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This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A24-1396

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Joseph Harrison Baynes,
Appellant.

Filed May 5, 2025
Affirmed
Worke, Judge

Dakota County District Court
File No. 19HA-CR-23-1240

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

Kathryn M. Keena, Dakota County Attorney, Evan Frazier, Assistant County Attorney,
Hastings, Minnesota (for respondent)

Joseph G. Vaccaro, The Law Office of Joseph G. Vaccaro, St. Paul, Minnesota (for
appellant)

Considered and decided by Connolly, Presiding Judge; Worke, Judge; and
Wheelock, Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
WORKE, Judge
Appellant challenges the district court’s declaration of a mistrial and argues that a
retrial is barred by the Double Jeopardy Clauses of the United States and Minnesota
Constitutions. Because we conclude that the mistrial was manifestly necessary, we affirm.
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FACTS
In April 2023, a district court issued an order for protection (OFP) prohibiting
appellant Joseph Harrison Baynes from contacting S.U. In June 2023, S.U. reported to
police that Baynes had violated the OFP by contacting her and threatening her with
violence.
Respondent State of Minnesota charged Baynes with harassment (felony stalking)
in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.749, subd. 5(a) (2022). The case proceeded to a jury trial.
At the close of the state’s case-in-chief, Baynes moved for a judgment of acquittal. The
district court denied the motion and submitted the case to the jury. The jury was unable to
reach a unanimous verdict. Over Baynes’s objection, the district court declared a mistrial
and set a new trial date.
Prior to the new trial, the state amended the complaint to include charges of violating
an OFP in violation of Minn. Stat. § 518B.01, subd. 14(a) (2022), and threats of violence
in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.713, subd. 1 (2022). Baynes moved to dismiss the
OFP-violation charges, arguing that the OFP was not properly served and had expired
before he allegedly violated its provisions. The district court concluded that Baynes was
correct and granted the motion. The district court denied Baynes’s motion to reconsider
its denial of his motion for a judgment of acquittal.
Baynes then filed a motion to prohibit retrial based on double jeopardy. He argued
that, because the OFP expired before he allegedly contacted S.U., the state’s case in the
first trial was legally insufficient, the mistrial was therefore not manifestly necessary, and
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so retrial was precluded by constitutional double-jeopardy protections. The district court
denied the motion. This appeal followed.
DECISION
Baynes argues that the district court’s mistrial declaration was not manifestly
necessary and that his retrial violates double-jeopardy protections. The Double Jeopardy
Clauses of the United States and Minnesota Constitutions “protect a criminal defendant
from three distinct abuses: a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal; a
second prosecution for the same offense after conviction; and multiple punishments for the
same offense.” State v. Humes , 581 N.W.2d 317, 320 (Minn. 1998). “Jeopardy attaches
in a jury trial when the jury is empaneled and sworn.” State v. Leroy, 604 N.W.2d 75, 77
(Minn. 1999). When a district court declares a mistrial “because of manifest necessity,
retrial is normally not barred because the original jeopardy has not terminated.” State v.
Large, 607 N.W.2d 774, 779 (Minn. 2000). A hung jury is the “classic basis of manifest
necessity.” Id. (quoting Arizona v. Washington, 434 U.S. 497, 509 (1978)). “[W]hen a
mistrial is declared without the defendant’s consent, the manifest necessity standard
controls.” State v. Long, 562 N.W.2d 292, 296 (Minn. 1997) (quotation omitted). We
review double-jeopardy challenges de novo. Large, 607 N.W.2d at 778.
Baynes argues that a mistrial declaration was not manifestly necessary because the
state’s evidence at his first trial was legally insufficient. To support his argument, Baynes
relies on the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1
(1978). In Burks, an appellate court reversed the defendant’s conviction after concluding
that the evidence was insufficient to sustain it and remanded to the district court to
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determine whether to order a new trial. 437 U.S. at 4. But the Supreme Court reversed the
court of appeals, holding that “the Double Jeopardy Clause precludes a second trial once
the reviewing court has found the evidence legally insufficient.” Id. at 18 (emphasis
added). Baynes contends that, in his case, the district court functioned as the “reviewing
court.” Baynes is unable to cite authority for his interpretation of Burks because none
exists. As the Supreme Court explained in Richardson v. United States:
[W]ithout exception, the courts have held that the trial
judge may discharge a genuinely deadlocked jury and require
the defendant to submit to a second trial. This rule accords
recognition to society’s interest in giving the prosecution one
complete opportunity to convict those who have violated its
laws.
We are entirely unwilling to uproot this settled line of
cases by extending the reasoning of Burks, which arose out of
an appellate finding of insufficiency of evidence to convict
following a jury verdict of guilty, to a situation where the jury
is unable to agree on a verdict.

468 U.S. 317, 324 (1984) (quoting Washington, 434 U.S. at 509). Here, the jury in
Baynes’s trial was unable to agree on a verdict, a mistrial was declared, and no appellate
court has found the evidence against him legally insufficient. Thus, as the district court
concluded in its well-reasoned denial of Baynes’s motion, Burks does not apply.
Baynes’s remaining argument is that, in granting his motion to dismiss the
OFP-violation charges, the district court “implicitly granted – as a matter of law –
[Baynes]’s motion for judgment of acquittal.” To support this argument, Baynes relies on
State v. Sahr, 812 N.W.2d 83 (Minn. 2012). In Sahr, the Minnesota Supreme Court stated
that a district court’s order constitutes “an acquittal on the merits when the ruling of the
judge, whatever its label, actually represents a resolution [in defendant’s favor] . . . of some
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or all of the factual elements of the offenses charged.” 812 N.W.2d at 90 (quotations
omitted).
But Baynes’s argument fails, fundamentally, because to convict Baynes at the first
trial, the state was not required to prove that he violated the OFP. At the first trial, Baynes
faced a harassment (by stalking) charge. A defendant is guilty of this offense if (1) he
engaged in “stalking with respect to a single victim or one or more members of a single
household,” (2) he knew or had reason to know that his conduct “would cause the victim
under the circumstances to feel terrorized or to fear bodily harm,” and (3) his conduct
caused “this reaction on the part of the victim.” Minn. Stat. § 609.749, subd. 5(a). The
first element, therefore, is that the defendant engaged in “stalking.” Stalking is defined as
“two or more acts within a five-year period that violate or attempt to violate the provisions”
of 17 enumerated acts in the stalking statute. Id., subd. 5(b)(1)-(17). Among the
enumerated acts is threats of violence in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.713. Id., subd.
5(b)(3).
At trial, the state presented evidence that Baynes committed multiple violations of
the threats-of-violence statute. The evidence of those acts alone was sufficient to establish
the first element of the crime of harassment by stalking. Thus, the district court’s order did
not resolve a factual element of the charged crime because the jury could have convicted
Baynes even if it concluded that he did not violate the OFP.
Because the mistrial was manifestly necessary, retrial is not barred by double
jeopardy and the district court did not err by denying Baynes’s motion.
Affirmed.