Appleton v. State
| Decision Date | 08 January 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 45S00-9901-CR-00062.,45S00-9901-CR-00062. |
| Citation | 740 N.E.2d 122 |
| Parties | Sharnee Robert APPLETON, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below). |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
Charles E. Stewart, Jr., Crown Point, IN, Attorney for Appellant.
Karen M. Freeman-Wilson, Attorney General of Indiana, James B. Martin, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee.
In appellant Sharnee Appleton's trial, one of the State's witnesses testified that Appleton had not even been present at the scene of the crime. The court permitted the prosecution to "impeach" this witness by reading line-by-line a prior inconsistent statement in which the witness described Appleton's participation. We hold this was error, but harmless in this case.
The facts most favorable to the jury verdict revealed that on the evening of March 13, 1998, Ruby Haught, Ron Solberg, and others were visiting and smoking crack with Martha Fitts and John Williams (a.k.a. "Country Man") at their home in Gary. After Sharnee Appleton ("Pooh") and his two cohorts confronted Charmaine Blanchard ("Little Mama") outside, the attackers entered the home and continued their search for a snitch. Believing Solberg was a police informant, Appleton attacked Solberg and wrapped his head, ankles, and hands with duct tape.
The assailants struck Haught and Mary Cox (whose obnoxious behavior upon arrival at the home provoked her involvement). They wrapped these two with duct tape as they had Solberg. Then, the assailants escorted the three victims to Solberg's van. During the van ride, Solberg freed himself from the duct tape located a steel rod to use as a weapon, and attacked Appleton. Appleton fired his pistol wildly, wounding Solberg. Upon realizing that they were out of bullets, the abductors hastily ignited a fire in the van and fled. After extinguishing the fire on his clothing, Solberg discovered Haught dead and Cox severely injured.
Appleton's subsequent trial produced convictions on one count of murder, two counts of attempted murder, and three counts of confinement. The trial court sentenced Appleton to a prison term totaling 110 years.
Before the trial, Blanchard and Williams gave statements implicating Appleton to the police. Nevertheless, the witnesses partially repudiated these statements while on the stand: Blanchard admitted that Appleton participated in some of the events and Williams denied that Appleton was present at the house during the incident.
During her examination of Blanchard and Williams, the prosecutor read the witnesses direct quotes from their pretrial statements and inquired about the accuracy of those particular declarations. Even though the trial court admonished the jury on multiple occasions not to treat this examination as substantive evidence, Appleton maintains that the court committed reversible error by allowing this type of questioning.
A trial court possesses broad discretion in ruling on the admissibility of evidence. Bacher v. State, 686 N.E.2d 791 (Ind.1997). Moreover, even if a court errs in admitting evidence, we will not overturn the conviction if the error is harmless. Ind. Trial Rule 61; Cooley v. State, 682 N.E.2d 1277 (Ind.1997). An error will be viewed as harmless if the probable impact of the evidence upon the jury is sufficiently minor so as not to affect a party's substantial rights. Fleener v. State, 656 N.E.2d 1140 (Ind.1995).
Indiana courts have struggled a bit over how to treat out-of-court statements made by a witness before trial. A quarter century ago, this Court declared that prior out-of-court statements, even those not under oath, could be admitted as substantive evidence. Patterson v. State, 263 Ind. 55, 58, 324 N.E.2d 482, 484-85 (1975) (). We soon recognized the problems inherent in this decision, however, and attempted to minimize some harmful side effects. See Lewis v. State, 440 N.E.2d 1125, 1130 (Ind.1982)
cert. denied, 461 U.S. 915, 103 S.Ct. 1895, 77 L.Ed.2d 284 (1983) (); Samuels v. State, 267 Ind. 676, 679, 372 N.E.2d 1186, 1187 (1978) ().
Eventually, we concluded that the additional requirements and limitations of the Patterson rule made it unworkable. We therefore overruled it. See Modesitt v. State, 578 N.E.2d 649, 652-54 (Ind.1991)
.
In Modesitt, we adhered to the Federal Rules of Evidence and limited the admission of a prior statement as substantive evidence to certain situations. Id. at 654; see now Ind. Evidence Rule 801(d). By permitting only those prior inconsistent statements made under oath to be considered substantive evidence, we hoped to impress upon a witness the "solemnity and importance" of his or her statements and remind the witness that being dishonest may result in a perjury indictment. Modesitt, 578 N.E.2d at 653. We also attempted to restrain the practice of calling numerous persons to testify about the same statement given by a particular witness, thereby preventing a "drumbeat repetition" of the witness's original story. Id.
cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1082, 110 S.Ct. 1141, 107 L.Ed.2d 1045 (1990); Impson v. State, 721 N.E.2d 1275,1281 (Ind.Ct.App.2000).
Because Williams owned the home where the events began and observed the three assailants attack the victims, it is reasonable that the State wanted him to testify for purposes other than impeachment. Although one must wonder whether the State's goals were truly effectuated by Williams' testimony, we cannot definitively declare that the State placed Williams on the stand for the sole purpose of impeaching him.
Nevertheless, the State's method of impeaching Williams left much to be desired. Under our rules, a party may impeach a witness by extrinsic evidence of a prior inconsistent statement. Ind. Evidence Rule 613(b). However, "once a witness has admitted an inconsistent prior statement she has impeached herself and further evidence is unnecessary for impeachment purposes." Pruitt v. State, 622 N.E.2d 469, 473 (Ind.1993).
In Pruitt, one of the witnesses had given an audiotaped statement to Indiana State Police detectives. At trial, however, the witness recanted her prior statement and insisted that she lied when talking to the police. When the State initially asked the court for permission to play the tape for the jury, the trial court refused because the witness had already recanted her prior statement. Id. at 472-73. Nonetheless, as her examination progressed, the witness claimed that she had been submitted to police duress; therefore, the court ultimately allowed the jury to hear her pretrial taped statement for the limited purpose of demonstrating that she had not been subjected to duress. Id. at 473. Although we determined that the court justifiably permitted the State to present evidence that the witness was not subjected to police duress, we also held that the court properly prohibited the State's initial request to present the taped statement for impeachment purposes because the witness had already admitted an inconsistent statement. Id.
The attempted impeachment of Williams in this case bears resemblance to the impeachment of the witness in Pruitt. By reciting excerpts of Williams' pretrial statement and asking Williams if he made these declarations, the State might as well have played an audiotaped version of Williams' statement to the jury. The trial court judge was wary of this method of questioning, as indicated by his statement that "it's the old story, you don't want the prosecutor to just go sentence by sentence through a statement and read the whole statement...." (R. at 553.) Nevertheless, the court permitted this style of questions by the State even after Williams testified that Appleton was not present when the three assailants came to the house. (R. at 549.) Once Williams denied Appleton's involvement in the events, the State should have made Williams aware of specific portions of his testimony that were inconsistent with statements he made prior to trial and given him an opportunity to explain those inconsistencies. Only one glaring inconsistency existed, however, between Williams' testimony and the portions of Williams' pretrial statement that the State recited. Williams previously implicated Appleton as a participant and then at trial said Appleton was...
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...evidence upon the jury is sufficiently minor so as not to affect a party's substantial rights." Id. at 144-45 (quoting Appleton v. State, 740 N.E.2d 122, 124 (Ind.2001)). Gibbs argues the photographs were unduly prejudicial. Indiana Evidence Rule 403 provides relevant evidence "may be exclu......
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...court's decision as to the appropriate extent of cross-examination will only be reversed for an abuse of discretion. Appleton v. State, 740 N.E.2d 122, 124 (Ind. 2001); Marshall v. State, 621 N.E.2d 308, 316 On the other hand, the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees......
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