Minnesota Supreme Court, 1969

Pooley v. State

Pooley v. State
Minnesota Supreme Court · Decided July 3, 1969 · Knutson, Rogosheske, Sheran, Peterson, Gallagher
169 N.W.2d 397; 284 Minn. 546; 1969 Minn. LEXIS 1094 (North Western Reporter, Second Series)

Counsel

C. Paul Jones, State Public Defender, and Robert E. Oliphant, Assistant State Public Defender, for appellant., Douglas M. Head, Attorney General, Richard H. Kyle, Solicitor General, William B. Randall, County Attorney, and Steven C. DeCoster, Assistant County Attorney, for respondent.

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Last cited by a Minnesota appellate court in 1971, among the opinions in this site’s citation index.

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Pooley v. State

Cases that cite this one

3 later published cases cite this decision.

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion

Per Curiam.

This is an appeal from an order of the district court denying petitioner’s motion for postconviction relief setting aside his plea of guilty, conviction, and sentence. The order was entered after an evidentiary hearing following a remand by this court to permit a motion for post-conviction relief in State v. Pooley, 278 Minn. 67, 153 N. W. (2d) 143, which affirmed the conviction on direct appeal.

It is petitioner’s claim that certain confessions made to the St. Paul Police Department were illegally obtained in that he was told that it was necessary that he admit the crime about which he was being questioned in order to get the psychiatric help he was seeking. He so testified at the hearing. Petitioner further contends that his plea of guilty was based solely on the belief that his confessions could be used against him.

As these issues were presented to the hearing court, they constituted primarily questions of fact. Therefore, our review is limited to a determination of whether the evidence supports the conclusions of that court that the confession was not illegally obtained and that the plea of guilty was not based solely on petitioner’s belief that the confession could be used against him. If either conclusion is supported by the record, the order must be affirmed.

Keeping in mind the rule that the evidence is to be viewed in the light most favorable to the findings, we have considered the entire record and the relevant cases and conclude that the order must be affirmed.

Affirmed.

Case-law data current through September 30, 2026. Source: CourtListener bulk data.