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This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A25-1901

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Demetrius Santana Perez Solis,
Appellant.

Filed July 6, 2026
Affirmed
Bratvold, Judge

Mower County District Court
File No. 50-CR-21-2413

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

Kristen Nelsen, Mower County Attorney, Heather N. Kjos Schmit, Assistant County
Attorney, Austin, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Steven P. Russett, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Larkin, Presiding Judge; Reyes, Judge; and Bratvold,
Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
BRATVOLD, Judge
This appeal follows a previous appeal in which this court affirmed appellant’s
convictions but reversed in part and remanded for resentencing. After resentencing,
appellant now seeks to vacate a lifetime conditional-release term on the second of two
2
convictions for third-degree criminal sexual conduct . Appellant argues that he was
convicted of both offenses simultaneously and therefore did not have a “prior sex offense
conviction” as required for lifetime conditional release and as defined under Minnesota
Statutes section 609.3455, subdivision 1( g) (2020). Because we conclude that the district
court sequentially convicted appellant of the two offenses and that appellant had a prior
sex offense conviction when the district court imposed lifetime conditional release, we
affirm.
FACTS
Respondent State of Minnesota charged appellant Demetrius Santana Perez Solis
with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct (counts one and two) and two
counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct (counts three and four). Minn. Stat.
§§ 609.342, subd. 1(e)(i), .344, subd. 1(b) (2020). The state’s case against Perez Solis was
tried in April 2024, and the jury found him guilty of counts three and four and not guilty
of counts one and two.
After reading the verdicts into the record and polling the jury, the district court
stated, “All four verdicts then shall be entered on the record.” The district court also set the
date for sentencing.
At the sentencing hearing in June 2024, the district court stated:
With respect to Count 3, Third Degree Criminal Sexual
Conduct, a felony, I’m sentencing you to a commitment of the
custody of the Commissioner of Corrections for a period of
thirty-six months. I’ll stay the execution of that for a period of
fifteen years placing you on supervised probation . . . .

. . . .
3

. . . [T]here is also a ten-year period of conditional
release that will apply to that count. What that means [is] that
if your sentence is ever executed there would be a ten-year
period of conditional release that would begin to run at the end
of the executed sentence, including at the end of any supervised
release period.

. . . .

With respect to Count 4, for the same offense . . . at a
different time, Third Degree Criminal Sexual Conduct, a
felony, on that you do not [sic] have a Criminal History Point,
so the period of time is forty-eight months. I’m sentencing you
to a commitment of the custody of the Commissioner of
Corrections for a period of forty-eight months. I’ll stay the
execution of that sentence for a period of up to fifteen
years . . . .

. . . .

On that count, because that is a second conviction, there
is a lifetime period of conditional release that applies to that
count.

(Emphasis added.)

Perez Solis appealed his convictions. State v. Solis , No. A24-1415, 2025 WL
2202562 (Minn. App. Aug. 4, 2025), rev. denied (Minn. Oct. 15, 2025). We affirmed both
convictions but reversed in part after concluding that the district court erred in imposing
conditional-release terms because the sentences were stayed. Id. at *3-4. We acknowledged
that Perez Solis also argued that “the district court erred when it imposed a lifetime
conditional-release term on [the second] count.” Id. at *3 n.3. But this court declined to
reach that issue based on our conclusion that it was error to impose conditional-release
terms on a stayed sentence. Id. We remanded for resentencing. Id. at *3.
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Before resentencing, the district court found at a contested probation-revocation
hearing that Perez Solis had violated the terms of his probation. The district court revoked
probation and executed the sentences on counts three and four. The district court stated,
“With respect to [count four] . . . I am also imposing as I’m required to, a lifetime
conditional release period.” Neither attorney objected.
About two weeks later, at the request of the prosecuting attorney, the district court
held a hearing to reconsider the lifetime conditional- release term. The district court
determined that the lifetime conditional-release term was proper, reasoning that the two
counts were “clearly, plainly, sentenced separately.”
This appeal follows.
DECISION
Perez Solis asks this court to “remand[] for resentencing because the correct
conditional release term for Count 4 is not lifetime.” Perez Solis argues that the district
court erred because “the verdicts were simultaneously accepted and recorded.” Based on
this, he asserts that his conviction for count three was not a prior sex offense conviction
“for purposes of section 609.3455, subdivision 7(b),” when he was convicted of count four.
Whether a sentence conforms to the requirements of a statute is a question of law that
appellate courts review de novo. See State v. Williams, 771 N.W.2d 514, 520 (Minn. 2009).
This court “may at any time correct a sentence not authorized by law.” Minn. R. Crim.
P. 27.03, subd. 9.
Minnesota Statutes section 609.3455, subdivision 7(b) (2020), requires a district
court to impose a “conditional release for the remainder of the offender’s life” when (1) a
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court “commits an offender to the custody of the commissioner of corrections” for, among
other offenses, third-degree criminal sexual conduct and (2) “the offender has a previous
or prior sex offense conviction.”1 A “prior sex offense conviction” means that the offender
“was convicted of committing a sex offense before the offender [was] convicted of the
present offense, regardless of whether the offender was convicted for the first offense
before the commission of the present offense, and the convictions involved separate
behavioral incidents.” Minn. Stat. § 609.3455, subd. 1(g) (emphasis added).
2
It is undisputed that Perez Solis’s two convictions arose from separate behavioral
incidents and that he did not have another prior sex offense conviction at the time he was
convicted of counts three and four. See Minn. Stat. § 609.3455, subd. 1(g) (requiring that
a “prior sex offense conviction” and the “present offense . . . involved separate behavioral
incidents”). Thus, the sole issue is whether the district court convicted Perez Solis
sequentially or simultaneously of counts three and four.
Caselaw governs our analysis of the central issue. In State v. Nodes , the supreme
court determined whether convictions occurred simultaneously or sequentially.
863 N.W.2d 77, 79-80 (Minn. 2015). Nodes pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal sexual

1 “[P]revious sex offense conviction” means that the offender was “convicted and
sentenced for a sex offense before the commission of the present offense.” Minn. Stat.
§ 609.3455, subd. 1(f) (2020). This provision does not apply to Perez Solis because he did
not have a conviction and sentence for criminal sexual conduct before he committed the
offenses in this case.

2 “Sex offense,” as used in the statutory definition of prior sex offense conviction, includes
third-degree criminal sexual conduct. Minn. Stat. § 609.3455, subd. 1(h) (2020).
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conduct, but the district court did not formally accept Nodes’s plea until the sentencing
hearing. Id. at 78. In accepting Nodes’s plea, the district court stated:
I will now formally accept the pleas, and on count one
adjudicate him guilty of criminal sexual conduct in the first
degree, a felony, in violation of Minnesota Statute 609.342,
[s]ubd. 1(a) and [s]ubd. 2(a), on or about February 26, 2013,
and also on count three, criminal sexual conduct in the second
degree, a felony, in violation of Minnesota Statute 609.343,
[s]ubd. 1(a) and [s]ubd. 2(a) on or about March 19, 2013.

Id. at 79. The district court did not impose a lifetime conditional-release term, and the state
appealed, arguing that count one was a prior sex offense conviction. Id. The supreme court
reversed after consider ing whether, “when a defendant is adjudicated guilty in a single
proceeding of two qualifying sex offenses arising from separate behavioral incidents, the
earlier-occurring offense constitutes a ‘prior sex offense conviction’ with respect to the
later-occurring offense.” Id. at 80.
The supreme court relied on a statutory provision stating that a conviction occurs
when “a plea of guilty . . . a verdict of guilty by a jury or a finding of guilty by the court”
is “accepted and recorded by the court.” Id. (quoting Minn. Stat. § 609.02, subd. 5 (2014)).
The supreme court reasoned that, “[a]lthough Nodes’s two convictions occurred in rapid
succession, the conviction on count one plainly occurred earlier than the conviction on
count three.” Id. at 82. The supreme court concluded that Nodes’s conviction on count one
was a prior sex offense conviction, emphasizing that no “particular temporal gap between
the convictions is required.” Id.
In State v. Brown, this court considered “whether convictions that are adjudicated
simultaneously can result in a prior [sex offense] conviction” as defined in
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section 609.3455, subdivision 1(g). 937 N.W.2d 146, 155-57 (Minn. App. 2019) (emphasis
added), rev. denied (Minn. Feb. 18, 2020) . Brown was convicted of one count of
first-degree and one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct, the district court
imposed a lifetime conditional-release term, and Brown appealed. Id. at 152. The parties
agreed that Brown’s “two convictions were adjudicated simultaneously.” Id. at 155. This
court concluded that the record established that simultaneous convictions occurred. Id. The
district court stated:
[Y]ou were convicted on June 22, 2018, of the crimes of
criminal sexual conduct in the [first and second degree]. And
standing convicted of those crimes, so you’re going to be
convicted today on both counts, it is the sentence of law and
the judgment of this court that as punishment, therefore, you
shall be committed to the Commissioner of Corrections of this
state for a period of 216 months on Count 1 and 140 months on
Count 2. Count 2 will run concurrently with Count 1.

Id. at 155-56.

To decide whether Brown’s simultaneous convictions supported a lifetime
conditional-release term, we first determined that the definition of prior sex offense
conviction is unambiguous. Id. at 156. Applying the statutory definition, we reasoned that,
“[w]ith no temporal gap whatsoever between a district court’s adjudication of offenses, no
conviction is entered ‘before’ the other, and no conviction can be prior to the other.” Id. at
157; see Minn. Stat. § 609.3455, subd. 1(g) (requiring a conviction for a prior sex offense
“before the offender has been convicted of the present offense” (emphasis added)). We
distinguished Nodes, which “did not consider the issue of simultaneous convictions.”
Brown, 937 N.W.2d at 156. We concluded that, “when a district court convicts an offender
8
simultaneously of multiple sex offenses in the same hearing, the offender does not have a
prior sex-offense conviction and is not subject to a lifetime conditional-release term under
Minn. Stat. § 609.3455, subd. 7(b), absent another qualifying conviction.” Id. at 157. We
therefore reversed the lifetime conditional-release term. Id.
With Nodes and Brown in mind, we address Perez Solis’s argument that he was
convicted when the district court read the verdicts on the record at the end of his trial .
Caselaw does not support this argument. “A guilty plea or guilty verdict is not a
conviction.” State v. Walker, 913 N.W.2d 463, 467 (Minn. App. 2018). Although “jury
verdicts of guilt . . . are often referred to as ‘convictions’ . . . a formal adjudication of
conviction requires more.” State v. Jeffries, 806 N.W.2d 56, 63 (Minn. 2011); see Minn.
Stat. § 609.02, subd. 5 (2020) (stating that a guilty verdict becomes a conviction after it is
“accepted and recorded by the court”). The record does not show that the district court
adjudicated Perez Solis guilty by either accepting or recording the verdicts. See Minn. Stat.
§ 609.02, subd. 5. Thus, the district court did not convict Perez Solis when it read the
verdicts on the record at the end of his trial.
We next determine whether the district court convicted Perez Solis simultaneously
or sequentially at his sentencing hearing. The Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure
provide that a “sentence . . . is an adjudication of guilt.” Minn. R. Crim. P. 27.03, subd. 8
(emphasis added). Based on the sentencing transcript, we conclude that the district court
sequentially pronounced the sentences for counts three and four and therefore Perez Solis’s
convictions were not entered simultaneously. In short, the record reflects a brief “temporal
gap” between the district court’s pronouncement of each sentence, which indicates
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sequential convictions. Nodes, 863 N.W.2d at 82 (stating that no “particular temporal gap”
between adjudication s is required to establish the earlier one as a prior sex offense
conviction); Brown, 937 N.W.2d at 157 (determining that two convictions are
simultaneous when there is “no temporal gap whatsoever” between adjudication of the
offenses). Thus, Perez Solis had a prior sex offense conviction for count three at the time
he was convicted of count four. We conclude that the district court did not err when it
imposed a lifetime conditional-release term for count four as provided in Minnesota
Statutes section 609.3455, subdivision 7(b).
Affirmed.