Order for Protection 

Posted: 1:00 am Mon, December 31, 2007
By admin
Tags: Evidence

1. Evidence of an order for protection was inadmissible to corroborate a domestic abuse victim’s testimony about incidents underlying her petition for the order in establishing a past pattern of domestic abuse under Minn. Stat. sec. 609.185(a)(6) (2006), where the order contained none of the victim’s allegations, defendant did not admit allegations of abuse, and the order itself indicated only that defendant had not objected to the order but agreed to its enforcement.

2. The error in admitting evidence of the order for protection was harmless where sufficient evidence of domestic abuse was presented that no reasonable probability existed that the verdict would have been significantly affected had the inadmissible evidence been excluded.

3. Defendant failed to establish that the admission of faked suicide evidence fell within the plain error exception to the invited error doctrine.

4. Defendant failed to meet the heavy burden for a reviewing court to overturn a District Court’s refusal to dismiss an indictment where sufficient admissible evidence was presented to the grand jury to support its probable cause determination that defendant engaged in a past pattern of domestic abuse and instructions given to the jury were not so misleading or deficient that the integrity of the grand jury process was compromised. Affirmed.

Concurring, Anderson, Russell A., C.J. “I believe the OFP was admissible to impeach [defendant’s] claims of self-defense and peaceful character and to repair the credibility of the impeached State witness.”

Justices Page and Gildea join in the concurrence of Chief Justice Anderson.