evidence

“demonstrate[s] the petitioner’s innocence by a clear and convincing standard.”

Henderson v. State, 906 N.W.2d 501, 507 (Minn. 2018). To determine whether the district

court erred in summarily dismissing the postconviction petition, we are not free to judge

either the credibility or the methodology of these reports. Id. We need not, however,

accept the interpretation of the report offered by Williams or his preferred narrative of the

events that he claims is supported by the reports. See id. at 508.

The evidence advanced by Williams falls well short of establishing error on the part

of the district court in summarily dismissing the petition. Williams relies here, in part,

upon the factual allegations contained in the recanted affidavit of Williams II despite our

determination that the affidavit was no longer credible. See Williams II, 692 N.W.2d at

897. As to the DNA evidence, the private lab report indicates that the second sock sample

does not contain his DNA. It also excludes him as a contributor to the knife blade. But,

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critically, DNA evidence from those items was not used to convict him in 1996—the

science of DNA had not advanced sufficiently at that time to report meaningful results on

these tested items. More importantly, Williams does not explain why, if he is guilty, we

should expect his DNA to be present. Put another way, assuming that he did in fact hold

the knife handle found in the sock and stab the victims, he offers no explanation as to why

the absence of his DNA is clear and convincing evidence of his innocence. No testimony

ever showed that Williams was cut by the blade. And he advances no reason as to why the

absence of his DNA on the knife blade is significant, given that a knife is not generally

held by the blade.

Additionally, with the context provided by the reports from the BCA, we can see

that Williams is not fully exonerated as a contributor of important DNA evidence. The

BCA (as well as the private lab) found Genelda’s DNA on the second sock sample. The

BCA could not exclude Genelda or Williams as contributors to the DNA mixture from the

third sock sample—and the BCA report shows, in fact, that Williams probably did leave

DNA on the sock holding the likely murder weapon. Furthermore, the discovery of

Genelda’s DNA on Williams’s shoes undercuts the credibility of his petition for

postconviction relief, and particularly so, given his repeated claims that he only arrived at

the home after Genelda was killed. He does not explain why her DNA would be on the

shoes that he wore in the Campeau household. Importantly, this is entirely new evidence

incriminating Williams because this evidence was not possible to analyze in 1996. Rather

than bolstering the claim of innocence, the new DNA evidence provides some additional

support for the jury verdict that Williams was guilty of the charge of murder.

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 Williams makes much of the fact that the DNA of other males is present on the sock

discovered at the crime scene. The police, in the 1996 investigation, were unable to trace

the origins of the sock and failed to find a match in Williams’s home. As the State notes,

with a sock of unknown provenance, it is impossible to identify with any certainty the

origins of any unidentified DNA. Williams additionally claims that, because the August

2020 BCA report mentions testing of “the blood previously indicated on” the samples, the

DNA analysis must have come from blood left on the sock. The report does not so state

and, additionally, the subsequent 2022 report only mentions blood as analyzed on the knife

blade, and the rest of the items are not indicated as having blood residue. These potential

inconsistencies do not establish what Williams claims here—that “unknown male DNA”

on the socks must be blood from other men at the crime scene. Williams also does not

explain why the probable murderer would have left his blood on the sock holding the knife

when, again, no testimony claims that the assailant left his blood on either the knife or the

sock.

More importantly, the BCA report from 2022 states that Williams cannot, in fact,

be excluded as a contributor to the DNA mixture from the third sock sample. Williams,

who we now know had Genelda’s DNA on one of his shoes that were at the crime scene,

may very well have touched the sock holding the murder weapon based on the results from

the third sock sample. None of this information was known or available in 1996.

None of the additional testing meets the clear and convincing standard for newly

discovered evidence and, in fact, some of the additional testing points towards Williams as

the perpetrator rather than excludes him. Beyond the DNA evidence presented here,

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however, the testimony of two witnesses, S.C. and the passerby who witnessed S.C.

fighting with Williams and also testified that Williams threatened to kill S.C. directly,

identifies Williams as present on the scene and a participant in the murder and attempted

murder.

Williams also argues that the district court misapplied the requirements of the

newly-discovered-evidence exception because the court did not accept his theories, based

on the DNA reports, of what transpired when Genelda was killed and S.C. was seriously

wounded; in other words, the district court erred because it did not accept the inferences

he drew from the reports. But as we stated in Henderson, a district court must accept the

evidence as true when summarily denying relief. 906 N.W.2d at 506–07. What Williams

claims in addition to the evidence supplied, however, is not evidence itself; the court need

only weigh whatever factual allegations the petitioner makes with all other available

evidence to determine whether the petitioner has demonstrated innocence by a clear and

convincing standard. Id. at 508. Williams cites to Ferguson v. State, 645 N.W.2d 437, 446

(Minn. 2002), to bolster his argument. That decision, however, refers to the Larrison test,

dealing with recantation of trial testimony and evidence required to meet that test when

seeking a new trial, or to newly discovered evidence of false trial testimony. See Tichich

v. State, 4 N.W.3d 114, 120–121 (Minn. 2024). It therefore is of no help to him. 6

6
The Larrison test, derived from Larrison v. United States, 24 F.2d 82, 87–88 (7th
Cir. 1928), overruled by United States v. Mitrione, 357 F.3d 712, 718 (7th Cir. 2004), is a
three-prong test used “to determine whether a petition for postconviction relief warrants a
new trial based on recantation of trial testimony.” State v. Turnage, 729 N.W.2d 593, 597
(Minn. 2007). The court must be “reasonably well-satisfied” that (1) a material witness

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 Even if we accept the possibility that some of the new test results are ambiguous

or unclear, or even marginally beneficial to Williams, none of those results demonstrate,

by a clear and convincing standard, that he is innocent in the murder of Genelda and

attempted murder of S.C. 7 He therefore cannot meet the requirement of the

newly-discovered-evidence exception, and accordingly is not entitled to the 2-year time

bar exception provided by section 590.01, subdivision 4(b)(2). As a result, the district

court did not abuse its discretion in summarily denying Williams’s postconviction petition.

II.

Williams also claims he is entitled to relief based on the interests-of-justice

exception because his mental illness prevented him from timely filing his petition.

This exception, found in Minnesota Statutes section 590.01, subdivision 4(b)(5),

provides that the 2-year time bar does not apply in circumstances in which “the petitioner

establishes to the satisfaction of the court that the petition is not frivolous and is in the

interests of justice.” In this case, the State argued, and the district court agreed, that

granting the petition was not in the interests of justice. The interests of justice are only

implicated in “exceptional and extraordinary situations,” creating a high standard for

gave false testimony; (2) the jury might have reached a different conclusion without that
testimony; and (3) the party seeking a new trial was surprised by the false testimony and
“was unable to meet it or did not know of its falsity until after the trial.” Id. (quoting
Williams II, 692 N.W.2d at 896).
7
Although the district court additionally determined that Williams could not satisfy
the Rainer test for entitlement to a new trial, we need not reach that issue here. Williams
fails in the first instance to meet the standard required by the newly-discovered-evidence
exception.

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petitions to meet. Carlton v. State, 816 N.W.2d 590, 607 (Minn. 2012) (internal citation

omitted). When a petitioner claims that a delay in filing a petition for postconviction relief

is excused for some reason, we consider whether some injustice has prevented a timely

filing. Sanchez v. State, 816 N.W.2d 550, 557 (Minn. 2012). An interests-of-justice

exception claim must therefore allege an injustice “related to a delay in filing a petition,

not an injustice related to the substance of a petition.” Blanche v. State, 988 N.W.2d 486,

492 (Minn. 2023).

Neither an injustice nor a challenge to the integrity of the proceedings is presented

here. Williams claims that his mental illness prevented him from filing a timely

postconviction relief petition. He claims to have been the subject of 14 civil commitment

petitions, 13 of which were initiated by the State during his incarceration for the

convictions at issue here, and that due to limited mental capacity, he cannot identify and

raise issues without the assistance of counsel.

As the district court here rightly noted, Williams made these same claims in earlier

proceedings, including to the district court in Williams III. See Williams III, 869 N.W.2d

at 319 n.4. The district court here detailed the reasons why his arguments did not suffice

over a decade ago, and Williams makes no argument as to why a different outcome should

result today. It is still true, as it was then, that Williams has been sufficiently competent to

file his direct appeal from his conviction, postconviction petitions, and appeals from

postconviction petitions. He does not explain why he was able to pursue those claims and

yet was unable to timely file this petition. We found in Williams III, when we affirmed the

17
district court’s order denying relief, that no evidence supported his claim that mental illness

prevented him from pursuing relief. We do the same today. 869 N.W.2d at 319.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the order of the district court denying the

petition and evidentiary hearing.

Affirmed.

THISSEN, J., took no part in the decision of this case.

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