Minnesota Court of Appeals Opinions: December 22, 2025

Today’s edition of Minnesota Appellate Court Watch covers the opinions released by the Minnesota Court of Appeals on December 22, 2025. My apologies for the late hour of this week’s post. My associate (three-year-old son) got in a little over his head (woke up with the flu) and I had to bail him out (feed him Tylenol and popsicles all day). But, hey, now we’re Night Blogging. That’s blogging where you wear a cool scorpion jacket like Ryan Gosling in Drive. So let’s crank the faux-‘80s synthesizers and brush up on our criminal procedure, because it’s time to hit the dockets.

This newsletter contains the sole opinions of me, Daniel Suitor. You can reach me via email at opinions[at]minnappct[dot]watch. As always, everything contained here is solely for informational purposes, and is not legal advice. This newsletter is not a solicitation for my services. If you have a legal issue, you should contact your local public defender’s office, legal aid provider, or a private attorney.

Court News

Big news in the world of the Court of Appeals: Governor Tim Walz has appointed two replacements to replace retiring judges on the bench.

Lisa Beane will take Judge Bjorkman’s at-large seat upon her retirement. Beane is currently in-house with the University of Minnesota’s Office of the General Counsel and previously worked at Jones Day and Robins Kaplan. After graduating from the University of Minnesota Law School, she served as a clerk to (now retired) Judge Wilhelmina Wright, both on the Minnesota Supreme Court and after her appointment to the U.S. District Court of Minnesota. Beane was previously a nominee for the Minnesota Supreme Court seats that went to Justices Theodora Gaïtas and Sarah Hennesy.

Judge Anne Rasmusson will take Judge Slieter’s seat, allocated to the Seventh Congressional district, upon his retirement. Judge Rasmusson is currently the assistant chief judge of the Ninth District, based out of Polk County. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School. Before taking the bench, it seems that she worked exclusively the same firm in Northwestern Minnesota for 14 years, starting as a clerk in law school before making partner. That’s a real Norman Rockwell career, if you ask me.

Congratulations to Judge-Nominees Beane and Rasmusson. May your questions of law be interesting and your clerks write quickly. And happy trails to Judges Slieter and Bjorkman. You are now free from the tyranny of the 90-day opinion deadline. If you don’t have a new hobby picked out, may I suggest canning jams? There are 36 competition categories for jellies and jams at the Minnesota State Fair. Wouldn’t it be an incredible story if a retired appellate judge won one of them? I feel like the competition in orange marmalade is ripe for the picking.

 Overview

27 Opinions

• 11 Civil

• 16 Criminal
  
  

• 1 precedential

• 25 nonprecedential

• 1 order opinion
  
  

• 23 affirmed

• 3 affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded

• 1 reversed (1 remanded)

Decisions average 298 days from filing, 73 since argument.

• Civil: 224 / 67

• Criminal: 348 / 77
  
  

• Precedential: 376 / 88

• Nonprecedential 298 / 72

• Order opinions: 209 / 82

Most active jurist: This week we have a tie between Chief Judge Jennifer Frisch and Judge Renee Worke, with three apiece. This is Judge Worke’s second consecutive week with a share of first and three opinions submitted.

Case Name of the Week

Kellogg v. Freund

This case name is one letter off from being an all-time freaky dude showdown. If you want an interesting and terrible time, I suggest learning about the various beliefs of John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor of Corn Flakes. As for Sigmund Freud, perhaps the most normal thing about him is that his American fame originated in Worcester, Massachusetts. And I can say that, because my American fame (now useless undergraduate degree) originated in Worcester.

Sentence of the Week

You heard it here first: the Minnesota Court of Appeals rules that Minneapolis Public Schools are as good or better a choice than the coveted Wayzata school district!

Father also argues that the district court failed to fully consider comparative statistical information that he argues establishes Gleason Lake as the superior school, including rankings of Kenny and Gleason Lake, student-teacher ratios at the two schools, and performance and outcome statistics more broadly in the Minneapolis and Wayzata school districts. . . . But the record contains ample evidence that would support either of the two elementary schools as a good choice for the child. Father’s arguments ask us to reweigh that evidence, which we will not do.

 Gherardi v. Ayres, A25-0591

Okay, I know that’s not what it actually says, but as the parent of a kid rapidly approaching school age, I find the handwringing over school choice and longing glances at suburban school districts by urban parents to be incredibly tiring. If you live in the suburbs and your kids are going to school there, that’s cool for you! But there’s a fairly fraught dimension to how many potential MPS parents look at the Minneapolis district. Maybe it’s just the working-class kid in me who grew up in a place where you went to the only school in town, or maybe even a town or two over because your town was too small to afford its own, but I’ve never understood jockeying for the allegedly “superior” districts or schools. For more on this phenomenon, see generally the Nice White Parents podcast Serial produced a few years back.

The Bad Neighbor of the Week Award

Minnesota is a state that prides itself on neighborly congeniality and generosity. This intermittent feature highlights times when those values go by the wayside and next-door enmity reaches the appellate dockets.

For an area of law generally predominated by complex, technical analysis of state environmental law and local zoning codes, land use practice has some of the best drama. In the case of Miller v. City of White Bear Lake, a couple sued the city for granting variances to allow the folks next door to tear down their old single-story house on the lake and build a new one that was 1.34 feet wider. Nobody beefs like lake neighbors!

As the COA points out, a 34-to-38-foot-wide lot with 15-foot setbacks means there are only 4 to 8 feet of space to legally build without a variance, and the minimum house width is 22 feet. Some kind of variance was going to be needed. I just don’t think going from 3.2 to 3.36 feet on the left side of the lot and 7.5 to 6 on the right was the hill to die on. But maybe that’s the kind of attitude that prevents me from owning a lake house.

This Week I Learned. . .

What “Hernandizing” is. As I have never practiced criminal law, the complicated miasma of sentencing frightens and confuses me. But Judge Ross adroitly explains:

 The Hernandez sentencing method allows courts, when issuing a sentence on the same day addressing multiple offenses, to add the first offense or offenses sentenced into the criminal-history score for the sentence for the remaining offenses. When Hernandizing counts arising from the same course of conduct but involving multiple victims, courts may incorporate the criminal-history score of only the two most-severe offenses. Offenses arise from the same course of conduct when they occur “at substantially the same time and place and were motivated by a single criminal objective.” The burden falls to the state to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that multiple offenses did not occur as part of the same course of conduct.

State v. Gilfillan at 4–5 (citations and quotations omitted).

This feels like the criminal-history score equivalent to breaking a video game by finding a weird anomaly in how it calculates your combo scores, except here it’s consigning a defendant to years of additional prison time instead of earning imaginary digital points. Feels a bit wrong!

On the other hand, while the application looks bad in Gilfillan (and was in fact reversed), Hernandez itself does make it seem more reasonable. The objective is to allow increased sentencing “for separate and distinct offenses which were not part of a single behavioral incident or course of conduct and which did not involve the same victims” and “avoid mere formalities and, in the interests of judicial economy, do in one day what the [Sentencing] Guidelines allow to be done in three or more days.” State v. Hernandez, 311 N.W.2d 478, 481 (Minn. 1981).

Is the potential misuse of Hernandization worse than the fabled benefits of judicial economy? Who can say? In conclusion, Minnesota is a land of contrasts.

Precedential Opinions

State v. Mattson-McCarty, No. A24-1948 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Criminal
• Appeal from Hennepin County District Court (27-CR-23-23815)
• Opinion, Ede
• Ruling that, under the corpus delicti statute (Minn. Stat. § 634.03), when a district court correctly denies a motion for judgment of acquittal based on a determination that evidence independent of the defendant's confession reasonably tends to prove they committed the charged offense, the court acts within its discretion by declining to instruct the jury that a confession is not sufficient to warrant conviction without evidence that the offense charged has been committed, and affirming the conviction

Nonprecedential Opinions

In re Civil Commitment of Petro, No. A25-1332 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Civil: Civil Commitment
• Appeal from Wadena County District Court (80-PR-24-813)
• Opinion, Frisch
• Affirming an indeterminate civil commitment on grounds that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the respondent has a sexual psychopathic personality and that a less-restrictive treatment program is not available and appropriate

In re Welfare of the Child(ren) of M.P. and A.P., No. A25-0905 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Civil: Parental Rights / Child Protection
• Appeal from St. Louis County District Court (69DU-JV-24-74)
• Opinion, Frisch
• Affirming termination of a father’s parental rights on grounds that the county (1) established a statutory basis for termination, (2) made reasonable efforts towards reunification, and (3) termination is in the best interests of the child

Hofmann v. Johnson, No. A25-0580 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Civil: Family
• Appeal from Crow Wing County District Court (18-FA-24-4101)
• Opinion, Frisch
• Affirming a determination that petitioners did not make a prima facie case for third-party custody as interested third parties, but reversing and remanding their petition for third-party custody as de facto custodians on grounds that the district court did not provide enough reasoning to evaluate its analysis on appellate review

Kroes v. Kroes, No. A25-0893 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Civil: Protective Order
• Appeal from Hennepin County District Court (27-DA-FA-25-1280)
• Opinion, Worke
• Affirming an issuance of an order for protection on grounds that testimony that the petitioner's ex-husband had set up a concealed webcam to stream her while she was sleeping, entered her home without permission, hit her, and threatened to kill her in response to a criminal investigation into the webcam incident was sufficient to find fear of imminent harm, and that it was not an abuse of discretion to limit cross-examination on whether a custody stipulation that the ex was “fit and proper” to parent conflicted with the petitioner's description of her ex as “sociopathic” and “threatening”

Dawano v. Tufa, No. A25-0741 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Civil: Protective Order
• Appeal from Hennepin County District Court (27-DA-FA-24-3376)
• Opinion, Worke
• Affirming a denial of a request for a 20-year extension of an order for protection on grounds that the petitioner could not identify any actionable conduct attributable to the respondent since the issuance of the original OFP

State v. Renville, No. A25-0358 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Criminal
• Appeal from Redwood County District Court (64-CR-24-183, 64-CR-24-450)
• Opinion, Worke
• Affirming two convictions for failure to register as a predatory offender on grounds that the denial of defendant’s motion to withdraw his guilty pleas was not an abuse of discretion where defendant's plea colloquy provided sufficient facts to support those pleas

State v. Gilfillan, No. A24-2044 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Criminal: Sentencing
• Appeal from Hennepin County District Court (27-CR-22-13999)
• Opinion, Ross
• Reversing five sentences for possession of child pornography, and remanding for resentencing, on grounds that the district court improperly “Hernandized” the sentences where there was no factual basis in the plea colloquy that the offenses happened at different times, in different places, and did not share a criminal objective

Seeman v. State, No. A25-0887 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Criminal: Postconviction Relief
• Appeal from Steele County District Court (74-CR-21-1304)
• Opinion, Connolly
• Affirming a denial of postconviction relief, related to restitution, for a man convicted of headbutting a worker at the Steele County Fair on grounds that the petitioner argued the same theory he did at the restitution hearing, and that it was not an abuse of discretion to award restitution to the nonprofit fair entity which reimbursed the victim for his out-of-pocket medical expenses

State v. Hall, No. A24-1516 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Criminal: Postconviction Relief
• Appeal from Washington County District Court (82-CR-23-3831)
• Opinion, Connolly
• Affirming a denial of postconviction relief to a defendant convicted of multiple counts of possession of child pornography on grounds that: (1) it was not ineffective assistance of counsel for trial counsel to not review the material in question before the defendant pled guilty because it cannot be established with a reasonable probability that some counts would've been dismissed because the videos were allegedly not actually pornography; and (2) it was not an abuse of discretion to decline a downward departure from the sentencing guidelines where much of the pre-sentence investigation was “based on self-reporting” by the defendant and the court did not “find ‘credible’ the reasons [defendant] provided for joining the social media application through which the child pornography was accessed”

State v. Young, No. A24-2037 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Criminal:
• Appeal from St. Louis County District Court (69DU-CR-22-3527)
• Opinion, Johnson
• Affirming a conviction for second-degree intentional murder on grounds that, where the defendant's argument at trial was to find him guilty of a lesser offense, the district court did not give a defective instruction suggesting the jury consider the greater offense first

Gherardi v. Ayres, No. A25-0591 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Civil: Family
• Appeal from Hennepin County District Court (27-FA-22-3767)
• Opinion, Smith
• Affirming a school-choice order against a host of pro se challenges generally related to the reweighing of evidence

State v. Wells, No. A24-1986 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Criminal:
• Appeal from Hennepin County District Court (27-CR-24-1166)
• Opinion, Smith
• Affirming a conviction for first-degree criminal sexual conduct on grounds that the admission of relationship evidence (in the form of videos of domestic arguments) had probative value towards why the victim did not report sooner, and affirming a guideline-range sentence on grounds that the district court properly distinguished between the defendant's trial rights and strategy and his lack of remorse for the offense

Kellogg v. Freund, No. A25-0478 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Civil: Family
• Appeal from Hennepin County District Court (27-FA-23-5770)
• Opinion, Cochran
• Affirming an award of sole legal and physical custody to a father on grounds that (1) a finding of domestic abuse in a family case is not foreclosed by the failure to find domestic abuse concerning the same conduct in an OFP case, and (2) generally finding that the district court did not clearly error or commit harmful error in a host of challenged findings

In re Custody of J.K.S., No. A25-0784 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Civil: Family
• Appeal from Wright County District Court (86-FA-22-5613)
• Opinion, Slieter
• Affirming a denial of sole physical and legal custody on grounds that (1) a trial court need not make findings on the other elements of a modification claim where endangerment was the basis for the motion and endangerment was not shown; and (2) judicial bias was not shown because of certain comments concerning the timing and tight window for the custody hearing

Miller v. City of White Bear Lake, No. A25-0719 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Civil: Land Use
• Appeal from Ramsey County District Court (62-CV-24-1031)
• Opinion, Slieter
• Affirming a district court's affirmance of the City's variance grants on grounds that (1) the White Bear Lake Zoning Code allows the use of variances or conditional-use permits when expanding nonconforming buildings or uses; and (2) the City did not clearly err in granting the variances where it was “mathematically impossible” to comply with the Zoning Code

State v. Sorenson, No. A25-0500 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Criminal
• Appeal from Meeker County District Court (47-VB-23-1032)
• Opinion, Wheelock
• Affirming a misdemeanor conviction for cutting and removing wood from a Department of Natural Resources-managed area on grounds that the appellant did not raise any of his arguments to the court below

State v. Gardas, No. A25-0266 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Criminal: Sentencing
• Appeal from Wright County District Court (86-CR-22-3064, 86-CR-22-3065)
• Opinion, Wheelock
• Affirming imposition of the presumptive sentence for attempted second-degree intentional murder for a defendant who engaged in a 24-hour standoff culminating in a shootout with police, but reversing and remanding for vacation of an unauthorized $300 fine

State v. Armstrong, No. A25-0153 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Criminal
• Appeal from Stearns County District Court (73-CR-23-210)
• Opinion, Larson
• Affirming a DWI conviction on grounds that the defendant validly waived his right to counsel after discussing self-representation during at least nine appearances, repeatedly being offered to apply for a public defender by the district court, and being given “extensive warnings about the difficulties of representing himself”

State v. Teachman, No. A25-0092 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Criminal: Sentencing
• Appeal from Stearns County District Court (73-CR-24-1008)
• Opinion, Ede
• Affirming a presumptive sentence for felony possession of child pornography on grounds that (1) the district court's reference to the “clear and convincing” standard at the sentencing hearing was harmless error, and (2) denying a downward departure was not an abuse of discretion

State v. Beasley, No. A24-1657 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Criminal
• Appeal from Hennepin County District Court (27-CR-23-24299)
• Opinion, Bond
• Affirming a conviction for first-degree criminal sexual conduct on grounds that (1) the admission of relationship evidence (evidence of physical abuse towards the victim and her family) had probative value towards why the victim did not report sooner; and (2) the district court cured any prosecutorial misconduct in the closing statement, but reversing and remanding to correct the warrant of commitment erroneously listing a conviction for a second offense

Bonga v. State, No. A25-0475 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Criminal: Postconviction Relief
• Appeal from Becker County District Court (03-CR-22-1061)
• Opinion, Cleary
• Affirming a denial of postconviction relief on grounds that the trial judge did not exhibit bias in (1) referencing a prior case with the same defendant during a aggravated sentence hearing; or (2) statements made around the submission of lesser-included charges to the jury by both parties

State v. Bangoura, No. A24-1786 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Criminal
• Appeal from St. Louis County District Court (69DU-CR-23-2042)
• Opinion, Cleary
• Affirming convictions for aiding and abetting second-degree murder, aiding and abetting second degree assault, and reckless discharge against (1) a sufficiency of the evidence challenge on grounds that the prosecution overcame the burden to disprove self-defense and met the burden to prove aiding-and-abetting liability by circumstantial evidence, and (2) a prosecutorial misconduct challenge on grounds that the prosecution accurately stated the law during closing arguments

Christenson v. Roue, No. A25-0589 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Civil: Property
• Appeal from Cass County District Court (11-CV-21-1573)
• Opinion, Florey
• Affirming a denial of a motion to vacate default judgment where 12 parties spent three years litigating an easement dispute, and one party who failed to participate beyond providing a waiver of service sought vacatur 7 months after final judgment

State v. Woida, No. A25-0333 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Criminal
• Appeal from Waseca County District Court (81-CR-24-215)
• Opinion, Kirk
• Affirming a conviction for failure to register as a predatory offender on grounds that the admission of a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension registration form was harmless error, without reaching the Confrontation Clause or hearsay arguments, because the district court relied on bodycam footage of the defendant admitting he had a registration requirement

State v. Flores, No. A24-1245 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 22, 2025).

• Criminal
• Appeal from Ramsey County District Court (62-CR-18-7417)
• Opinion, Kirk
• Affirming a conviction for fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct on grounds that the destruction of bodycam footage from an initial encounter with the victim was not in bad faith, and that the footage did not have apparent and material exculpatory value, thus there was no Due Process Clause violation

Order Opinions

Thompson v. Minneapolis Police Department, No. A25-0837 (Minn. Ct. App. Dec. 16, 2025).

• Civil: Animal Law
• Appeal from Hennepin County District Court (27-CV-25-7189)
• Opinion, Bratvold
• Affirming the dismissal of a petition for review of an impoundment order by the City of Minneapolis seizing a dog (named “Subliminal”) under animal cruelty statutes on grounds that the petitioner untimely sought review (six months instead of the five days required)

Miscellanea

Banner image courtesy of the inestimable Tony Webster.

Out of candor to readers, my standing disclosures and conflicts are listed at the bottom of this page. I will disclose if I have worked on a case in a formal capacity, had any informal contacts with the case, or have personal connections to the case. I do this because I think transparency about my background helps readers judge my writing properly.