Outside The Record

The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed and remanded the denial of post-conviction relief for a new hearing before an impartial judge

The issue in this appeal is whether appellant Buay David Duol is entitled to a new evidentiary hearing on his petition for postconviction relief because the district court, in denying relief, investigated and considered facts outside the record. In 2022, Duol was found guilty and convicted in Hennepin County District Court of first-degree premeditated and second-degree intentional murder for the shooting death of Lavelle Jackson. The district court sentenced Duol to life in prison without the possibility of supervised release. Duol appealed, and we granted his request to stay his direct appeal to allow him to petition for postconviction relief based on a claim of newly discovered evidence.

Duol’s newly discovered evidence claim rested primarily on new testimony from Dequarn Bell, who had been in jail with Duol as he awaited trial. Duol argued that if presented at trial, Bell’s testimony would have “neutralized” the testimony of one of the State’s key witnesses, who testified that Duol confessed to murdering Jackson. After an evidentiary hearing, the district court denied Duol’s petition for a new trial. One of the district court’s conclusions was that Bell’s testimony was not credible. In reaching that determination, the district court discussed numerous factual details from Bell’s criminal history. Some of the facts the district court discussed and considered relating to Bell’s adult and juvenile convictions were not entered into the record by either party but were extra-record facts based upon the district court’s deliberate independent investigation.

Duol now appeals from the denial of his petition for postconviction relief. He asks that we reverse his convictions and remand for a new trial, or in the alternative, remand for 2 a new evidentiary hearing on the grounds that the district court’s investigation into facts outside the record relating to Bell’s criminal history violated Duol’s constitutional right to an impartial judge under State v. Dorsey, 701 N.W.2d 238, 252–53 (Minn. 2005). Duol further argues that the district court judge was disqualified from presiding over the hearing under Minnesota Code of Judicial Conduct Rule 2.11(A) due to the appearance of bias and was thus required to recuse himself under Minnesota Rule of Criminal Procedure 26.03, subdivision 14(3).

Here, we conclude that the district court violated Duol’s right to due process by independently investigating extra-record details related to Bell’s criminal history and considering those facts in assessing Bell’s credibility. The district court thus committed structural error that entitles Duol to a new evidentiary hearing on his claim of newly discovered evidence before an impartial judge. We therefore reverse the decision of the district court denying postconviction relief and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

The detailed order denying relief included the information outside the record

Because we conclude that the use of extra-record information pertaining to Bell’s prior convictions constituted a violation of Duol’s constitutional right to an impartial judge—and that this error was structural under the Due Process Clause of the Minnesota Constitution and therefore requires reversal and remand for a new evidentiary hearing before an impartial judge—we do not reach Duol’s arguments relying on the Minnesota Code of Judicial Conduct and Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure.

The state had conceded that the judge had considered evidence outside the record

The State offers several theories for why we should not reach such a conclusion here, but none of them are persuasive. First, the State argues that Minn. Stat. § 590.04, subd. 3, which governs hearings on petitions for postconviction relief, empowered the district court to conduct independent extra-record investigations. This is not the case. Section 590.04, subdivision 3, states that a district court judge presiding over a postconviction hearing “may inquire into and decide any grounds for relief, even though not raised by the petitioner.” It would strain the text of the statute to interpret this provision, which permits a district court judge to grant relief on grounds the petitioner did not raise, as authorizing a district court judge to conduct a wide-ranging investigation into facts outside the record in order to deny relief. Moreover, because defendants possess the right to an impartial judge under the Minnesota and United States Constitutions, which includes a judge’s duty to refrain from conducting their own factual investigations, interpreting the statute as the State asks us to would raise important questions regarding its constitutionality. We therefore reject the State’s assertion that section 590.04, subdivision 3, authorized the use of extra-record facts here.

Conclusion

We conclude by emphasizing that the Minnesota Constitution’s guarantee of due process includes the right to an impartial judge. Minn. Const. art. 1 § 7. We therefore clarify that our holding in this case—that due process requires a bright-line rule prohibiting independent judicial investigations into facts outside the record and that such an investigation constitutes a structural error—is based separately and independently on the Minnesota Constitution.

(Mike Frisch)