Criminal Defenses Minnesota

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

When someone makes false claims about you what can you do? What kind of process would help others find the truth? Since some level of error and doubt is inevitable, on which side of doubt should we draw the line? People have struggled with these issues for thousands of years in what we now call criminal law. Criminal defenses can protect you from unjust prosecution.

What are criminal defenses?

What are common defenses used in criminal cases in Minnesota?

We have two main types of criminal defenses. Some defenses spotlight the prosecutor’s lack of proof for their basic claims (elements of the criminal statute). And others are “affirmative” defenses. When defense lawyers become law enforcers, suppressing illegal, unreliable evidence; that is another type of defense.

In any Minnesota criminal case, a prosecuting attorney prepares a charging document (a Complaint or Indictment). In it, the prosecutor accuses a person. And the criminal charge always contains potential defenses.

“Charge” is hearsay or multiple, layers of hearsay: The prosecutor must base the charge on second-hand information, reported to them. And prosecutors rely upon information that police officers provide. But police officers themselves mostly lack personal knowledge and, in turn, get information from what other people say (hearsay).

So police officers often lack personal knowledge about what they heard and are reporting. They are not eyewitnesses. An example of a type of case where this is common is domestic assault claims. And even physical evidence requires “foundation” (other evidence) to have meaning.

With many layers of second-hand information (or worse), things can go wrong. For example, someone could falsely accuse an innocent person. And a prosecutor could unknowingly charge a crime based on second-hand information and hearsay. So, the unreliability of the hearsay basis of criminal charges, creates criminal defenses.

Yes. We have the presumption of innocence for a reason. So a person facing an accusation is innocent. And she remains not-guilty, unless the prosecutor can somehow persuade a jury, with actual evidence, that no possible inference consistent with innocence exists.

The burden of proof is the highest — beyond any reasonable doubt. And that is a fundamental legal defense in every criminal case. The prosecutor has to try to overcome all reasonable doubt, about each and every element of the crimes he or she is claiming. So criminal defenses include pointing out the prosecutor’s failure to prove one or more “element.”

Charge contains defenses

A written statute defines every crime. And the statute defines “the elements of a crime.” But all crimes include at least the basic elements of identity, prohibited act, and criminal intent. So criminal defenses include pointing out the lack of evidence of one or more of the elements.

Identity element

“Identity.” If someone did commit a crime, who did the prohibited act?

Prohibited Act element

“Prohibited Act.” Did someone perform an act? If so, does the law prohibit that act? For example, most illegal drug crimes base severity of penalty on quantity. So if the government lacks convincing evidence of the identity or quantity of alleged illegal drugs, the defendant is acquitted. See:

Drug Possession Crimes & Defense in Minnesota.

Criminal Intent element

A crime requires “Criminal Intent.” And two types of criminal intent are specific and general. “Specific intent” means the actor must have intended to cause the outcome or result of the prohibited act. And one example is murder with premeditation.

But “general intent” means the actor must have intended to perform the prohibited act, even if not the result of it. And an example is manslaughter.

There are varying levels of criminal intent required by criminal statutes. So criminal defenses include the lack of criminal intent.

And where a criminal statute includes an element requiring “specific intent,” some defenses may only defeat that “specific intent” element (e.g., an intoxication defense). When that happens, often a lesser-included general intent crime may still be an issue. and it could result in a conviction, but for a lesser level of offense.

Criminal Intent requirement: How low can criminal intent go? Sometimes, a “gross negligence” level of intent is enough for criminal liability. And Minnesota’s Criminal Vehicular Operation crime is an example. But “Simple Negligence” alone cannot create criminal liability. A crime requires intent to do the prohibited act.

Sometimes a precondition to an intent element of crime is knowledge, as in contraband possession-type crimes.

And a person cannot be guilty of a possession crime if without knowledge of the contraband’s identity or location.

But, though prerequisite, knowledge alone does not prove dominion and control necessary for criminal possession.

The jury infers criminal intent under the objective, reasonable person standard, from the point of view of the defendant, at the time.

Deeper look at criminal intent

We can look deeper into criminal intent proof requirements as this court did:

“Crimes used to be categorized as involving specific intent or general intent. In recent years, four categories of mens rea have been delineated—purpose, knowledge, recklessness, negligence. See United States v. Bailey, 444 U.S. 394, 404 (1980); Model Penal Code §2.02 (1974). The two categories most difficult to distinguish, and the most germane to our discussion, are purpose and knowledge. A person acts with purpose when the person ‘consciously desires that result, whatever the likelihood of that result happening from [the person’s] conduct.’ … A person acts with knowledge when the person is aware ‘that the result is practically certain to follow from [the person’s] conduct, whatever [the person’s] desire may be as to that result.'”

State v. Hage, 595 NW2d 200, 207 fn. 1 (Minn. Supreme Court 1999)

And:

“it has long been a feature of the common law that a person cannot be held criminally responsible for things over which he has no control.’ (citing … United States v. Willings, 8 U.S. 48 (1807) (‘the law does not compel parties to impossibilities (lex non cogit ad impossibilia)’); Dr. Bonham’s Case, 8 Co. Rep. 113b, 118a (1610) (‘when an act of parliament is against common right and reason, or repugnant, or impossible to be performed, the common law will controul it, and adjudge such act to be void’). ‘In the criminal law, both a culpable mens rea and a criminal actus reus are generally required for an offense to occur.’ United States v. Apfelbaum, 445 U.S. 115, 131 (1980); see also Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 251 (1952) (crime generally stems ‘only from concurrence of an evil-meaning mind with an evil-doing hand’). ‘[E]ven where the evidence is sufficient to show the necessary mens rea, the government still must always `meet its burden of proving the actus reus of the offense.” United States v. Zhen Zhou Wu, 711 F.3d 1, 18 (1st Cir. 2013) … Without exception, due process forbids criminalizing ‘entirely passive and innocent nonconduct with no mens rea or guilty mind.’ State v. Blake, 197 Wash. 2d 170, 182-83 (2021). ‘Accordingly, an accused cannot be held criminally liable in a case where the actus reus is absent because the accused did not act voluntarily, or where mens rea is absent because the accused did not possess the necessary state of mind when he committed the involuntary act.’ United States v. Torres, 74 M.J. 154, 156-57 (C.A.A.F. 2015) (discussing automatism defense).”

John Doe v. US Dept of Just, 650 F.Supp.3d 957 (US Dist Court C.D. Cal. 2023)

Is Accident a Defense?

An accident is by definition an unintentional act. An accident is an unplanned, unintentional event that causes damage or injury. Accidents are not reasonably foreseeable and happen without any intent or negligence. A rock falling from a hill onto car would be an accident, since no intent or negligence, just misfortune. Similarly, if a person does something without planning or expecting, damage or injury, but damage or injury does result, that would be an accident. On another person could do something accidental that causes damage or injury.

In law, we see courts identify various levels of intent or state-of-mind, along a continuum:

1. simple negligence (did not realize, but should have)
2. grossly negligent (extreme failure to care prior to act)
3. reckless (knew the risk prior to act)
4. general criminal intent (intended the act prohibited by law)
5. specific criminal intent (intended the act + specific, further result)

Simple negligence is not enough “intent” for a crime. (Though it is a enough for civil liability.)

Various criminal statutes contain various levels of criminal intent. But the lowest level of criminal intent in valid criminal statutes is either gross negligence or recklessness.

And of course some crimes are specific intent crimes, require proof the defendant intended to do a prohibited act, and specifically intended the prohibited result. Examples of specific intent crimes, include theft (take property with intent to permanently deprive owner), forgery (create false documents with intent to defraud), embezzlement, robbery, attempt crimes, conspiracy, solicitation, and First-Degree Murder (premeditated killing).

So, depending upon our understanding of “accident,” it is a defense to a criminal charge because an accidental act is an act done without intent. Since criminal intent is an “element” of every crime that the prosecutor must prove to justify a conviction, if an act was accidental then there was no criminal intent and the defendant is innocent of any crime. So accident can be a defense to both general intent and specific intent crimes. And it is not a so-called affirmative defense.

However, if a prohibited act was done as the result of gross negligence or recklessness, and the criminal statute only requires one of those lower levels of criminal intent, the defendant could be found guilty. An example of such a Minnesota crime is one type of Criminal Vehicular Operation, which requires gross negligence plus bodily harm.

Other common criminal defenses

Beyond the government’s burden of proof on the elements, we have other types of criminal defenses. These include Affirmative Defenses.

Defenses addressed here in detail, on these related pages:

Jurisdiction

Self-defense Laws in Minnesota

Duress Defense | Complete or Partial

Necessity Defense

Mental Illness

Minnesota Constitutional Defenses

“As an abstract exercise, debating fact patterns like these may seem good fun. But there is nothing entertaining about a 2-year mandatory federal prison sentence. Criminal statutes are not games to be played in the car on a cross-country road trip. To satisfy the constitutional minimum of due process, they must at least provide ‘ordinary people’ with ‘fair notice of the conduct [they] punis[h].’ Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. 591, 595 (2015).”

Dubin v. United States, 599 US 110 (US Supreme Court 2023) (Concurrence Gorsuch)

Charge & Sentence Enhancement Defenses

Some criminal charges are “enhanced” to a more serious offense level due to aggravating factors. And sometimes criminal charges invoke factors from sentencing statutes that mandate a minimum sentence. But a prosecutor should not double count the same fact to both enhance the charge, as well as a second time with the sentence.

The defense attorney can look for defenses to the government’s claims of an aggravating factor. One example is this case where Attorney Thomas Gallagher won a Felony Domestic Assault Dismissal, Based on Priors.

Evidentiary criminal defenses

Though technically not “defenses,” an effective defense includes pretrial motions and other efforts to suppress illegal and unreliable evidence:

Illegal Stop

Expansion of the Stop

Unlawful Arrest: Legal Remedies

Miranda Rights & Confessions

Involuntary Statements

“The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right… the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women… the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias.”

Judge Learned Hand, “The Spirit of Liberty” speech, New York, 1944

Affirmative Criminal Defenses; Mitigating Facts

Some criminal defenses place an initial burden of production of evidence on the accused. So we call them “affirmative defenses.”

But once the defense attorney offers some evidence supporting an affirmative defense, the burden of proof is on the prosecutor. And the prosecutor must then persuade the jury beyond all reasonable doubt — that the defense should not apply. Self-Defense is an example of an affirmative defense. See:

Blog series on Self-Defense Law in Real Life.

“The right to defend one’s home and one’s person when attacked has been guaranteed through the ages by common law.”

King Jr., M. L. (1967), Where do we go from here: Chaos or community?

And the Minnesota Supreme Court provides an insightful excerpt on “affirmative defenses:”

“Mitigating circumstances or issues have been referred to by using the terms ‘defense’ and ‘affirmative defense.’ Unfortunately, these two terms have not been used consistently by Minnesota practitioners. Certain cases of this court suggest that the term affirmative defense applies only to those situations where defendant has the initial burden of production (raising the circumstance or issue), with the burden then shifting to the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the lack of the circumstance or issue. … in State v. Charlton, we noted that a defendant is required to adduce sufficient evidence of duress to make the ‘defense’ an issue, but the burden then shifts to the state to show lack of duress, or its converse, specific intent. 338 N.W.2d 26, 30-31 (Minn. 1983). (In Charlton, this court did not use the term affirmative defense; this term only arose in the West summary of the case.) We also noted in dicta in State v. Wahlberg that ‘[a]s in situations where the defendant raises an affirmative defense, although the burden rests on the defendant to present evidence of intoxication, the ultimate burden of proving intent remains with the State.’ 296 N.W.2d 408, 419 (Minn.1980). We further note that the Model Penal Code defines ‘affirmative defense’ to mean the ‘initial evidential burden is * * * placed on the defendant,’ and then the prosecution must ‘[disprove] the defense beyond a reasonable doubt.’ Model Penal Code § 1.12 cmt. 3 (1985).

In some circumstances, this court has used the term affirmative defense in the opposite sense. In State v. Brechon, we noted that claim of right in a trespass case could be considered ‘as an ordinary defense, requiring the defendant to present evidence, with the burden of persuasion on the prosecution to disprove the defense beyond a reasonable doubt; or * * * as an affirmative defense, requiring the defendant to go forward with evidence raising the defense and shoulder the persuasion burden of establishing such defense by a preponderance of the evidence.’ 352 N.W.2d 745, 749 (Minn.1984) (emphasis added) … The legislature has also used affirmative defense to require the defendant to bear not only the burden of production, but the burden of persuasion as well. See Minn.Stat. § 169.121 (1994); Minn. Stat. § 169.791 (1994); Minn.Stat. § 609.205 (1994); Minn.Stat. § 609.26, subd. 2 (1994), … Minn.Stat. § 609.344 (1994); Minn.Stat. § 609.49 (1994).

Because the proper legal use of affirmative defense does not affect our holding in this case, we need not resolve this lack of consistency in its use. We note the inconsistency, draw the attention of practitioners to it, and cite the maxim of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes on the importance to think accurately and to think things, not words.”

State v. Auchampach, 540 NW2d 808 (Minn. Supreme Court 1995)

Question? Call Lawyer Thomas Gallagher, 612 333-1500

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