This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2014).
STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A14-0905
Jason James Lindgren, petitioner,
Appellant,
vs.
State of Minnesota,
Respondent.
Filed March 23, 2015
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded
Hudson, Judge
Roseau County District Court
File No. 68-CR-07-628
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and
Karen M. Foss, Roseau County Attorney, Michael P. Grover, Assistant County Attorney,
Roseau, Minnesota (for respondent)
Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Kathryn Lockwood, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)
Considered and decided by Hudson, Presiding Judge; Bjorkman, Judge; and
Minge, Judge.
Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to
Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
HUDSON, Judge
Appellant challenges the district court’s order denying his motion to correct his
sentence. He argues that (1) the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) improperly
extended his conditional-release term by failing to award him supervised-release credit
for time that he spent incarcerated on a separate offense and (2) the district court
erroneously imposed a ten-year conditional-release term. Because appellant did not use
the appropriate procedure to obtain judicial review of the DOC’s calculation of his
conditional-release expiration date, we affirm the district court’s order denying the
motion to correct sentence. But because the ten-year conditional-release term imposed
by the district court was not authorized by law, we reverse and remand for imposition of
a five-year conditional-release term.
FACTS
In October 2005, appellant Jason James Lindgren was designated an extended
jurisdiction juvenile, adjudicated delinquent of one count of first-degree criminal sexual
conduct, and placed on juvenile probation for three years. The district court stayed
execution of the presumptive 144-month adult prison sentence for the period of juvenile
probation. In 2007, after appellant admitted that he violated the terms of his juvenile
probation, the district court revoked the juvenile probation, stayed execution of the 144-
month adult sentence, and placed appellant on adult probation for up to 30 years.
Approximately one year later, appellant admitted that he violated the terms of his adult
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probation. The district court revoked appellant’s adult probation, executed the 144-
month prison sentence, and imposed a ten-year conditional-release term.
In December 2010, while incarcerated, appellant pleaded guilty to one count of
fourth-degree assault of a correctional employee. For this offense, the district court
sentenced appellant to an executed prison sentence of one year and one day, to be served
consecutively to his sentence for criminal sexual conduct. Appellant subsequently filed a
motion to correct his sentence under Minn. R. Crim. P. 27.03, subd. 9, asking that the
district court order the DOC to recalculate the expiration date of his criminal-sexual-
conduct conditional-release term to account for time that he was incarcerated for assault.
The district court denied appellant’s motion. This appeal follows.
DECISION
I
Appellant argues that the district court erred by denying his motion to modify his
sentence. He contends that, because his criminal-sexual-conduct supervised-release term
began when he started serving his term of incarceration for assault, and because a
defendant’s conditional-release term must be reduced by the time completed on
supervised release, the DOC must recalculate the expiration date for his conditional-
release term to reflect the time that he was incarcerated for assault. See Minn. Stat.
§ 609.109, subd. 7(a) (2004) (stating that the term of the relevant conditional-release
period here is five years “minus the time . . . served on supervised release”). Appellant
seeks judicial review of the DOC’s calculation of his conditional-release expiration date
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under Minn. R. Crim. P. 27.03, subd. 9, which permits the district court to correct a
sentence “not authorized by law” at any time.
We must first consider whether appellant utilized the proper procedure to obtain
judicial review of the DOC’s calculation of his conditional-release expiration date. The
Minnesota Supreme Court recently held that an offender may bring a rule 27.03 motion
to correct sentence only when the offender is challenging the legality of the original
sentence imposed by the district court. State v. Schnagl, 859 N.W.2d 297, 301 (Minn.
2015). The court explained that because a request to correct a release term is a challenge
to an administrative decision made by the DOC, and because the DOC’s administrative
decisions do not “involve the legality of the sentence imposed by the district court,”
judicial review of those decisions may be obtained only by filing a petition for a writ of
habeas corpus. Id. at 302.1 The court concluded that, when an offender seeks judicial
review of a DOC administrative decision by filing a rule 27.03 motion to correct
sentence, the district court should deny that motion without reaching the merits of the
underlying issue. Id. at 303.
Here, appellant seeks a modification of his conditional-release expiration date,
which is an administrative decision made by the DOC. Id. at 302; see also State v.
Schwartz, 628 N.W.2d 134, 140 (Minn. 2001) (stating that conditional release begins
after the imposition of sentence and is supervised by an administrative agency). Thus, to
1
The supreme court concluded that a habeas corpus petition was the appropriate
procedure to seek review of the DOC’s administrative decisions because those petitions
require the DOC to be named as a party and allow the DOC to present evidence to the
district court that will form a record for the district court’s decision. Schnagl, 859
N.W.2d at 302–03.
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seek judicial review of that decision, appellant must file a petition for habeas corpus in
which the commissioner of corrections is a named party. Schnagl, 859 N.W.2d at 303.
But appellant did not do so here; instead, he sought judicial review of the DOC’s
administrative decision by filing a motion to correct sentence under Minn. R. Crim.
P. 27.03, subd. 9. Because appellant did not use the proper procedure to obtain judicial
review, we affirm the district court’s decision to deny his motion to correct sentence, but
we do so without considering the merits of that motion.2
II
Appellant also argues that the district court erred by originally imposing a ten-year
conditional-release term for his first-degree criminal-sexual-conduct offense. The state
concedes that the district court erred. We agree. In early 2005, when appellant
committed the offense, the applicable statute required that a five-year conditional-release
term be imposed, with credit for time completed on supervised release. Minn. Stat.
§ 609.109, subd. 7 (2004). The legislature subsequently amended the statute to require
that a ten-year conditional-release term be imposed for certain sex offenses committed
after August 1, 2005. See 2005 Minn. Laws ch. 136, art. 2, § 21, at 931; Minn. Stat.
§ 609.3455, subd. 6 (2006) (codification of amendment). Because appellant committed
the criminal-sexual-conduct offense prior to August 1, 2005, we conclude that the district
court erred when it imposed a ten-year conditional-release term. Accordingly, we reverse
2
We recognize that appellant did not have the benefit of the supreme court’s decision in
Schnagl when he filed his motion to correct sentence. And, like the supreme court in
Schnagl, we also emphasize that nothing in this opinion should preclude appellant from
filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus if he remains under the supervision of the
commissioner of corrections.
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the district court’s imposition of the ten-year term and remand to the district court for
modification of the conditional-release term to five years.
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.
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