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This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A24-0896

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Claude Michael McGriff,
Appellant.

Filed April 7, 2025
Affirmed
Ede, Judge

Steele County District Court
File No. 74-CR-23-1768

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

Robert J. Jarrett, Steele County Attorney, Aaron D. Pulanco, Campbell R. Housh, Assistant
County Attorneys, Owatonna, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Amy Lawler, Assistant Public
Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Ede, Presiding Judge; Harris, Judge; and Florey, 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NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
EDE, Judge
In this direct appeal following a conviction of refusal to submit to chemical testing,
appellant argues that he should be permitted to withdraw his guilty plea because it lacked
a proper factual basis and was therefore inaccurate. We affirm.
FACTS
Respondent State of Minnesota charged appellant Claude Michael McGriff with:
driving while under the influence of alcohol, in violation of Minnesota Statutes section
169A.20, subdivision 1(1) (2022); refusal to submit to a chemical breath test, in violation
of Minnesota Statutes section 169A.20, subdivision 2(1) (2022); and driving after
cancellation-inimical to public safety, in violation of Minnesota Statutes section 171.24,
subdivision 5 (2022). McGriff pleaded guilty to the test-refusal offense, and the district
court accepted McGriff’s plea. The state agreed to dismiss the other two charges. The
following summarizes the facts McGriff admitted during the hearing at which he pleaded
guilty.
In November 2023, police officers discovered McGriff sleeping while seated behind
the steering wheel of his vehicle at a fast-food restaurant. Officers observed an open bottle
in plain sight in the vehicle’s passenger compartment. The bottle contained liquor. McGriff
was detained and transported to jail, where an officer read him an advisory about obtaining
a chemical test of his breath. The officer asked McGriff to provide a breath sample.
McGriff refused.
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McGriff received a 36 -month stayed prison sentence and the district court placed
him on supervised probation. This appeal follows.
DECISION
McGriff challenges the validity of his guilty plea, arguing that the plea was
inaccurate because it lacked a proper factual basis.
A defendant may challenge the constitutional validity of a guilty plea for the first
time on direct appeal. See Brown v. State, 449 N.W.2d 180, 182 (Minn. 1989). “To be
constitutionally valid, a guilty plea must be accurate, voluntary, and intelligent.” State v.
Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d 90, 94 (Minn. 2010). “ A defendant bears the burden of showing his
plea was invalid.” Id. “Assessing the validity of a plea presents a question of law that
[appellate courts] review de novo.” Id.
“For a guilty plea to be accurate, it must be supported by a proper factual basis.”
State v. Jones, 7 N.W.3d 391, 396 (Minn. 2024). This requirement is satisfied when “the
record contains sufficient evidence to support a conclusion that the defendant is guilty of
at least as great a crime as that to which he pled guilty.” Id. “Even if an element to an
offense is not verbalized by the defendant, a district court may nevertheless draw inferences
from the facts admitted to by the defendant.” Rosendahl v. State, 955 N.W.2d 294, 299
(Minn. App. 2021) (alteration in original).
McGriff contends that his guilty plea is inaccurate because he did not sufficiently
admit to a key element of the test-refusal crime. He points to the fact that, during the plea
colloquy, he was neither asked whether anyone read the breath-test advisory to him nor
whether anyone advised him per the requirements of Minnesota Statutes section 169A.51
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(2022), which governs drivers’ implied consent to chemical tests for intoxication. McGriff
asserts the district court simply “announced” that an officer read him the breath-test
advisory but did not ask him whether the advisory had, in fact, been read to him. He also
maintains that it was unclear from the district court’s questioning “what ‘refused’ meant,”
that he was not asked how he refused to take the breath test, and that the court did not
inquire about the reason for his refusal, e.g., whether it was because he wanted to speak to
an attorney. McGriff’s challenges to the validity of the factual basis for his plea require
that we consider the elements of the test-refusal offense.
Any person who drives, operates, or is in physical control of a motor vehicle within
the state consents to a chemical test of their blood, breath, or urine “for the purpose of
determining the presence of alcohol.” Minn. Stat. § 169A.51, subd. 1. Section 169A.51
provides several circumstances in which a chemical test may be required, including “when
an officer has probable cause to believe the person was driving, operating, or in physical
control of a motor vehicle” while under the influence of alcohol and the person has refused
to take a preliminary screening test. Id., subd. 1(b)(3). And “[i]t is a crime for any person
to refuse to submit to a chemical test . . . of the person’s breath under section 169A.51
. . . .” Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 2(1).
“At the time a breath test is requested,” law enforcement must administer the breath-
test advisory. Minn. Stat. § 169A.51, subd. 2. That advisory informs a person suspected of
driving under the influence of alcohol: (1) “that Minnesota law requires [them] to take a
test . . . to determine if [they are] under the influence of alcohol”; (2) “that refusal to submit
to a breath test is a crime”; and (3) “that [they have] the right to consult an attorney, but
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that this right is limited to the extent that it cannot unreasonably delay administration of
the test.” Id. To sustain a conviction for refusing to submit to chemical testing under
Minnesota Statutes section 169A.20, subdivision 2(1) (2022), “[a]ctual unwillingness to
submit to testing must be proved.” State v. Ferrier, 792 N.W.2d 98, 101 (Minn. App. 2010),
rev. denied (Minn. Mar. 15, 2011).
The district court engaged in the following colloquy with McGriff regarding his
refusal:
DISTRICT COURT: Okay. And it also appears that, based on
the officer’s observations, he did take you to the detention
center, and he read you what we call the implied-consent
advisory. Do you remember the officer telling you that you had
the opportunity to consult with a lawyer before you decided
whether or not you were going to proceed with testing there at
the jail?
MCGRIFF: Yes, at the jail, that’s correct.
DISTRICT COURT: And after you got that advisory, did you
then refuse to take the test that the officer requested?
MCGRIFF: That’s correct, yes.

We conclude that McGriff’s testimony provided an adequate factual basis for the
reasonable inference that McGriff was unwilling to submit to chemical testing after
receiving the entire breath-test advisory. See Rosendahl, 955 N.W.2d at 299. As noted
above, the district court asked McGriff if he remembered the officer telling him that he had
the opportunity to consult with a lawyer before deciding whether to proceed with the breath
test. McGriff answered, “Yes, at the jail, that’s correct.” And when the district court asked
McGriff if he refused to take the breath test after he “got that advisory,” McGriff
responded: “That’s correct, yes.” At no point during the plea hearing did McGriff provide
testimony that contradicted an essential element of the charged offense. This is unlike State
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v. Mikulak, in which the defendant’s “statements negated the mens rea element of the
charged offense” and the Minnesota Supreme Court consequently held that “the factual
basis fail[ed] to satisfy the accuracy requirement.” 903 N.W.2d 600, 605 (Minn. 2017).
Instead, the facts to which McGriff admitted support the reasonable inference that he
refused to submit to chemical testing after the officer read him the entire breath-test
advisory. See Rosendahl, 955 N.W.2d at 299.
McGriff also argues that the district court’s use of leading questions invalidated his
guilty plea. We disagree. “The district court typically satisfies the factual basis requirement
by asking the defendant to express in his own words what happened.” Jones, 7 N.W.3d at
396 (quoting Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d at 94). Although the Minnesota Supreme Court has
cautioned that courts “should be particularly wary of situations in which the factual basis
is established by asking a defendant only leading questions,” Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d at 94,
it has never held that the use of leading questions automatically invalidates a guilty plea,
Jones, 7 N.W.3d at 396.
Given the record before us, we conclude that McGriff has not met his burden to
show that his plea lacked a proper factual basis and was inaccurate.
Affirmed.