Tommie Relando Norwood v. State of Minnesota, Respondent./li>
Minnesota Court of Appeals
Tommie Relando Norwood v. State of Minnesota, Respondent./li>
Opinion
This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2012).
STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A14-0465
Tommie Relando Norwood, petitioner,
Appellant,
vs.
State of Minnesota,
Respondent.
Filed November 24, 2014
Affirmed
Ross, Judge
Hennepin County District Court
File No.: 27-CR-11-32701
Kirk M. Anderson, Anderson Law Firm, PLLC, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and
Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Jean E. Burdorf, Assistant County
Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)
Considered and decided by Chutich, Presiding Judge; Halbrooks, Judge; and Ross,
Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
ROSS, Judge
Tommie Norwood and three other men broke into a home and held multiple
residents at gunpoint. Norwood pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated robbery under
a plea agreement in which Norwood stipulated that he would be sentenced to serve
consecutive prison terms totaling 108 months in exchange for the state’s dropping the
remaining two charges of kidnapping and first-degree burglary. The district court
sentenced Norwood to consecutive 67- and 41-month prison terms and then rejected
Norwood’s contention that the sentence is unlawful. Because the statutory prohibition
against imposing multiple sentences for single behavioral incidents excepts crimes that
involve multiple victims and because Norwood’s resulting sentence is fair, the district
court’s consecutive sentencing does not violate the statute, and we affirm.
FACTS
On an October 2011 evening, Tommie Norwood drove himself and three friends
to a Brooklyn Center house. The four men, masked and armed with handguns, forced
their way inside and began beating the three residents and demanding that they reveal the
location of money and marijuana. The victim residents at first included two men and a
woman, but a second woman arrived home and was met at the door by one of the masked
men pointing a gun at her. During the attack, one of the residents secretly sent a text
message to his girlfriend announcing the ongoing crime, and she called the police. Police
soon arrived and the attackers attempted to flee. After about two hours, police found
Norwood trying to crawl out of the garage.
The state charged Norwood with one count of kidnapping, two counts of first-
degree aggravated robbery, and one count of first-degree burglary. Each of the two
counts of aggravated robbery related to a different victim. Norwood pleaded guilty to the
two counts of aggravated robbery under a plea agreement in which he agreed to be
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sentenced to consecutive imprisonment terms of 67 and 41 months and the state agreed to
drop the remaining charges.
During the plea hearing, Norwood acknowledged that he and his acquaintances
robbed at least two people at gunpoint and that he was “pleading guilty to 108 months for
two counts of aggravated robbery.” The district court sentenced Norwood to consecutive
terms of 67 and 41 months in prison, achieving the 108-month total incarceration period
contemplated in the plea agreement. It then dismissed the remaining charges.
Five months later, Norwood moved the district court to correct the allegedly
unlawful, consecutive nature of his sentence to effectively reduce his incarceration period
by 41 months. The district court denied the motion, relying on the multiple-victim
exception to the statutory prohibition against multiple sentences for single behavioral
incidents. Norwood appeals the district court’s order denying his motion for a corrected
sentence.
DECISION
Norwood contends that we must correct his sentence because consecutive
sentencing in this case is not authorized by law. We will not reverse a district court’s
denial of a motion for a corrected sentence unless the court abused its discretion or erred
as a matter of law. Anderson v. State, 794 N.W.2d 137, 139 (Minn. App. 2011), review
denied (Minn. Apr. 27, 2011).
Norwood maintains that the district court erred as a matter of law by imposing a
sentence with consecutive prison terms. Norwood is correct that the district court
generally may not impose multiple sentences for offenses committed in a single
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behavioral incident. See Minn. Stat. § 609.035(2012); State v. Skipintheday,717 N.W.2d 423, 426
(Minn. 2006). But the supreme court has read this statutory prohibition to incorporate a multiple-victim exception. State ex rel. Stangvik v. Tahash,281 Minn. 353
, 359–60,161 N.W.2d 667, 672
(1968). Specifically, the Tahash court held that “multiple crimes against multiple victims permit the imposition of more than one sentence.”Id.
Although Norwood’s two aggravated-robbery crimes were ostensibly part of a single behavioral incident, they included two victims, and Norwood is therefore “equally culpable to each victim” despite the limiting language of section 609.035. See State v. Edwards,774 N.W.2d 596, 605
(Minn. 2009).
Because the multiple-victim exception applies and each of Norwood’s crimes can
be sentenced separately, the consecutive sentences are lawful. Norwood accepted these
sentences in his negotiated plea agreement. Standing alone, this cannot create substantial
and compelling circumstances for a sentencing departure. State v. Misquadace, 644
N.W.2d 65, 71 (Minn. 2002). But the district court did not depart; the two aggravated-
robbery convictions permit consecutive sentencing. See Minn. Sent. Guidelines 2.F.2.b
(2011) (stating that consecutive sentences are permissive for “[m]ultiple current felony
convictions for crimes on the list of offenses eligible for permissive consecutive
sentences found in Section 6”); see also Minn. Sent. Guidelines 6 (2011) (listing first-
degree aggravated robbery as eligible for permissive consecutive sentencing).
Norwood argues that the multiple-victim exception should not apply because the
consecutive sentencing unfairly exaggerates the criminality of his conduct. Norwood
accurately recognizes that the multiple-victim exception applies only if the resulting
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sentence does not exaggerate the defendant’s criminal conduct. State v. Marquardt, 294
N.W.2d 849, 851 (Minn. 1980). But his argument is not convincing. We first observe that
he expressly agreed to the 108-month prison sentence as part of an agreement that,
presumably, benefited him. And as he pleaded guilty, he answered “Yes” when his
attorney asked, “And you understand that you are pleading guilty to 108 months for two
counts of aggravated robbery?” Norwood’s unfair-sentence argument ignores the fact that
he realized the bargained-for benefit of multiple dismissed charges in an agreement in
which he stipulated to serve the sentence he now challenges.
We observe too that Norwood’s accomplices were also sentenced to serve 108
months in prison. Norwood suggests that it is unfair that they were sentenced to 108-
month terms after pleading guilty to only one crime while he received the same sentence
after pleading guilty to two crimes. But we see no merit in this; our focus is on the overall
sentence the robbers received in relation to the criminality of their conduct, not on the
number of their convictions. Sentencing Norwood to serve the same prison term as his
fellow robbers is a mark of uniformity and fairness, not unfairness. We hold that the
district court’s consecutive sentencing totaling 108 months does not unfairly exaggerate
the criminality of Norwood’s conduct.
Because the multiple-victim exception applies and each of Norwood’s crimes can
be sentenced separately, the consecutive prison terms are authorized by law. Because
Norwood’s sentence is lawful, the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying
Norwood’s motion to correct his sentence.
Affirmed.
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Reference
- Status
- Unpublished