Greer v. State of Minnesota
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In July 1998, Ronald Lewis Greer was implicated in the murder of Kareem Brown by at least five witnesses. He was charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder. Greer claimed he was not the shooter and that he was at a friend's house at the time of the murder, but a jury found him guilty of both charges in May 1999. Greer was sentenced to life in prison, and on appeal, the conviction was upheld. Over the next few years, Greer filed three petitions for postconviction relief, all of which were denied.
In 2021, Greer filed a motion to correct his sentence, arguing that his sentence was unlawful as he was sentenced for two degrees of the same crime. The district court granted Greer's motion in part, vacating his second-degree murder conviction. Greer appealed this decision, claiming that the court should have held a sentencing hearing when it vacated his second-degree murder conviction. This appeal was denied.
In 2023, Greer filed a fourth petition for postconviction relief, asking the district court to vacate his first-degree murder conviction, reinstate his second-degree murder conviction, and resentence him. The district court denied Greer's petition, citing it as time-barred under Minnesota Statutes section 590.01, subdivision 4 (2022), and procedurally barred under the rule announced in State v. Knaffla.
In a decision by the Supreme Court of the State of Minnesota, the court affirmed the district court's decision. The court held that Greer's petition was time-barred under Minnesota Statutes section 590.01, subdivision 4 (2022), as it was filed more than two years after the later of the entry of judgment of conviction or sentence or an appellate court’s disposition of petitioner’s direct appeal. As such, the court did not address whether Greer’s claims were also barred by Knaffla or reach the merits of Greer’s claims. The court also rejected Greer's claim that the district court's 2021 order vacating his second-degree murder conviction provided him an additional two years within which to bring a petition for postconviction relief.
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