State of Minnesota v. Deeforest Mentay Houston, A15-1916

On June 3–4, 2014 Houston responded to an escort advertisement on Backpage that included sexualized language and photos of two women; the phone number in the ad connected to an undercover officer (Hartnett) working a prostitution detail.
Houston exchanged texts and calls with Hartnett asking ages, whether the women worked alone, whether they had a “daddy,” offering to post ads, drive them, split $1,000/day, and saying he wanted to “take care of business.”
He arranged to meet at a hotel room; Hartnett said she was ‘‘doing business’’ and wanted to avoid drawing attention; Houston asked if they were police and was arrested in the hallway when he knocked.
Charged with sex trafficking under Minn. Stat. § 609.322 (recruiting or enticing a person to practice prostitution), he was convicted by a jury and sentenced to 50 months’ imprisonment.
On appeal Houston argued (1) insufficiency of the evidence—contending his communications were consistent with lawful escort/advertising work—and (2) the district court abused its discretion by denying a mistrial after two officers made passing references implying investigatory database checks and arrest-for-safety.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of evidence to prove recruitment/enticement for prostitution	State: Circumstantial and direct evidence (ad context, texts/calls, offers to recruit/drive/split money) support conviction	Houston: Communications could be consistent with lawful adult-entertainment employment; evidence is circumstantial and permits an innocent inference	Affirmed: Under the circumstantial-evidence test the proven facts (ad context, offers, "daddy" language, avoidance of police) are consistent with guilt and inconsistent with any rational innocent hypothesis
Denial of mistrial based on officers’ statements	State: Remarks were inadvertent, passing, not emphasized, and outweighed by substantial evidence	Houston: References to database lookup and arrest-for-safety improperly suggested prior contacts/bad acts and prejudiced the jury	Affirmed: No abuse of discretion—statements were passing, unexpected, not repeated or used in closing, and prejudice was unlikely given strong evidentiary record

State v. Washington-Davis, 881 N.W.2d 531 (Minn. 2016) (framework for reviewing circumstantial-evidence sufficiency)
State v. Al-Naseer, 788 N.W.2d 469 (Minn. 2010) (requiring a nonconjectural rational hypothesis inconsistent with guilt)
State v. Manthey, 711 N.W.2d 498 (Minn. 2006) (standard for granting a mistrial based on prejudicial incident)
State v. Jorgensen, 660 N.W.2d 127 (Minn. 2003) (appellate review of mistrial denial is abuse of discretion)
State v. Porte, 832 N.W.2d 303 (Minn. App. 2013) (applying circumstantial-evidence test where disputed element had both direct and circumstantial proof)