Albert v. State
| Decision Date | 24 August 2022 |
| Docket Number | Court of Appeals Case No. 21A-CR-2617 |
| Citation | 193 N.E.3d 1040 |
| Parties | Cody ALBERT, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Attorney for Appellant: Lisa Diane Manning, Plainfield, Indiana
Attorneys for Appellee: Theodore E. Rokita, Attorney General, George P. Sherman, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, Indiana
[1] Cody Albert appeals his murder conviction, arguing that the trial court abused its discretion in instructing the jury regarding intent and in excluding certain evidence regarding his mental health history. We affirm.
[2] In September 2018, Albert had an argument with his girlfriend while on his lunch break from work. Afterward, he drove his SUV to his place of employment, but instead of returning to work, he sat in his vehicle smoking a cigarette and thinking about his conversation with his girlfriend. He texted his girlfriend an apology and wrote a suicide note. He then drove his SUV westbound on US 40 toward Greencastle. At one point, he stopped, crossed over the median, and began driving westbound in the eastbound lanes. Ron Patterson was driving eastbound on US 40 and saw Albert's SUV traveling toward him in the wrong lane. Patterson flashed his headlights to warn Albert that he was in the wrong lane. Patterson saw Albert's SUV drive into the median and continue westward. Albert then drove back onto an eastbound lane at a high rate of speed and crashed head on into Thomas Plasters’ Honda Civic. Plasters was killed upon impact due to massive injuries he sustained in the crash.
[3] Emergency personnel responding to the scene removed Albert from his vehicle and transported him to a hospital. Albert consented to a blood draw and admitted that THC would be present because he had smoked marijuana. Albert told police that he was driving on the wrong side of the road because he wanted to commit suicide.
[4] The State charged Albert with murder and level 5 felony causing death while operating a vehicle with a schedule I or II controlled substance. Albert asserted an insanity defense but withdrew it prior to trial. During trial, Albert offered evidence regarding his mental health history, which the trial court ruled was irrelevant and thus inadmissible. Albert tendered a final instruction on reckless homicide, which the trial court accepted over the State's objection. The State tendered a non-pattern instruction on inferring intent, which stated that the intent to kill may be inferred from the nature of the attack and the deliberate use of a deadly weapon in a manner likely to cause death or serious bodily injury. Appellant's App. Vol. 2 at 210. The trial court accepted the instruction over Albert's objection, explaining that mens rea was an important issue and that the instruction would assist both sides in presenting their closing arguments. Tr. Vol. 2 at 182. The jury convicted Albert as charged, and the trial court sentenced him to an aggregate term of fifty-five years. Albert appeals his murder conviction. Additional facts follow.
Section 1 – The trial court did not abuse its discretion in instructing the jury regarding intent.
[5] "The purpose of a jury instruction ‘is to inform the jury of the law applicable to the facts without misleading the jury and to enable it to comprehend the case clearly and arrive at a just, fair, and correct verdict.’ " Ramirez v. State , 174 N.E.3d 181, 199 (Ind. 2021) (quoting Dill v. State , 741 N.E.2d 1230, 1232 (Ind. 2001) ). We review a trial court's jury instructions for an abuse of discretion. Isom v. State , 31 N.E.3d 469, 484 (Ind. 2015), cert. denied (2016). "An abuse of discretion arises when the instruction is erroneous and the instructions taken as a whole misstate the law or otherwise mislead the jury." Id. at 484-85. In reviewing a trial court's decision to give or refuse a tendered jury instruction, we consider: "(1) whether the instruction correctly states the law; (2) whether there is evidence in the record to support the giving of the instruction; and (3) whether the substance of the tendered instruction is covered by other instructions which are given." Guyton v. State , 771 N.E.2d 1141, 1144 (Ind. 2002). "Jury instructions are to be considered as a whole and in reference to each other; error in a particular instruction will not result in reversal unless the entire jury charge misleads the jury as to the law in the case." Pattison v. State , 54 N.E.3d 361, 365 (Ind. 2016) (quoting Whitney v. State , 750 N.E.2d 342, 344 (Ind. 2001) ).
[6] Albert challenges the instruction on inferring intent. Because his challenge involves mens rea, we begin with the instructions regarding the mens rea to prove murder and reckless homicide. To convict Albert of murder, the State was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he knowingly or intentionally killed Plasters. Ind. Code § 35-42-1-1(1). To convict Albert of reckless homicide, the State was required to prove that he recklessly killed Plasters. Ind. Code § 35-42-1-5. The jury was instructed regarding the definitions of knowingly, intentionally, and recklessly as follows:
Id. at 194. In its closing rebuttal argument, the State asserted that Albert's SUV was a deadly weapon that he used in a manner likely to cause death or serious bodily injury.
[7] Albert acknowledges that the instruction correctly states the law but cautions that this principle has been applied in the context of the sufficiency of the evidence to support convictions for murder and attempted murder. See, e.g., Kiefer v. State , 761 N.E.2d 802, 805 (Ind. 2002) ( ) (citation omitted); Burns v. State , 59 N.E.3d 323, 328 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016) ( ), trans. denied. Albert asserts "that certain language or expression used by an appellate court to reach its final conclusion is not necessarily proper language for instructions to a jury." Appellant's Br. at 10 (quoting Batchelor v. State , 119 N.E.3d 550, 563 (Ind. 2019) ).
[8] Albert also recognizes that our courts have upheld this instruction in attempted murder cases. See, e.g., Bethel v. State , 730 N.E.2d 1242, 1246 (Ind. 2000) (); Reese v. State , 939 N.E.2d 695, 701 (Ind. Ct. App. 2011) () (citation and quotation marks omitted), trans. denied.
[9] Albert opines that the challenged instruction is proper in attempted murder cases because to prove attempted murder the State must prove the specific intent to kill the victim. See Hopkins v. State , 759 N.E.2d 633, 637 (Ind. 2001) ( ) (citation omitted). Nevertheless, Albert maintains that his case is not an attempted murder case and the instruction was improper because it misled the jury by lessening the State's burden to prove intent. He argues, "Were this the State's only burden, as this instruction suggests, nearly every vehicular crime that results in death would support a murder conviction." Appellant's Br. at 13. We disagree.
[10] Although not cited by either party, we observe that our supreme court has examined, in murder cases, whether providing the jury with instructions similar to the one challenged here was erroneous. In Brown v. State , 691 N.E.2d 438 (Ind. 1998), Brown appealed his murder conviction and challenged the following instruction: "You are instructed that intent and purpose to kill may be inferred from the deliberate use of a deadly weapon in a manner calculated to produce death." Id. at 444. Brown asserted that this instruction resulted in fundamental error because it created a mandatory presumption in favor of the State and therefore impermissibly shifted the burden of proof. Our supreme court concluded that the instruction created a permissive inference, not a mandatory presumption, and therefore no fundamental error occurred. Id. at 445.
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