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The Winona County Attorney’s Office and the Public Defender’s Office petitioned the Minnesota Court of Appeals late last month to force Judge Jeff Thompson to reconsider an agreement entered into by Nicholas Howard Greenwood of Rochester, Minn. Chief Judge Edward Toussaint wrote in his decision Tuesday that the attorneys’ petition lacked sufficient evidence of their claims and refused to even take up the case.
Greenwood, 27, is charged with 23 felonies, including attempted murder. Police say he fired a shotgun seven times into a St. Charles, Minn., home. No one was injured.
At an Oct. 22 plea hearing, Greenwood was prepared to plead guilty to three counts of assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of ineligible possession of a firearm. The plea agreement stipulated Greenwood would go to prison for between five and 9 years. Language in the agreement would have allowed either side to withdraw if the judge sentenced outside that range.
“I’m not taking pleas like this,” Thompson said at the time. He declined to hear any portion of the agreement after learning of the sentencing restrictions and ended the hearing.
The appeal from Winona County Attorney Chuck MacLean and Chief Public Defender Karen Duncan says Thompson acted beyond his judicial authority in rejecting the agreement. They asked the Court of Appeals to force Thompson to reconsider the agreement and refrain from rejecting similar pleas.
Toussaint wrote that the attorneys’ petition lacked a transcript of the Oct. 22 hearing and a written copy of the “local rule or policy” that the attorneys said Thompson followed. Without that evidence, the appeals court simply can’t address the challenge, Toussaint wrote.
No new court date has been set.
Joe Blow wrote on Nov 27, 2008 11:24 AM: