Griffin v. State, Minn., Minn.S.Ct., 8/3/2016. A jury found Mr. Griffin guilty of two first degree murder offenses for the shooting death of one victim. The trial court sentenced him on the verdict of first degree premeditated murder. Mr. Griffin is serving a life sentence without possibility of release for a conviction of first degree murder. The Supreme Court affirmed his conviction on direct appeal in 2013. Mr. Griffin filed a timely petition for post conviction relief, alleging that he received ineffective assistance of trial and appellate counsel. The post conviction court denied the claim without benefit of an evidentiary hearing.
Mr. Griffin complained on appeal but not before the post conviction court, that his two convictions - premeditated and drive-by first degree murder - violated Minnesota's statutory double jeopardy statute, Minn.Stat. 609.04, and that his trial counsel was ineffective for not objecting to this prosecution on the two counts. Justice Chutich declines to entertain these two claims because Mr. Griffin did not raise them in his post conviction petition.
Mr. Griffin complained that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the admission of certain out of court statements of a state witness. This was an issue that Mr. Griffin raised on direct appeal, unsuccessfully, but the post conviction court considered the claim on the merits under one of the two Knaffla exceptions, "interests of justice, because Mr. Griffin's trial counsel was also his appellate counsel. Justice Chutich declines to answer the question whether this Knaffla exception applies when trial and appellate counsel are the same; instead, the court assumes that it applies and finds the claim lacking on the merits. The court also continues to duck the question whether the Knaffla exceptions have been done away with by enactment of the 2005 amendments to the post conviction statute. See Anderson v. State, 830 N.W.2d 1 (Minn. 2013).
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