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This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A25-0386

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Christopher John Moran,
Appellant.

Filed December 29, 2025
Reversed and remanded
Smith, Tracy M., Judge

Polk County District Court
File Nos. 60-CR-23-694, 60-CR-21-1512

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

Greg Widseth, Polk County Attorney, Scott A. Buhler, First Assistant County Attorney,
Crookston, Minnesota (for respondent)

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

Considered and decided by Smith, Tracy M., Presiding Judge; Slieter, Judge; and
Harris, Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
SMITH, TRACY M., Judge
In this appeal from the district court’s order revoking his probation and executing
his sentence, appellant Christopher John Moran challenges the imposition of a greater -
than-double upward durational departure in sentencing, arguing that the required “severe
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aggravating factors” were not present. He contends that he is entitled to resentencing within
the guidelines range. Respondent State of Minnesota agrees that severe aggravating factors
were not present, but it contends that Moran is barred from challenging his sentence or, at
best, is entitled to resentencing at double the presumptive sentence in light of the parties’
initial plea agreement.
We conclude that Moran forfeited the challenge to his sentence by failing to raise it
to the district court. We further conclude, however, that the interest of justice requires us
to consider his claim, and, because we agree with the parties that the greater-than-double
departure was unjustified, we reverse and remand for the district court to impose the double
upward durational sentencing departure consistent with the parties’ initial plea agreement.
FACTS
In June 2023, pursuant to a plea agreement, Moran entered an Alford plea1 to felony
pattern of stalking conduct under Minnesota Statutes section 609.749, subdivision 5
(2022). With Moran’s criminal history score of four, his presumptive sentence for the level-
five-severity offense was commitment to prison for a term of between 33 to 45 months.
See Minn. Sent’g Guidelines 4.A, 5.A (2022).
Under the plea agreement as originally arrived at by the parties, Moran would
receive dismissal of other charges pending against him across multiple files, a downward
dispositional departure (from imprisonment to probation), and a two-day furlough from jail

1 An Alford plea allows a defendant to plead guilty while maintaining their innocence of
the charged offense. State v. Goulette, 258 N.W.2d 760-61 (Minn. 1977) (discussing North
Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 38 (1970)).
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so that he could be present for the birth of his child. In exchange, Moran would plead guilty
to felony stalking and would be given a double upward durational departure (from 45 to 90
months). But, before Moran entered his plea, the parties modified the agreement—
specifically, they extended Moran’s jail furlough to five days in exchange for increasing
the upward durational departure by 30 months (from 90 to 120 months). At the sentencing
hearing in August 2023, the district court honored the modified agreement and sentenced
Moran to 120 months, stayed for ten years.
In November 2024, Moran pleaded guilty to new charges of stalking and violation
of a domestic-abuse no-contact order. The district court then held a probation-revocation
hearing in which it found that Moran had violated his probation and executed the 120 -
month sentence. Neither Moran nor his attorney objected to the sentence at the hearing.
This appeal follows.
DECISION
I. Moran’s challenge to his sentence is forfeited because he did not present it to
the district court.

The state argues that Moran’s appeal is not properly before this court because he
did not object or otherwise raise the issue in district court. We agree.
In State v. Fields, the supreme court addressed whether Fields properly challenged
his aggravated sentence by moving to modify the sentence at his probation-revocation
hearing and then appealing the district court’s denial of that motion. 416 N.W.2d. 734, 735
(Minn. 1987). We had concluded that Fields could not challenge the propriety of his
sentence on direct appeal but rather had to petition for postconviction relief and then appeal
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from denial of that relief. State v. Fields, 413 N.W.2d 275, 277 (Minn. App. 1987), rev’d,
416 N.W.2d 734 (Minn. 1987). The supreme court reversed our decision, holding that
Minnesota Rule of Criminal Procedure 27.03, subdivision 9, “allows the defendant to
challenge the departure by a simple motion at the time of the revocation hearing.” Fields,
416 N.W.2d at 736. Observing that Fields had challenged the sentencing departure, t he
supreme court remanded the case to this court to consider the merits of his challenge. Id.
at 735-36.
In a nonprecedential opinion in another, subsequent case, we interpreted Fields to
require the defendant to have objected to their sentence at the revocation hearing in order
to challenge the sentence on an appeal from the revocation order:
Fields appears to implicitly require raising a challenge to a
sentence after the revocation of probation during the probation-
revocation hearing. The appellant in Fields moved for a
modification of his sentence at the district court probation-
revocation hearing and then appealed the denial of that motion.
And the supreme court concluded that the “defendant properly
raised the sentencing issue at the revocation hearing and that
the court of appeals erred in refusing to decide that issue on
appeal.” We thus read Fields, while permitting a challenge to
a sentence as part of probation-revocation proceedings, as
requiring a challenge to a sentence to first be presented to the
district court for a ruling before appellate review is appropriate.

State v. Hill, No. A19-0313, 2019 WL 5107465, at *4 (Minn. App. Oct. 14, 2019) (citations
omitted). In other nonprecedential opinions, too, we have required a defendant challenging
his sentence after probation revocation to have raised the sentencing issue to the district
court at the revocation hearing before appealing to this court. See State v. Metoxen,
No. A23-1349, 2024 WL 2722111, at *6 (Minn. App. May 28, 2024); State v. Dahl,
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No. A19-0096, 2019 WL 4927071, at *3 n.1 (Minn. App. Oct. 7, 2019); State v. Quinn,
No. A07-1629, 2008 WL 4133452, at *3 n.1 (Minn. App. Sept. 9, 2008).
We find these decisions persuasive here. See Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01,
subd. 1(c) (noting that nonprecedential opinions may be cited as persuasive authority). The
decisions align with the rule against deciding issues on appeal that were not presented to
the district court. “[A]n error in the district court can be forfeited on appeal by the failure
to make a timely objection in the district court.” State v. Pakhnyuk, 926 N.W.2d 914, 918
(Minn. 2019). Generally, appellate courts “will not decide issues which were not raised
before the district court.” Roby v. State, 547 N.W.2d 354, 357 (Minn. 1996). Moran did not
object to his sentence at the probation-revocation hearing or otherwise raise his sentence
challenge to the district court. Therefore, Moran’s claim is forfeited and is not properly
before us.
II. The interest of justice requires us to reverse Moran’s 120-month sentence.
While appellate courts generally will not consider issues not raised below, this rule
is not “ironclad.” Putz v. Putz, 645 N.W.2d 343, 350 (Minn. 2002). In determining a
disposition on appeal, we may “take any other action as the interest of justice may require.”
Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 103.04. Here, the relevant underlying facts are undisputed and the
parties agree that the greater-than-double upward durational departure was not legally
justified. See Oanes v. Allstate Ins. Co., 617 N.W.2d 401, 403 (Minn. 2000) (reviewing a
previously unraised, purely legal question in the interest of justice where there were “no
disputes of fact”). Therefore, we conclude that review of Moran’s claim is warranted in the
interest of justice.
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Appellate courts review the imposition of an upward departure for an abuse of
discretion. State v. Barthman, 938 N.W.2d 257, 269 (Minn. 2020). Whether particular
grounds for departure are proper is reviewed de novo. State v. Robideau, 796 N.W.2d 147,
150 (Minn. 2011). A district court may impose a greater -than-double durational sentence
only when there are “severe aggravating circumstances.” State v. Mortland, 399 N.W.2d
92, 94 (Minn. 1987).
The state concedes that severe aggravating circumstances do not exist to justify the
greater-than-double upward durational departure here. The parties do not dispute the facts
underlying the increase from the original 90-month sentence to 120 months—specifically,
that the 30-month addition was based solely on the grant of three additional days of jail
furlough. The state agrees with Moran’s assertion that his “acceptance of full compliance
with the jail furlough [does not] fulfill the ‘severe aggravating factors’ that are necessary
to justify a court’s imposition of a greater-than-double durational departure.” And, upon
our own review of the record, we, too, agree.
In its brief, the state requests that we either (1) affirm the district court’s execution
of the 120-month sentence based on Moran’s failure to properly challenge his sentence in
the district court or (2) reduce Moran’s executed sentence to 90 months. Because the facts
are undisputed and we agree with the parties that the extra 30 months resulted in an
unjustified greater-than-double departure, we choose the latter option. We therefore reverse
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Moran’s sentence and remand to the district court with instructions to reduce his sentence
to 90 months’ imprisonment, as contemplated in the parties’ initial plea agreement.2
Reversed and remanded.

2 The state argues that Moran’s sentence cannot be further reduced below the 90 months
agreed to in the original plea agreement because State v. Coles requires Moran to first move
to withdraw his plea in a postconviction petition. 862 N.W.2d 477 (Minn. 2015). Because
Moran forfeited his challenge to his sentence by failing to raise it in the district court, we
do not address this issue here, and we take no position on whether further modification of
Moran’s sentence must or could be done via postconviction proceedings or a motion to
correct his sentence. See Minn. Stat. § 590.01 (2024); Minn. R. Crim. P. 27.03, subd. 9.