Appeals Court Reverses Five-Year Sentence For Felon In Possession Of A Firearm Conviction, Barely.

On September 14, 2020, the Minnesota Court of Appeals issued State of Minnesota v. Deavion Ladell Beasley, Sr., A19-1798 (Minn. Ct. App. Sept. 14, 2020). Beasley is an unpublished criminal appellate case, but nevertheless raises and reinforces numerous interesting issues. Among them: A clarification of the fundamental “identity of names” legal theory, which is the legal theory that establishes that state prosecutors must identify specifically that the person charged with the crime is the person who in fact committed the crime.

In this case, Beasley was charged in Beltrami County with one felony count of unlawful possession of a firearm after he fired a gun at a masked man who had attacked him in October 2017. The State claimed that Beasley lost his rights to possess a firearm in 2009 due to a juvenile delinquency adjudication for a crime of violence (a felony controlled substance crime). The state, however, asserted that at the time Beasley was adjudicated delinquent as a juvenile, he was known as Deavion Schrade—not Deavion Beasley.  

Beasley demanded a jury trial on the possession of a firearm charge, intending to assert self-defense, necessity, and numerous other defenses. Because the State had charged Beasley with being an ineligible person in possession of a firearm (often imprecisely referred to as a “felon in possession of a firearm” charge), the State had the burden to prove to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Beasley was in fact “ineligible” to possess a firearm due to a prior conviction or juvenile adjudication for a crime of violence. 

The district court denied Beasley’s requests for jury instructions on self-defense and necessity, essentially hamstringing those defenses, and Beasley was convicted by the jury. The judge sentenced him to a mandatory 60-month prison sentence.  

Beasley, through his criminal appeals attorney, appealed his conviction to the Minnesota Court of Appeals. Years after the incident took place, he won. In reviewing the record of the case, the Court of Appeals determined that the state had failed to offer sufficient proof that Deavion Beasley (the named defendant) was the same person as Deavion Schrade (the person alleged to have been adjudicated delinquent of the crime of violence). The state asserted, in its defense, that the legal theory of the identity of names provided grounds to sustain the conviction. The appeals court disagreed, however, confirming that the identity of names theory instead affirmed the importance of ensuring that the defendant’s identity (even in the context of proving predicate crimes like the juvenile drug charge) was proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Basically: A conviction cannot stand where the jury could only infer that Deavion Schrade and Deavion Beasley were the same person. The State must prove identity even in the context of an alias or former name, beyond a reasonable doubt. 

In Beasley’s case, the Court of Appeals held that the state failed to do so. The only proof that the jury received from the state on the issue of Beasley’s predicate juvenile controlled substance crime was a statement from the Beltrami County prosecutor during closing arguments that Deavion Beasley was the same person as Deavion Schrade. But Minnesota law is clear that the statements of the attorneys during opening and closing statements in a trial are not themselves evidence. Without actual evidence of the connection between Davion Schrade and Deavion Beasley (through, for example, testimony from witnesses, exhibits, records, or stipulations), the state had failed to meet their burden of proof. Beasley’s conviction was reversed. 

One of the more interesting components of this case relates to a discussion between the court, the prosecutor, and Beasley’s defense attorney prior to trial. As the Court of Appeals noted in its opinion, that conversation “leaves no doubt that the attorneys believed that Schrade and Beasley are one and the same.” Before trial began, the criminal defense lawyer sought the court’s permission for Beasley to explain the prior juvenile delinquency to the jury. The Beltrami County prosecutor, in turn, moved to preclude Beasley’s defense attorney from discussing the facts of Mr. Beasley’s underlying adjudication for his drug crime (which, per Minnesota law was deemed a crime of violence). The Beltrami County district court agreed with the prosecutor, and ordered that Beasley could not testify to any of the facts of that prior juvenile adjudication. 

In other words: The judge, prosecutor, and criminal defense attorney all knew that Beasley and Schrade were the same person. In fact, Beasley’s own defense attorney was the one who initially suggested introducing evidence that would have proved that element and, ironically, the prosecutor was the one who opposed that request. Regardless, despite that it would have been almost effortless for the prosecutor to establish Beasley’s identity at trial, they failed to do so. 

This case reinforces criminal defendants’ needs to retain experienced criminal defense attorneys, like those at Wilson Criminal Defense.  Beasley barely won this appeal and he won on a thin (but important) technicality. Beasley also lost at trial and, despite this reversal, still spent years in prison as a result. Beasley faced a 5-year mandatory prison sentence following a conviction. Had his defense been presented in a more strategic manner at the district court level, he might have avoided that conviction in the first place (at the very least by obtaining the court’s permission to argue self-defense and/or a necessity defense to the jury). 

Read the full opinion here: https://www.mncourts.gov/mncourtsgov/media/Appellate/Court%20of%20Appeals/Standard%20opinions/OPa191798-091420.pdf

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