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Irregular News for 04.03.07

 

St. Paul, MN -- A few weeks before he murdered his wife in December 2001, Ronald Cram was seen by a neighbor storming out of his St. Paul home and yelling, "I should just kill you and collect the insurance money!"

 

More than five years later, Cram is trying to collect on his wife Colleen's life insurance policy -- even though he has since been convicted of murdering her.

 

Minnesota law prohibits anyone convicted of intentionally killing someone from collecting on their benefits. But Cram has kept his hopes alive, and prevented anyone else from getting the $50,000 in insurance money, by arguing that his conviction isn't final so long as he continues to appeal it.

 

A hearing in the dispute is scheduled April 27 before Ramsey County District Judge Steven Wheeler.

 

Meanwhile, Cram's quest to collect on his murdered wife's life insurance policy puts him in notorious company.

 

A similar insurance claim was made -- unsuccessfully -- by St. Paul attorney T. Eugene Thompson, who was convicted of hiring men to kill his wife in 1963 in one of Minnesota's most celebrated murder cases.

 

Cram's legal battle, and the notion that he just might succeed, is upsetting Colleen Cram's family.

 

"How can he kill somebody, and then have a right to $50,000 in life insurance? I mean, that's not right. That's crazy," said Marcella Konietzko of Ham Lake, Colleen's 82-year-old mother. "He killed her. Why doesn't he leave her alone now?"

 

Tom Cunningham, Colleen's brother, said he's not sure what motivates Ronald Cram but wonders if he's simply trying to be vindictive.

 

"Sometimes I think he is just trying to stretch this out so nobody gets anything," said Cunningham, of Lake Elmo.

 

Clark Thurn, an attorney representing Cram in his life insurance claim, did not return calls seeking comment.

 

Cram, now 51, was convicted in April 2002 of first-degree murder for killing his 46-year-old wife in December 2001.

 

Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner, who tried the case herself, said during the trial that Colleen Cram was "a virtual prototype of a battered woman" who escaped her husband's "reign of terror" only by dying in a beating in the couple's St. Paul home.

 

In October 2002, Ronald Cram wrote a letter surrendering his rights as the prime beneficiary of his wife's life insurance policy, making his brother Arlan the only remaining named beneficiary. State law prohibits anyone who "feloniously and intentionally" kills another from collecting on the victim's life insurance policy.

 

But the law also states that a "final judgment of conviction" for the killing is proof that the perpetrator is disqualified from benefiting from the insurance. Ronald Cram had a change of heart after learning that, his lawyer said in court documents.

 

In May 2004, Ramsey County District Judge Margaret Marrinan agreed with Cram that he had not waived his right to claim the insurance money, and that his claim to it couldn't be disqualified until his murder conviction became final.

 

That came in August, when the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld Cram's conviction. But since then, he has filed a federal habeas corpus petition alleging that the state courts had violated his rights.

 

And until his request for a federal court review is decided, Cram argues, he and no one else has a rightful claim on the insurance money

 

Both Colleen Cram's estate and Arlan Cram claim they're entitled to the life insurance money. They say that, since the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld his conviction, Ronald Cram has no right to collect the money and that the matter is over despite his federal appeal, they argue in papers filed with Ramsey County District Court.

 

"The Minnesota Court of Appeals has said that if we allowed cases like this to proceed past the direct [conviction] appeal, they could go on forever," said Joshua Hasko, an attorney for Colleen Cram's estate.

 

But Ronald Cram's attorney points out in court papers that the Minnesota Supreme Court denied T. Eugene Thompson's bid to collect his wife's life insurance money after noting that Thompson had exhausted his murder conviction appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.

 

That is "implicit recognition" by the state's high court that Cram's conviction isn't final so long as he has asked the federal courts to review it, Thurn argues.

 

Does Cram have a case? Maybe, said University of Minnesota Law School Prof. Ted Sampsell-Jones.

 

The general rule in criminal law is that a conviction is considered final when a direct appeal like Cram's to the Minnesota Supreme Court is over, he said.

 

But in the context of insurance law, Sampsell-Jones said, "It's at least possible a court could go another way."

 

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