Widener v. State
| Decision Date | 28 December 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 15S00-9404-CR-365,15S00-9404-CR-365 |
| Citation | 659 N.E.2d 529 |
| Parties | Daniel W. WIDENER, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below). |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
On October 12, 1993, Daniel Widener (defendant) pled guilty to Felony Murder 1 and Conspiracy to Commit Robbery, a Class B Felony, 2 in accordance with a written plea agreement under which the trial court would determine his sentence. The sentencing hearing was held in December, 1993, and in January, 1994, the trial court sentenced defendant to consecutive terms of sixty years for Felony Murder and ten years for Conspiracy to Commit Robbery.
In October of 1992, three young men from Lawrenceburg, Indiana, Daniel Widener (age seventeen) and his friends, Christopher Lozier and Shawn Davis (both eighteen), planned a robbery to obtain some extra cash. Lozier suggested that they rob the local Citgo Gas Barn, where defendant and his mother worked. Davis, who had recently been fired from the local Ponderosa restaurant, suggested that they should rob a night manager of the Ponderosa.
On October 22, the three men discussed the robbery and agreed to use Davis's twenty-two caliber revolver to scare the Ponderosa night manager. Lozier suggested that they wear masks and gloves. Defendant bought a ski mask at the Army Surplus Store, and Lozier borrowed defendant's father's Halloween mask.
The threesome got together twice over the next few days to finalize their plans. Davis gave his cohorts information regarding the three different Ponderosa night managers. They established a route to the Star Bank and agreed that Davis would stay home during the robbery to establish an alibi.
On October 25, 1992, the three men got together early in the evening and played pool. Later, the threesome dined at the Ponderosa. After leaving the restaurant, they went to a gas station, where Davis handed Lozier a twenty-two caliber revolver that had been underneath the seat of the truck. They returned to the Ponderosa and Davis showed his cohorts the cars of Vanessa Wells, the victim, and that of another night manager.
Around 9:00 p.m., Davis drove defendant and Lozier to a Wal-mart parking lot. Defendant and Lozier walked from the parking lot along U.S. 50 to a parking lot adjacent to the Star Bank and crouched down between two parked cars. Lozier placed a concrete block in the driveway of the bank so that anyone making a night deposit would have to exit his or her vehicle. As the two men crouched in wait, Lozier showed defendant the revolver and placed it between them on the ground.
Around 1:30 a.m., Vanessa Wells arrived at the bank to make a deposit. Wearing masks and gloves, the two men ambushed Ms. Wells. Ms. Wells spotted her attackers, ran back to her car, locked the doors, and started screaming. Defendant approached the front passenger window of Wells's car and ordered her to get out. Still screaming, Wells attempted to start the car. Lozier ordered defendant to do something to stop Wells. Defendant stepped back and fired a shot that cracked the front passenger window. Horrified, Wells quit trying to start the car but continued screaming. The autopsy revealed that the first shot caused a graze wound to the victim's right cheek. Defendant placed his hand through the cracked window and fired a second shot that penetrated the victim's raised right hand and lodged in her neck. Now silent, Ms. Wells fell forward onto the car horn. Defendant dropped the gun.
At the sentencing hearing, defendant's and Lozier's stories as to what happened next differed. Each man accused the other of being the one who removed Wells from the front seat, placed her on the floorboard of the back seat, and later fired two more shots into her head. However, the two men did agree as to the following course of events. After the victim's body had been placed on the back seat floorboard, the assailants entered Wells's car, and Lozier drove it to the Lawrenceburg landfill. They counted the robbery proceeds on the way and were dismayed to discover that the total night deposit was approximately $275.00.
Lozier drove the car into some trees; the men exited the car and threw their coats, gloves, Widener's mask and the money bag into some pools of water at the landfill. Each man accused the other of taking bullets and spent shells out of the gun and throwing them off the levee. During the walk back to town, Lozier threw the gun into the Ohio River. The two men returned to defendant's home and fell asleep after Lozier called Davis to apprise him of the evening's events.
The next day defendant and Lozier spent part of the robbery proceeds at the mall watching a movie and eating out with their younger brothers. They also played basketball. The two men agreed not to give Davis any of the money. Each man accused the other of retaining that part of the proceeds that they did not spend at the mall. After their trip to the mall, the defendant and Lozier continued their daily life routines until they were questioned by the police in March of 1993.
Ms. Wells died as result of the gunshot wounds that she sustained. Ms. Wells's husband reported her missing the day after she was murdered. Three days later, two hunters in the landfill area discovered the victim's body in her car.
Defendant asserts that the aggregate seventy year sentence imposed by the trial court is manifestly unreasonable, both because the trial court relied on invalid aggravating circumstances and did not indicate that it considered all proffered mitigating circumstances.
The trial court sentenced defendant as follows:
Mr. Widener, the Court sentences you to the Department of Corrections for classification and confinement for the crime of murder, a felony, for a period of forty years. The Court enhances that sentence by an additional twenty years and in support of that enhancement finds that the following aggravating circumstances exist.
A human being met her death as a result of being shot by you and another in the commission of a robbery, and the Court finds that the manner in which the crime was committed was heinous, cold-blooded and callus [sic] in that the defendant shot the victim once, the victim stopped resisting, and the defendant smashed the gun and his hand through her car window and shot her again, and the calculating and bizarre disposition of the body of the victim and the immediate thereafter placement and careful disposition of the gun and bullets, the mask and the bank bag and other evidence in the case.
Number two, it finds that the events following the death of the victim and the recreational entertainment which you enjoyed with Mr. Lozier the following day with the proceeds of this death show a callus [sic] and stoic lack of remorse which offends and shocks the human conscious [sic].
Thirdly, the imposition of any reduced or suspended sentence would depreciate the seriousness of the crime.
On the charge of conspiracy to commit robbery, a class B felony, the Court sentences you to the Department of Corrections for classification and confinement for a period of ten years and orders that that sentence be served consecutively to the sentence for felony murder, and in support thereof, finds the same aggravating circumstances that it did with regard to the enhancement of the sentence for murder, a felony.
Let the record also show the Court has taken into account the ages of all three of these defendants as a mitigating circumstance, but finds that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances.
Defendant contends that the trial court's first finding, that "[a] human being met her death as a result of being shot by you and another in the commission of a robbery," does no more than state the factual elements comprising the felony murder charge and that facts making up the material elements of a crime may not also constitute an aggravating circumstance to support an enhanced sentence. While it is true that a material element of a crime may not also serve as an aggravating circumstance for sentence enhancement, particularized circumstances relating to such factual elements may. Townsend v. State (1986), Ind., 498 N.E.2d 1198, 1202. Here, the trial court stated that it was the manner in which the crimes were committed-- i.e., "that the defendant shot the victim once, the victim stopped resisting, and the defendant smashed the gun and his hand through her car window and shot her again" and the calculated disposition of the body, gun, and other characteristics of this particular murder--that support a sentence enhancement. We think that this was a sufficiently particularized account of the reasons why the defendant's commission of felony murder supported an enhanced sentence and that the trial court's statements in this regard are clearly more than a bare recitation of the elements of the felony murder charge. Therefore, we conclude that the trial court could properly consider the particular manner in which the crimes were committed as a valid aggravating...
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