Minnesota Supreme Court, 1980

State v. Burrows

Minnesota Supreme Court · Decided July 3, 1980 · Peterson

295 N.W.2d 100; 1980 Minn. LEXIS 1527 (North Western Reporter, Second Series)

Counsel

C. Paul Jones, Public Defender, and Mark F. Anderson, Asst. Public Defender, Minneapolis, for appellant., Warren Spannaus, Atty. Gen., St. Paul, Robert W. Johnson, County Atty., and J. Diane Savage, Asst. County Atty., Anoka, for respondent.

Can I rely on this case?

Citation treatment has not been reviewed for this case. The notes below come from the citation graph and the Minnesota Revisor's amendment records, not from a review of how later courts treated this decision.

(as of 9/30/2026)

Last cited by a Minnesota appellate court in 2006, among the opinions in this site’s citation index.

Cites Minnesota statutes amended since this decision

Minn. Stat. § 609.245 — amended 1984

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Minnesota statutes cited

Sections of the Minnesota Statutes this opinion cites.

Minn. Stat. § 609.245

Cases that cite this one

4 later published cases cite this decision.

State v. Lund (Minn. Ct. App. 1991)
State v. Stanifer (Minn. Ct. App. 1986)
State v. Moyer (Minn. 1980)
State v. Swanson (Minn. 2006)

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

PETERSON, Justice.

Defendant was found guilty by a district court jury of a charge of aggravated robbery, Minn.Stat. § 609.245 (1978), and was sentenced by the trial court to a 1- to 20-year prison term. The sole issue on this appeal from judgment of conviction is whether the trial court prejudicially erred in denying a defense motion to bar the prosecutor from cross-examining defendant about his two prior convictions, one in 1975 and one in 1976, for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. We affirm.

The trial court concluded that unauthorized used of a motor vehicle is a crime directly involving “dishonesty or false statement,” and that therefore it was automatically admissible for impeachment purposes under R. 609, R.Evid. We need not decide whether the trial court erred in concluding that unauthorized use is a crime directly involving “dishonesty or false statement,” because even if the trial court should have made a discretionary determination and balanced probative value against prejudicial effect, the trial court still would have been justified in admitting the evidence and presumably would have done so. Under these circumstances, we sustain the admission of the evidence and affirm defendant’s conviction, which was based on strong evidence of guilt. Compare State v. Leecy, 294 N.W.2d 280 (Minn. 1980); State v. Brouillette, 286 N.W.2d 702 (Minn. 1979); State v. Jones, 271 N.W.2d 534 (Minn. 1978).

Affirmed.

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