Court ruled attorneys' authority to act on convict's behalf ended when he died
By Dan Heilman
BridgeTower Media Newswires
MINNEAPOLIS, MN - The miracle of DNA testing proved to be insufficient to redeem the reputation of a notorious Minnesota murderer.
The Minnesota Supreme Court last week dismissed an appeal to clear the name of Billy Glaze, who had been convicted of killing three women in 1989, and who died in prison in 2015.
Attorneys working for the Minnesota Innocence Project of Minnesota had been working since 2014 to exonerate Glaze via new DNA evidence. The high court's decision came three months after justices heard oral arguments from Innocence Project attorneys who wished to continue a petition for reviewing the case.
Last week's decision dismissed that appeal on the grounds that the Innocence Project attorneys' authority to act on behalf of Glaze went away when he died. Even though the case was captioned "Billy Richard Glaze, Appellant, vs. State of Minnesota, Respondent," Glaze himself did not file the appeal.
"These attorneys, whose attorney-client relationship with Glaze terminated on his death and who are not aggrieved parties themselves, do not have standing to pursue Glaze's post-conviction claims on appeal," wrote Associate Justice Anne McKeig in her opinion. "Thus, we lack appellate jurisdiction and must dismiss the appeal."
Representing Glaze in the appeal were Edward B. Magarian and Daniel D. Falknor of Dorsey & Whitney; Julie Jonas of Innocence Project of Minnesota; and Adnan Sultan of The Innocence Project Inc. in New York.
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Post-conviction action
In 1989, Glaze was convicted by a jury of multiple counts of first degree-murder during a sexual assault and second-degree intentional murder for the deaths of three Native American women. Because of the amount of debris in each murder location, investigators collected and tested hundreds of items of potential evidence, and DNA testing did not show a direct link between Glaze and the crime scenes.
At trial, the state introduced evidence that suggested that Glaze had harsh feelings toward Native American women and that he fantasized about sexually mutilating them. The state also introduced evidence that Glaze had given his girlfriend a ring belonging to one of the victims and evidence of shoe prints found at that victim's murder scene that were consistent with shoes belonging to Glaze.
The guilty verdict was affirmed on appeal, but in 2007 Glaze filed a motion in Hennepin County District Court requesting forensic DNA testing not available at the time of his trial. That motion was granted, and the parties spent the next seven years litigating the details of that order, including the items to be tested and who would conduct the testing.
In June 2014, Glaze filed a petition for post-conviction relief, arguing that newly discovered evidence in the form of DNA testing placed another person at two of the murder scenes. Glaze asked that his convictions be vacated and that he be granted a new trial - or, failing that, an evidentiary hearing to resolve any factual disputes regarding his newly discovered evidence from the DNA testing.
Over the next 18 months, both parties submitted various motions in which they disagreed about the significance of the DNA testing. In August of 2015, the district court ordered additional DNA testing and reserved judgment on whether to conduct an evidentiary hearing.
Personal representative
Glaze was serving three life sentences and had been in prison for 28 years when he died of lung cancer in December 2015.
Shortly after, the state moved to dismiss Glaze's post-conviction petition as moot. Glaze's attorneys argued that the district court could grant effectual relief by clearing Glaze's name, and because the petition presented "important public issues of statewide significance."
In order for the case to continue after Glaze's death, a personal representative needed to be appointed by a probate court as the appellant. When Glaze's attorneys requested this, a Hennepin County District Court judge dismissed the case without ruling on the request.
A personal representative of Glaze's estate, Debra Kovats, did file a motion to substitute herself as the petitioner in Glaze's postconviction case. The Supreme Court opinion said that because Kovats was neither listed in the caption nor mentioned in the body of the notice of appeal, it was apparent that the appeal was filed not by Kovats but by Glaze's lawyers.
Magarian, while emphasizing his team's respect for the Supreme Court, maintained that it ruled by "technicalities," and that he and the other attorneys representing Glaze were confused by the ruling.
"First, a personal representative was appointed by the probate court," Magarian said. "We asked both the district court and Supreme Court to substitute that personal representative for Billy, but neither court ruled on that request, leaving a void. Second, we filed a declaration of the personal representative with the Supreme Court attesting that she had authorized the filing of the appeal."
Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Jean Burdorf said that the court simply found there was no justiciable controversy due to Glaze's death. With the Supreme Court appeal dismissed, the post-conviction proceedings are over. She said that the civil rule allowing a personal representative to step in as petitioner does not apply in a criminal case, and there is no other way to proceed. She did not know if Glaze had any relatives who would want to pursue the matter.
Glaze's team of lawyers will decide soon whether to continue the fight on behalf of Kovats, seek a posthumous pardon for Glaze, or put the matter behind them.
Published: Mon, Mar 26, 2018
