Minnesota Supreme Court, 1979

State v. Hyatt

Minnesota Supreme Court · Decided July 13, 1979 · Todd

281 N.W.2d 716; 1979 Minn. LEXIS 1613 (North Western Reporter, Second Series)

Counsel

C. Paul Jones, Public Defender, and Michael P. Cromett, Asst. Public Defender, Minneapolis, for appellant., Warren Spannaus, Atty. Gen., Tom Foley, County Atty., and Steven C. DeCoster, Asst. County Atty., St. Paul, for respondent.

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(as of 9/30/2026)

Last cited by a Minnesota appellate court in 1982, among the opinions in this site’s citation index.

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Cases that cite this one

1 later published case cites this decision.

State v. Hyatt (Minn. 1982)

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

TODD, Justice.

Petitioner, who waived his right to a jury trial, was found guilty in district court of two sex charges — first-degree criminal sexual conduct and aggravated sodomy — for his role, along with two others, in aiding and abetting a homosexual rape of a fellow inmate at the Ramsey County Workhouse on July 9,1976. Thereafter, petitioner filed a direct appeal, but later moved for a stay and a remand for a postconviction hearing on his claim of ineffective assistance by his public defender at trial. This appeal is from the order denying postconviction relief. Petitioner, who is incarcerated pursuant to a 20-year sentence, contends (1) that the postconviction court erred in admitting certain evidence which petitioner contends was irrelevant, and (2) that the court erred in concluding that petitioner had not demonstrated that his trial counsel, by virtue of his decision not to cross-examine one of the state’s two witnesses and his decision not to call two other witnesses, had incompetently represented him. We affirm.

Petitioner’s first contention does not merit discussion. With respect to the second issue, we have examined the record and find that the conduct of defense counsel in this case meets the standards we have established in White v. State, 309 Minn. 476, 480, 248 N.W.2d 281, 285 (1976).

Affirmed.

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