Adams v. State

• Docket Number: 22A-CR-2859
• Decision Date: 30 June 2023
• Parties: Chase E. Adams, Appellant-Defendant, v. State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

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Chase E. Adams, Appellant-Defendant, v. State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.

No. 22A-CR-2859

Court of Appeals of Indiana

June 30, 2023

Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), this Memorandum Decision is not binding precedent for any court and may be cited only for persuasive value or to establish res judicata, collateral estoppel, or law of the case.

Appeal from the Delaware Circuit Court The Honorable John M. Feick Judge Trial Court Cause No. 18C04-2010-MR-7

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT Nathan D. Meeks Marion, Indiana

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE Theodore E. Rokita Attorney General of Indiana Courtney Staton Deputy Attorney General Indianapolis Indiana

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Bradford, Judge.

Case Summary

[¶1] On October 3, 2020, residents of two adjacent homes in Muncie started fires in their respective back yards. At some point, Chase Adams (from one house) began arguing with Rex Morrison (from the other). Edward Dines, from the same house as Morrison, later noticed Adams near Morrison's vehicle in the back yard, and Dines and Morrison went outside, armed with baseball bats. At some point after Morrison ran toward Adams with his bat, Adams stabbed him three times in the head and back, wounds that ultimately proved fatal.

[¶2] The State charged Adams with, inter alia, murder. At trial, Adams submitted a proposed final jury instruction on self-defense, but the trial court chose to deliver the pattern instruction instead. The jury found Adams guilty of murder and three other crimes. A few months later, Adams moved for a mistrial on the basis of alleged juror misconduct and produced an affidavit from the alternate juror to support it. The State moved to strike the affidavit, which motion the trial court granted before denying Adams's mistrial motion. Adams contends that the trial court abused its discretion in instructing the jury on self-defense and in allegedly refusing to allow him to make an offer of proof and that the State produced insufficient evidence to sustain a finding that he knowingly killed Morrison. We affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

[¶3] On October 3, 2020, Adams lived at 2308 South Hackley Street in Muncie, and Dines, Alicia Atkinson, Katie Morrison, and Morrison lived next door. That night, the four started a fire behind their house, and Adams, his brother, and Kendra Dodd started their own fire soon thereafter. At some point, Adams and Morrison began arguing. When Dines left the house intending to go to a liquor store, he noticed that his front tire had been slashed. Dines walked to the liquor store instead.

[¶4] When he returned, Dines checked his surveillance cameras and saw Adams behind his house near the back of Morrison's Ford Explorer. Dines yelled for Morrison and announced, "the neighbor is in the backyard messing with your Explorer." Tr. Vol. III p. 57. Dines put down his beer, grabbed his coat, picked up a baseball bat, and went outside. Dines did not see where Morrison had gone but saw Adams standing on Adams's back porch. Dines approached his property line and told Adams to "stay out of the yard[.]" Tr. Vol. III p. 59. When Adams threatened to stab him, Dines replied "whatever" and began smashing the windows on Adams's Dodge Durango. Tr. Vol. III p. 59.

[¶5] After breaking the windows, Dines heard Katie and Atkinson scream from inside the house. Dines ran inside and saw Morrison, who had also gone outside with a baseball bat, leaning against the kitchen counter. Morrison was bleeding from the back of his head and had been stabbed twice in the back. Morrison died of his wounds after being taken to a hospital, and the cause of death was later determined to be blood loss from one stab wound to the head and two to the torso.

[¶6] Muncie Police Detective Bryan Ashton interviewed Adams regarding Morrison's death. Adams explained that he, his brother, and Dodd had been drinking beer by the fire while Dines, Atkinson, Katie, and Morrison had been doing the same thing next door. According to Adams, Morrison had spent a portion of the night calling him names. Adams told Detective Ashton that he had gone inside but had heard a noise outside and had known that his truck windows were being hit. Adams then related that he had decided to retaliate, had taken a knife from the kitchen, and had gone outside and slashed the tires on Morrison's vehicle. Finally, Adams told Detective Ashton that Morrison and Dines had come outside with baseball bats and that he had stabbed Morrison after he had run at him and tried to hit him with his bat.

[¶7] On October 9, 2020, the State charged Adams with murder, Level 6 felony obstruction of justice, and two counts of Class B misdemeanor criminal mischief. A jury trial commenced on April 4, 2022. After the presentation of evidence, the parties discussed the proposed final jury instructions. Adams proposed a final instruction on self-defense which read,

It is an issue whether the Accused acted in self-defense.

A person is justified in using deadly force, and does not have a duty to retreat, if he or she reasonably believes that deadly force is necessary to (1) prevent serious bodily injury to himself or a third person, (2) prevent the commission of a forcible felony, or (3) prevent or terminate an unlawful entry of or attack on an occupied motor vehicle.

A person is not justified in using force if (1) the person is committing a crime and (2) there is an immediate causal connection between the crime and the confrontation.

The State has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the Accused did not act in self-defense or defense of others.

Appellant's App. Vol. II p. 226. Adams also proposed an instruction defining the term "immediate causal connection[.]" Appellant's App. Vol. II p. 227.

[¶8] The trial court chose instead to use the pattern jury instruction for self-defense, which provides as follows:

It is an issue whether the Defendant acted in self-defense. A person may use reasonable force against another person to protect himself from what the Defendant reasonably believes to be the imminent use of unlawful force.

A person is justified in using deadly force, and does not have a duty to retreat, only if he reasonably believes that deadly force is necessary to prevent serious bodily injury to himself or a third person.

However, a person may not use force if:

He is committing a crime that is directly and immediately connected to the confrontation. In other words, for the Defendant to lose the right of self-defense, the jury must find that, but for the Defendant's commission of a separate crime, the confrontation resulting in injury to Rex Morrison would not have occurred.

OR

He is escaping after the commission of a crime that is directly and immediately connected to the confrontation. In other words, for the Defendant to lose the right of self-defense, the jury must find that, but for the Defendant's escape from the commission of a separate crime, the confrontation resulting in injury to Rex Morrison would not have occurred.

OR

He provokes a fight with another person with intent to cause bodily injury to that person.

OR

He has willingly entered into a fight with another person or started the fight, unless he withdraws from the fight and communicates to the other person his intent to withdraw and the other person nevertheless continues or threatens to continue the fight.

The State has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the Defendant did not act in self-defense.

Appellant's App. Vol. III p. 40. Adams objected to the pattern jury instruction and argued that it leaves too "broad of an exception" to self-defense. Tr. Vol. IV p. 181. The trial court overruled his objection. The jury found Adams guilty as charged.

[¶9] On April 25, 2022, Adams moved for a mistrial. Adams's counsel claimed that he had been contacted the morning after Adams's trial by an alternate juror who had informed him of alleged juror misconduct during deliberations. That same day, the State moved to strike an affidavit from the alternate juror and to summarily deny Adams's mistrial motion. A hearing was held on Adams's motion on November 2, 2022. After argument, the trial court granted the State's motion to strike the affidavit and denied Adams's motion for mistrial. Adams's counsel asked the trial court for permission to proceed with an offer of proof from the alternate juror to substantiate his claim that the jury was influenced by "extraneous prejudicial information" because the jurors viewed the surveillance footage admitted at trial by "fast forwarding and reversing and slowing it down and speeding it up[.]" Tr. Vol. V p. 7. The trial court denied his request to call the witness or admit his affidavit as an offer of proof. On November 23, 2022, the trial court sentenced Adams to an aggregate sentence of fifty years of incarceration.

Discussion and Decision

I. Jury Instruction on Self Defense

[¶10] Ordinarily, this Court reviews a trial court's manner of instructing the jury for an abuse of discretion. Inman v State, 4 N.E.3d 190, 201 (Ind. 2014) (citing Cline v. State, 726 N.E.2d 1249, 1256 (Ind. 2000)).

When a defendant challenges a jury instruction as an incorrect statement of law, however, we apply a de novo standard of review. Kane v. State, 976 N.E.2d 1228, 1231 (Ind. 2012). If we find "the challenged instruction to be erroneous," we will presume that the "error affected the verdict and will reverse the defendant's conviction unless "the verdict would have been the same under a proper instruction." Gammons v. State, 148 N.E.3d 301, 303 (Ind. 2020). In other words, instructional error is harmless "where a conviction is clearly sustained by the evidence and the jury could not properly have found otherwise" but "will result in reversal when...