Johnson v. State
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Johnson v. State
Opinion of the Court
In this case we are asked to determine whether the Supreme Court's decision in Birchfield v. North Dakota , 579 U.S. ----,
FACTS
This consolidated appeal arises from two separate traffic stops. The first stop occurred in 2009, when St. Anthony police stopped appellant Mark Jerome Johnson on suspicion of driving while impaired (DWI). After Johnson admitted that he had been drinking and showed signs of impairment, police arrested him. Police read Johnson the Minnesota Implied Consent Advisory and asked him whether he would take a blood or a urine test. Johnson refused. Respondent the State of Minnesota charged Johnson with first-degree test refusal, Minn. Stat. §§ 169A.20, subd. 2 (2016), 169A.24 (2010).
*678The second stop occurred in 2014, while Johnson was on probation for his 2010 test-refusal conviction. Police stopped Johnson for using his turn signal improperly. Johnson admitted that he had been drinking, and he failed field sobriety tests. Police then arrested Johnson for DWI and read him the Minnesota Implied Consent Advisory. Johnson said that he wanted to contact an attorney. After affording Johnson time to call an attorney, police asked if he was willing to consent to a chemical test for the presence of alcohol. Johnson indicated that he had been advised by his attorney to refuse unless the officer had a warrant. Police interpreted this as a refusal, and the State charged Johnson with first-degree test refusal, Minn. Stat. §§ 169A.20, subd. 2 (2016), 169A.24 (2012). Johnson pleaded guilty on April 23, 2015 and was sentenced to a 51-month prison term and a mandatory 5-year period of conditional release. Johnson did not file a direct appeal.
In December 2016, Johnson filed a consolidated petition for postconviction relief challenging his 2010 and 2015 convictions for test refusal. He argued that the Supreme Court's decision in Birchfield v. North Dakota , 579 U.S. ----,
The district court considered the petition separately for each of Johnson's prior two convictions, with one judge hearing the petition for the 2010 test-refusal conviction, and a different judge hearing the petition for the 2015 test-refusal conviction. Each district court concluded that the Birchfield rule was procedural and did not apply retroactively to Johnson's conviction. Alternatively, each concluded that by pleading guilty, Johnson waived the right to challenge his conviction. Both courts summarily denied Johnson's petition.
Johnson appealed both district court decisions, and the court of appeals consolidated the appeals. The court of appeals affirmed, concluding that the Birchfield rule did not apply retroactively to Johnson's final convictions because the rule was procedural in nature, and accordingly, the district courts did not abuse their discretion by denying Johnson's postconviction petitions. Johnson v. State ,
ANALYSIS
This case comes to us on appeal from decisions on Johnson's postconviction petition. We review the denial of a petition for postconviction relief for an abuse of discretion. Dikken v. State ,
On appeal, Johnson argues that the Birchfield rule applies retroactively. The *679State contends that, because Johnson pleaded guilty, he waived his right to assert that the Birchfield rule applies retroactively. If we reach the question of whether the Birchfield rule applies retroactively, the State urges us to affirm. Specifically, the State contends that the rule is procedural and therefore inapplicable to cases on collateral review.
Before addressing the parties' arguments and to provide context for our analysis, we turn first to a discussion of the Birchfield rule. In Birchfield v. North Dakota , the Supreme Court consolidated three cases, each of which concerned whether criminal test-refusal laws violated the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches. 579 U.S. ----,
Following the Supreme Court's decision in Birchfield , we decided State v. Trahan ,
In Thompson , the defendant was convicted of second-degree test refusal after he refused warrantless blood and urine tests. 886 N.W.2d at 227. We concluded that " Birchfield is dispositive with respect to the blood test that Thompson refused" and that "[a] warrantless blood test may not be administered as a search incident to a lawful arrest of a suspected drunk driver." Id. at 229. We also held that a urine test was not a permissible search incident to a lawful arrest. Id. at 233. The State did not argue that exigent circumstances existed. Id. at 229 n.3. Accordingly, we determined that the test-refusal statute was unconstitutional as applied to Thompson, and that he could not be "prosecuted for refusing to submit to an unconstitutional warrantless blood or urine test." Id. at 234.
In sum, the Court's decision in Birchfield and our application of Birchfield in Trahan and Thompson mean that, in the DWI context, the State may not criminalize refusal of a blood or a urine test absent a search warrant or a showing that a valid exception to the warrant requirement applies. With this description of the Birchfield rule in mind, we turn to the parties' arguments.
*680I.
We first consider whether, as the State argues, Johnson's guilty plea precludes him from arguing that the Birchfield rule is retroactive. The State asserts that Johnson's argument is based on his Fourth Amendment right to be free from an unreasonable search. And the State contends that by pleading guilty to test refusal, Johnson forfeited his right to collaterally attack his convictions on that basis. For his part, Johnson argues that because he was convicted under a statute that was deemed to be unconstitutional as applied, the district courts had no jurisdiction to accept his guilty plea. Accordingly, Johnson claims, his guilty pleas do not bar his argument that the Birchfield rule applies retroactively to his collateral attack on his convictions. We agree with Johnson.
A district court has subject-matter jurisdiction to convict a defendant of all crimes cognizable under the laws of the State of Minnesota. See Reed v. State ,
Johnson is in effect asserting a challenge to subject-matter jurisdiction. Johnson argues that he was convicted under a statute that is unconstitutional as applied to him. Johnson's argument therefore attacks the subject-matter jurisdiction of the district court. And, by pleading guilty, Johnson did not forfeit his right to make this jurisdictional argument.
In urging us to reach the opposite conclusion and find forfeiture, the State cites Hirt v. State ,
*681Nor does Johnson challenge the reasonable suspicion underlying the stops or the probable cause that justified his arrests. If he were asserting any of these Fourth Amendment claims in a postconviction petition, the petition should be denied. Id.
Instead of making an argument that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated, Johnson alleges that, because the Birchfield rule makes the Minnesota test-refusal statute unconstitutional as applied to him, his convictions for violating that statute are invalid. That argument is fundamentally a subject-matter jurisdiction challenge. We therefore hold that Johnson's guilty pleas did not forfeit his argument that the Birchfield rule applies retroactively.
II.
We turn next to the parties' dispute over the retroactivity of the Birchfield rule. Whether a rule of federal constitutional law applies retroactively to convictions that were final when the rule was announced is a legal question that we review de novo. Campos v. State ,
Under Teague , we ask whether the rule in question is a new rule or an old rule. If it is a new rule, then the rule is applied only to cases that are not yet final when the rule was announced, and the rule generally has no retroactive effect. Teague ,
Although a new rule of law generally does not apply retroactively to final convictions, Teague provides two exceptions. Teague ,
The State argues that the Birchfield rule is procedural, controlling only police conduct, redefining the scope of searches permissible under the Fourth Amendment, and leaving no private conduct categorically beyond the scope of the test-refusal statute. Johnson contends that Birchfield created a substantive rule because it changed the elements of the crime of test refusal and narrowed the scope of the test-refusal statute, effectively creating a class of people constitutionally immune from punishment.
To address the parties' arguments and determine whether a rule is substantive or procedural, we look to the nature of the rule. A rule is substantive if it "alters the range of conduct or the class *682of persons that the law punishes." Schriro ,
A procedural rule, on the other hand, "regulate[s] only the manner of determining the defendant's culpability." Id. at 353,
The Birchfield rule does not merely regulate the manner in which a defendant is determined to be guilty or not guilty. The rule instead changes who can be prosecuted for test refusal. Prior to Birchfield , Minnesota statutes provided that persons could be convicted of test refusal if they "refuse[d] to submit to a chemical test of the person's blood, breath, or urine." See Minn. Stat. § 169A.20 (2016). But under the Birchfield rule, persons may be convicted of test refusal only if they refuse to submit to a breath test or if they refuse to submit to a blood or urine testwhen the police have a search warrant or a valid exception to the warrant requirement applies. Because of the Birchfield rule, those drivers who refuse to submit to warrantless blood or urine tests cannot be prosecuted unless the State proves that an exception to the warrant requirement applies. If no exception is proved, these drivers then are beyond the power of the State to punish.
In this way, the Birchfield rule operates similarly to the rule at issue in Bousley v. United States ,
Subsequently, the Court in Bousley concluded that Bailey was substantive and would apply to a post- Bailey collateral attack of a conviction based on a guilty plea because the rule mandated that a "criminal statute does not reach certain conduct." Bousley ,
The Birchfield rule has placed a category of conduct outside the State's power to punish. Now, a suspected impaired driver may only be convicted of test refusal if that person refused a breath test or refused a blood or urine test that was supported by a warrant or a valid warrant exception. The Birchfield rule therefore is substantive.
In urging us to reach the contrary conclusion and hold that the Birchfield rule is procedural, the State asserts that the rule merely modified police conduct. Specifically, the State focuses on the fact that, after Birchfield , police must secure a warrant or demonstrate that an exception to the warrant requirement applies before demanding a blood or urine test. Because the rule changed the procedure the police must follow before a driver may be prosecuted for test refusal, the State argues, the Birchfield rule must be procedural and cannot be substantive. We disagree.
As the Supreme Court explained in Montgomery v. Louisiana , focusing on a procedural aspect of a substantive rule "conflates a procedural requirement necessary to implement a substantive guarantee with a rule that 'regulates[s] only the manner of determining the defendant's culpability.' " 577 U.S. ----,
Finally, the State argues that, for a rule to be retroactive, it must apply to all cases. Because an individual, case-by-case analysis would be required to apply the Birchfield rule, the State contends, the rule is not retroactive. The State is correct that the application of the Birchfield rule may require each case to be assessed individually to determine whether a warrant or an exception to the warrant requirement existed at the time of the test refusal. But, as Johnson argues, Montgomery , 577 U.S. ----,
In Montgomery , the Court examined the retroactivity of its decision in Miller v. Alabama ,
Similarly here, there will need to be case-by-case determinations to assess whether there was a warrant or an exception to the warrant requirement sufficient to sustain test-refusal convictions under the Birchfield rule. But this case-by-case analysis does not "transform [a] substantive rule[ ] into a procedural one[ ]." Id. at ----, 136 S.Ct. at 735.
For the reasons explained above, we hold that the Birchfield rule is substantive and applies retroactively to Johnson's convictions on collateral review. Even though the Birchfield rule applies to Johnson's convictions, reversal of those convictions is not automatic. On remand, the district courts will need to apply the Birchfield rule and determine if the test-refusal statute was unconstitutional as applied to Johnson.
*685CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse and remand to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Johnson was charged with first-degree test refusal because, at the time, he had three or more qualified prior impaired driving incidents within the last 10 years. See Minn. Stat. §§ 169A.09, 169A.24 (2010) ; see also Minn. Stat. § 169A.24 (2012).
Both parties agree that these three holdings represent a single rule of law that originated in Birchfield and our court applied in Trahan and Thompson . For simplicity, we refer to the rule as the "Birchfield rule."
It is well-established that we have the authority, i.e. jurisdiction, to determine whether we have jurisdiction. City of Duluth v. Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa ,
The retroactivity analysis is done only if a conviction was final before the new rule was announced. See Campos ,
In fact, after the Birchfield rule was announced, the Legislature amended the test-refusal statute to expressly reflect the changes required by the Birchfield rule. See Act of May 23, 2017, ch. 83, art. 2, § 2,
The State argues that Welch is distinguishable. In Welch , the Court addressed the retroactivity of the rule from Johnson v. United States , 576 U.S. ----,
The State also argues that Birchfield would be difficult to apply on a case-by-case basis because it would require individual, procedurally distinct, postconviction proceedings that may, as in this case, require examining an undeveloped record because of guilty pleas. Concerns regarding application of the rule, however, cannot outweigh the demands of justice. If a rule has been determined to be substantive, it must be applied retroactively to all affected. See Teague ,
Under the Birchfield rule, the State cannot criminalize a driver's refusal of a blood or urine test absent a warrant or a showing of a valid exception to the warrant requirement. One exception to the warrant requirement for blood and urine tests that could apply is exigent circumstances. See Trahan , 886 N.W.2d at 222. We express no opinion on whether Missouri v. McNeely ,
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Mark Jerome JOHNSON v. STATE of Minnesota
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