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This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A25-0737

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Charles William Whalen,
Appellant.

Filed April 20, 2026
Reversed
Worke, Judge

Yellow Medicine County District Court
File No. 87-CR-24-315

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, Lydia Villalva Lijó, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul,
Minnesota; and

Mark Gruenes, Yellow Medicine County Attorney, Granite Falls, Minnesota (for
respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Julie Loftus Nelson, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Ross, Presiding Judge; Worke, Judge; and Halbrooks,
Judge.
*

* Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to
Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.
2
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
WORKE, Judge
Appellant argues that the evidence is insufficient to sustain his threats-of-violence
conviction. We agree and reverse.
FACTS
On August 19, 2024, respondent State of Minnesota charged appellant Charles
William Whalen with threats of violence (reckless disregard), in violation of Minn. Stat.
§ 609.713, subd. 1 (2024). The matter proceeded to a jury trial. The following facts are
taken from the evidence presented during that trial.
On August 16, 2024, the Granite Falls police chief responded to a call of a person
having a “meltdown” in the street. The police chief observed Whalen acting in an
“animated” manner. During their conversation, Whalen asserted that the police chief and
other officers had contact with his niece, whom Whalen described as a “vulnerable adult.”
The police chief asked Whalen if he needed help, to which Whalen responded he did not.
The police chief left the scene.
Shortly after that interaction, Whalen made publicly available Facebook posts. In
one post, Whalen stated: “Someone please help. [The police chief] must be made to pay
for what he has done to this young Native Woman. Click Click Boom. At one time he
would have faced a Firing Squad.” Someone replied: “Careful . . . that almost sounds like
a threat.” To which Whalen replied: “Thank you. It’s not. I wouldn’t hurt a hair on
anyone’s head. Especially a Police Officer, in uniform or Otherwise. I wouldn’t kill a Fly.
3
Fact. I’ll text this as a message. I’ll delete that because I was thinking of a trial and a
Firing Squad rather than Hanging.”
Two days later, Whalen emailed the police chief, listing several accusations. The
police chief found the email’s tone accusatory, but not threatening.
That evening, the police chief viewed Whalen’s Facebook posts. He found several
of the posts to be accusatory but not threatening. However, the police chief found the
above post to be threatening because he believed that Whalen was making a threat to—or
asking others to help— shoot him.
While in custody, Whalen told an investigating officer that he did not mean the
statement as a threat. Whalen also explained that he intended to delete the post but forgot
due to a traumatic brain injury.
The jury found Whalen guilty as charged. The district court sentenced Whalen to
12 months in prison, stayed for five years. This appeal followed.
DECISION
Whalen argues that the evidence is insufficient to support his threats-of-violence
conviction because the state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to
terrorize, or acted in reckless disregard of the risk of causing extreme terror, to the police
chief.
When reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, we must “determine whether, given
the facts in the record and the legitimate inferences that can be drawn from those facts, a
jury could reasonably conclude that the defendant was guilty of the offense charged.”
4
State v. Smith, 9 N.W.3d 543, 564-65 (Minn. 2024) (quotation omitted). In doing so, we
view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict. Id. at 565.
Whalen’s conviction was based on circumstantial evidence. See State v. Pederson,
840 N.W.2d 433, 436 (Minn. App. 2013) ( “Because intent involves a state of mind, it is
generally established circumstantially.”). Appellate courts apply a two-step test when
assessing the sufficiency of circumstantial evidence. State v. Firkus, 31 N.W.3d 468, 478
(Minn. 2026). First, we must “winnow down the evidence presented at trial by resolving
all questions of fact in favor of the jury’s verdict,” resulting in “a subset of facts that
constitute the circumstances proved.” Id. (quotation omitted). Second, we consider
whether the reasonable inferences “drawn from the circumstances proved, when viewed as
a whole and not as discrete, isolated facts, are consistent with the hypothesis that the
accused is guilty and inconsistent with any rational hypothesis other than guilt.” Id.
(quotations omitted).
A person is guilty of making a threat of violence when they directly or indirectly
threaten “to commit any crime of violence with the purpose to terrorize another . . . or in a
reckless disregard of the risk of causing such terror or inconvenience.” Minn. Stat.
§ 609.713, subd. 1. “A threat is a declaration of an intention to injure another or [their]
property by some unlawful act.” State v. Schweppe, 237 N.W.2d 609, 613 (Minn. 1975).
Whether the words or phrases are threatening depends upon the context in which they are
used. Id. The underlying question is whether the statement “would have a reasonable
tendency to create apprehension that its originator will act according to its tenor.” Id.
(quotation omitted).
5
We start our analysis of whether the evidence was sufficient to establish that Whalen
intended his statement to terrorize the police chief, or was made in reckless disregard of
that risk, by identifying the circumstances proved. Here, the circumstances proved include
the following:
• the police chief responded to a call concerning Whalen’s behavior;

• Whalen accused the police chief of inappropriate behavior with his niece, who
Whalen claimed was a vulnerable adult;

• the interaction lasted approximately ten minutes, with the police chief leaving
after Whalen denied needing help;

• Whalen posted publicly on Facebook accusing the police chief of inappropriate
behavior with Whalen’s niece: “Someone please help. [The police chief] must
be made to pay for what he has done to this young Native Woman. Click Click
Boom. At one time he would have faced a Firing Squad”;

• a commenter replied to Whalen: “Careful . . . that almost sounds like a threat”;

• Whalen did not remove the post;

• Whalen sent an email to the police chief raising the same allegation, that the
police chief had inappropriate contact with Whalen’s niece, but the email did
not contain any threatening language;

• after viewing Whalen’s Facebook post, the police chief was concerned that
Whalen was threatening to shoot him or to have others assist him in doing so.

Next, we consider whether the reasonable inferences that may be drawn from these
circumstances proved are consistent with guilt and “inconsistent with any rational
hypothesis other than guilt.” Smith, 9 N.W.3d at 565.
Here, Whalen argues that he did not act with intent or “purpose to terrorize another.”
See Minn. Stat. § 609.713, subd. 1. Whalen accused the police chief of inappropriate
6
behavior with his niece both in his Facebook post and a subsequent email. After being told
the post sounded like a threat, Whalen thanked the commenter and stated he intended to
send the same information in an email, without the perceived threatening language. While
Whalen did not delete the post, he did not include the post’s language in the email he sent
directly to the police chief and other city officials. The omission of the threatening
language in the follow-up email sent directly to the police chief supports Whalen’s
argument that there exists a reasonable inference other than that he intended to terrorize
the police chief.
Our analysis next turns to whether Whalen acted with “reckless disregard of the risk
of causing such terror.” See id. Reckless disregard occurs when:
(1) through words or actions [a defendant] communicates an
intention to injure another or their property; (2) the threat is to
commit a statutorily defined crime of violence; (3) in context,
those words or conduct create a reasonable apprehension that
[they] will follow through with or act on the threat; and (4) they
make[] the violent threat in conscious disregard of a substantial
and unjustifiable risk that [their] words or conduct will cause
extreme fear.

State v. Mrozinski, 971 N.W.2d 233, 240 (Minn. 2022) (quotation omitted). 1
First, as previously determined, there is a reasonable hypothesis that Whalen was
not communicating an intent to injure the chief or have him injured. Therefore, the
evidence is insufficient to support this first prong.

1 We recognize that in Mrozinski, the supreme court analyzed the threats-of-violence statute
in a First Amendment context. 971 N.W.2d at 239-40. But the court’s definition of “with
reckless disregard” under the statute is relevant to Whalen’s appeal.
7
Second, threatening to shoot someone qualifies as a statutorily defined crime of
violence, which satisfies the second factor. See Minn. Stat. § 609.1095, subd. 1(d) (2024).
Third, it is reasonably inferred that threatening to shoot someone, or calling upon
others to shoot someone, would create reasonable apprehension that Whalen, or someone
else, would follow through with the act. And the police chief testified to his concern and
apprehension upon reading the post, which satisfies the third factor.
Fourth, we consider whether Whalen made the post “in conscious disregard” that
his words would cause extreme fear. Mrozinski, 971 N.W.2d at 240. Here, Whalen made
a Facebook post. Someone replied, warning him that the post sounded like a threat.
Whalen responded that he did not realize it sounded like a threat and thanked the person
for informing him. Whalen then corrected any potential misunderstanding and stated he is
not a violent person and would never harm anyone, especially a police officer. Whalen’s
reply, like his original post, was publicly available. From that reply, there was no known
substantial risk that the message was threatening and that Whalen disregarded that risk. As
such, the fourth factor is also not met.
Therefore, while the circumstances proved may be consistent with a guilty verdict,
they are also consistent with a rational hypothesis of not guilty because Whalen did not act
in conscious disregard that his words would cause extreme fear. For this reason, Whalen’s
conviction must be reversed.
2
Reversed.

2 Because we reverse on this issue, we need not consider Whalen’s speedy-trial-violation
claim in his self-represented supplemental brief.