Robbinsdale woman's conviction upheld in daughter's death

Author: Steve Brandt; Staff Writer

The Minnesota Court of Appeals has upheld a Robbinsdale woman's second-degree murder conviction in the 1986 death of her 2-year-old daughter.

Janet Ostlund was sentenced to nine years in prison after her conviction for unintentionally causing the child's death by shaking her. She maintained that the child died in a fall from a couch onto a linoleum floor.

In a decision to be filed today, the appeals court said that a murder conviction may be based on circumstantial evidence when the only inferences from that evidence point to guilt.

A dozen physicians, including medical examiners, called as witnesses during the nine-day trial were divided on the question of whether Maria Ostlund was violently shaken or fell.

Janet Ostlund's attorneys argued that prosecution experts offered insufficient medical opinion to prove the death was a homicide. But the appeals court upheld the trial court's determination that the state's witnesses qualified as experts.

The appeals court also rejected five other grounds for the appeal.

However, Justice Gary Crippen dissented. He said the trial court erred in allowing several friends and relatives to give what he called highly prejudicial evidence against Ostlund's relationship with her daughter and other children.

Crippen said that testimony and the conflicting medical opinion created an extremely close case that should require a new trial.

In other cases: # The appeals court threw out a portion of the sentence, but not the conviction, of Michael Leo Frank of Minneapolis for his part in the 1986 kidnapping and rape of a teen-age girl who was left nude in a Rice County cornfield.

Frank cooperated with police and identified one of two other participants in the attack. Frank was sentenced to 13 1/2 years in prison for kidnapping and first-degree criminal sexual misconduct, and three years for second-degree assault.

His sentence was more than 3 1/2 times the recommended sentence under the state's sentencing guidelines. His attorney contended that Frank should not have received more than a doubling of the recommended sentence.

Although the appeals court disagreed with that reasoning, it said that because the sentences stemmed from a single episode, separate sentences were not permissible.

# The court upheld disciplinary action taken by the Minnesota Board of Medical Examiners against Dr. Rodger Kollmorgen for overprescribing drugs for a patient. That occurred when he was medical director and staff psychiatrist for the Five-County Mental Health Center in Braham, in Isanti County.

The board reprimanded Kollmorgen and fined him $1,000.

The appeals court rejected Kollmorgen's argument that there was insufficient evidence against him.