Battles v. State

• Decision Date: 24 November 1997
• Docket Number: No. 49S00-9608-CR-532,49S00-9608-CR-532
• Citation: 688 N.E.2d 1230
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court
• Parties: Lamonte M. BATTLES, Appellant (Defendant below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff below).

Page 1230

688 N.E.2d 1230

Lamonte M. BATTLES, Appellant (Defendant below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff below).

No. 49S00-9608-CR-532.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Nov. 24, 1997.

Kurt A. Young, Nashville, for Appellant.

Pamela Carter, Attorney General, Andrew L. Hedges, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, for Appellee.

SULLIVAN, Justice.

On March 12, 1996, a jury convicted the defendant, Lamonte M. Battles, of Murder, ¹ Voluntary Manslaughter, ² a class A felony, and Robbery, ³ a class A felony. The trial court merged the counts of Voluntary Manslaughter and Robbery into the Murder count, and sentenced defendant to sixty years' imprisonment.

Defendant appeals his convictions and sentence and raises the following issues for our consideration: (1) whether the trial court erred in refusing defendant's tendered instructions regarding the voluntariness of his statement to police and the defense of accident; and (2) whether the sentence imposed by the trial court is manifestly unreasonable.

We have jurisdiction over this direct appeal because the longest single sentence exceeds fifty years. Ind. Const. art. VII, § 4; Ind.Appellate Rule 4(A)(7); Buie v. State, 633 N.E.2d 250, 252 (Ind.1994).

Background

The facts most favorable to the verdict reveal that on May 15, 1995, around 5:30 p.m., defendant walked by Bruce Ragan's house. Ragan invited defendant to join him and two other guests in some drinks. The four ate dinner together and continued drinking until defendant and Ragan had a disagreement and Ragan asked defendant to leave.

Defendant returned to Ragan's house between 9:00 and 10:00 that same night. They drank some more. Ragan made a pass at defendant and refused to let him leave the house. Defendant then struck Ragan over the head with a partially full gin bottle, strangled him, and fled the scene in Ragan's car.

Discussion

I

Defendant argues that the trial court erred in refusing his tendered instructions. We apply a three-prong test to determine whether a trial court commits reversible error when it refuses tendered instructions: (1) whether the tendered instruction correctly states the law; (2) whether evidence in the record supports giving the instruction; and (3) whether the substance of the tendered instruction is covered by other instructions already given. Griffin v. State, 644 N.E.2d 561, 562 (Ind.1994).

A

Defendant first contends that the trial court erred in refusing his tendered instruction regarding the voluntariness of his statement to the police. The tendered instruction read as follows:

A statement is 'knowingly' made if done voluntarily and intentionally. In determining whether any statement given to police outside of court and after a crime has allegedly been committed was knowingly made, the jury may consider the age, education, physical and mental condition of the defendant, and his treatment while in custody or under interrogation as well as all other circumstances surrounding the making of the statement as shown by the evidence in this case.

If the evidence in this case does not convince you beyond a reasonable doubt that the statement of the defendant to police was made voluntarily and intentionally, you should disregard the statement entirely. On the other hand, if the evidence in this case does show beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant's statement to police was voluntary and intentionally made, you may consider it as evidence against the defendant.

Defendant argues that (1) the tendered instruction is a correct statement of the law, taken almost verbatim from an instruction given in Grassmyer v. State, 429 N.E.2d 248, 253 (Ind.1981); ⁴ (2) conflicting testimony regarding his level of intoxication when giving his statement to the police supports the instruction; and (3) no other instruction given by the court adequately instructed the jury on how to consider defendant's statement.

Defendant went to police headquarters around 2:00 a.m. on May 18, 1995. He ate a meal and took a nap before speaking to detectives Smiley and Stamm. The detectives took defendant's taped statement at 5:25 that morning, and detective Smiley testified at trial that defendant had not appeared intoxicated while giving his statement. However, defendant introduced conflicting testimony to show that he was intoxicated when he talked to the detectives. Floren Dedeaux testified that he had been with defendant around midnight on May 18, 1995. While they were together, Dedeaux and defendant drank two six-packs of beer and two pints of gin. After consuming this alcohol, defendant turned himself in.

Defendant argues that Dedeaux's testimony tends to show that defendant was intoxicated when he gave his statement to the police, that the statement was therefore involuntary, and that the jury should have been instructed that it could decide that defendant involuntarily gave his statement to the police. This Court has held that being intoxicated while giving a statement to the police does not render the statement involuntary per se. Brooks v. State, 683 N.E.2d 574, 575 (Ind.1997); Gregory v. State, 540 N.E.2d 585, 592 (Ind.1989); Bean v. State, 267 Ind. 528, 532, 371 N.E.2d 713, 715 (1978). As a general rule, intoxication only goes to the weight which should be accorded the statement and not to its admissibility. Brooks, 683 N.E.2d at 576; Gregory, 540 N.E.2d at 592; Bean, 267 Ind. at 532, 371 N.E.2d at 715. It is the role of the court to determine whether a statement made by a defendant is voluntary and therefore admissible. Coates v. State, 534 N.E.2d 1087, 1093 (Ind.1989). Following the admission of a statement into evidence, it becomes the duty of the jury to evaluate the credibility of the statement, and to decide how much weight to give it. See Holmes v. State, 671 N.E.2d 841, 857 (Ind.1996), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 137, 139 L.Ed.2d 85 (1997). Here, the trial court already had determined that defendant's statement was voluntary and admissible, and defendant does not ask us to reconsider that determination. The only issue left to resolve is whether the jury needed an instruction to explain how it should interpret defendant's statement.

For the content of his tendered instruction, defendant relied upon an instruction given in Grassmyer v. State, 429 N.E.2d 248, 253 (Ind.1981). The defendant in Grassmyer was subjected to extensive police interrogation during which he gave an incriminating statement. The trial court there instructed the jury to consider whether the defendant's statement was voluntary for the purposes of ignoring it or deciding how credible it was. However, this case is more like our recent decision in Holmes v. State, where we found that, "[u]nlike in Grassmyer, the evidentiary predicate for the issue of voluntariness is not present in the case at bar. While there was evidence that appellant was in custody during his statement, there is no evidence that the statement was the product of interrogation and thus there is no foundation for the voluntariness question." Holmes, 671 N.E.2d at 857 (trial court properly refused defendant's tendered instruction regarding voluntariness of statements made by him, including chanting "murder in the first degree" while in custody).

Here, defendant came together with his family to police headquarters and presented himself for questioning. Defendant waived his rights and gave a full statement to detectives Smiley and Stamm. Although there is evidence from which a jury could infer that defendant was intoxicated when he gave his statement, his level of intoxication was found by the trial court not to affect the voluntary nature of his statement. See Brooks, 683 N.E.2d at 576; Bean, 267 Ind. at 532, 371 N.E.2d at 715 (intoxication must be so severe as to render defendant unconscious about what he or she says for the statement to be considered involuntary). The issue before the jury was credibility, not voluntariness. We find that the trial court's preliminary instruction regarding witness credibility ⁵ adequately addressed this issue, and that the court did not err in refusing defendant's tendered instruction.

B

Defendant tendered the following instruction on the defense of accident:

The defense of accident has been raised as an issue in this case. In general, prohibited conduct may be excused when it is a result of accident.

This defense contains three elements:

1. The conduct must have been unintentional, or without unlawful intent or evil design on the part of the defendant;

2. The act resulting in injury must not have been an unlawful act;

3. The act must not have been done recklessly, carelessly or in wanton disregard of the consequences.

The State has the burden of disproving this defense beyond a reasonable doubt.

Defendant argues that the trial court erred in refusing this tendered instruction: (1) the tendered instruction correctly stated the law because it was taken directly from Indiana Pattern Jury Instruction No. 10.19; (2) no other instruction covered the same subject matter; and (3) testimony from witnesses on both sides provided an evidentiary basis for the instruction. The State does not dispute the first two contentions, so we address only the issue of whether evidence supports giving the instruction.

The evidence on which defendant relies to support the instruction on the defense of accident is his own out-of-court statement to the police that he intended to place a "sleeping hold" on Ragan, and the testimony of Dr. Dean Hawley that Ragan's death from manual strangulation could have resulted from the misapplication of a martial arts technique known as a "shime waza." Neither defendant's statement nor Dr. Hawley's testimony constitutes substantive evidence tending to prove the elements of the defense of accident set forth in defendant's tendered instruction.

We first address defendant's statement to the police that he intended only to place a sleeper hold on Ragan, not to kill him. A defendant cannot...