The Minnesota Supreme Court has voted to deny a request by Grant Everson for a new trial.

Everson was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in January 2007 after a jury found him guilty for his role in the murder of his mother, Nancy Everson, and the attempted murder of his father Tom Everson. Nancy was found shot to death in her Chaska residence on Jan. 15, 2006.

Everson appealed the 2007 ruling, requesting that his conviction be reversed and a new trial conducted based on the process of jury deliberations. In an opinion published this morning, the Minnesota Supreme Court voted 5-2 to deny the appeal.

Everson’s attorneys argued that audio exhibits, including statements made to police by Everson’s accomplice Joel Beckrich, should not have been available for additional review during deliberations, as they were prejudicial and showed, more than Beckrich’s trial testimony, that the premeditated plan (to murder Everson’s parents) was not abandoned as the defense had argued in court.

Attorneys also argued that because two non-jury members were present when the jury reviewed three of audio exhibits, the “integrity of the decisional process” was compromised, necessitating a new trial.

To assist with the playing of the audio exhibits, an employee of the Carver County Attorney’s Office and the court clerk were in the closed courtroom when the jury listened to the three exhibits. Both the prosecution and defense agreed to their presence and the judge instructed both non-jury members to avoid any communication with the jury.

An hour after listening to the audio exhibits, the jury returned a guilty verdict for Everson.

In the opinion written for the court’s majority, Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea wrote “The jury, in reviewing the recorded statements in their entirety one additional time, was simply rehearing what it had already heard in the same place it had already heard the evidence.

“There is no reasonable possibility that the jury’s rehearing of these statements caused it to convict ‘where it otherwise would not have done so.’ There was strong evidence from which the jury could infer that the premeditated plan to kill Everson’s parents was never abandoned.”

On Everson’s second point that the presence of non-jury members resulted in the deprivation of his due process right to a fair and impartial jury, Gildea wrote that their presence was limited and not have any authority over the proceedings.

“We conclude that the procedure used here, while perhaps inadvisable, is not comparable to an uninvited entry by the judge into the jury room. We therefore hold that structural error was not committed and automatic reversal is not warranted.”

Three justices wrote dissents on the court’s opinion. Justice Paul H. Anderson concurred in part and dissented in part. He disagreed with the court’s opinion that Everson was not entitled to a Schwartz hearing, in which a record of any communications occurring between the jury and a county attorney’s office employee are documented.

“I conclude that such a record is necessary for us to determine whether we can affirm Everson’s conviction or whether we must reverse and remand for a new trial,” he wrote.

In her dissent, Justice Helen M. Meyer wrote “I would reaffirm our strict rule and hold that the presence of a representative from the county attorney’s office and a court clerk during secret jury deliberations is a defect in the trial proceedings that requires reversal.”

Meyer added that “the jury’s deliberations should have been suspended and the recordings should have been replayed in open court, in the presence of the judge, counsel, and the defendant.”

Justice Alan C. Page agreed with Meyer, writing, “I am unwilling in the name of convenience and judicial efficiency to close my eyes to a procedure that risks influencing the jury’s decisional process in some degree, however difficult to define or impossible to measure.”

-Mollee Francisco, staff writer

For more on the Everson story, click here.