Beasley v. State

• Decision Date: 14 January 2016
• Docket Number: No. 49S02–1601–CR–20.,49S02–1601–CR–20.
• Parties: Leandrew BEASLEY, Appellant (Defendant below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff below).
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

46 N.E.3d 1232

Leandrew BEASLEY, Appellant (Defendant below)

v.STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff below).

No. 49S02–1601–CR–20.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Jan. 14, 2016.

Jennifer M. Lukemeyer, Tyler D. Helmond, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellant.

Gregory F. Zoeller, Attorney General of Indiana, Andrew A. Kobe, Michael Gene Worden, Deputy Attorneys General, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee.

On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 49A02–1406–CR–382

MASSA

, Justice.

Leandrew Beasley appeals his convictions for the murder of James Allen, the attempted murder of Gerald Beamon, and unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon. We now grant transfer with respect to a single issue raised by Beasley on appeal: whether the trial court abused its discretion in admitting Beamon's testimony that Allen told Beamon he had shot Beasley the day before Allen's murder, on the grounds his statements “had so great a tendency ... to expose the declarant to civil or criminal liability” such that “a reasonable person in the declarant's position would have made [the statement] only if the person believed it to be true,” as permitted by Indiana Evidence Rule 804(b)(3)

. We find that it was not error for the trial court to admit Beamon's challenged testimony on that basis, and thus affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

According to Gerald Beamon's testimony, on the evening of August 2, 2012, Leandrew Beasley (a.k.a. “Little Rock”) and Beamon's cousin, James Allen, got into a fight in a garage; Beasley pulled a gun, Allen made a grab for it, and during the struggle, Beasley was shot in the face once, after which the gun would no longer discharge. Three other men, whom Allen identified as Levi, Little Billy, and “J Rock” (later identified as Beasley's brother, James), were also present at the altercation; Beamon was not. Allen then spent the night at a hotel room with his girlfriend, Shantell Williams, and the couple checked in under her name. Both Allen and Williams maintained permanent housing at that time; no explanation appears in the record for why they stayed at a hotel that night.

Beasley was treated for a gunshot wound

to the face at a nearby hospital that evening, which was described by interviewing police officers as a “graze.” Tr. at 628. Beasley did not implicate Allen in the shooting, instead stating that he was attacked while walking home. Police found no evidence of the shooting at the location where Beasley claimed he had been attacked.

The next day, Allen and Williams drove to Beamon's house. Williams waited in the car while Allen told Beamon about the fight. All three then left together to pick up some of Allen's things from his apartment and move them into Williams's apartment, and discovered Allen's home had been ransacked. Beamon and Allen also observed bullet holes in Allen's front porch. The group then went to Williams's friend's house, and Allen showed Beamon pictures of the men present in the garage the night before, including Beasley. Beamon had no prior familiarity with Beasley, and studied the photos for about ten minutes.

Beamon, Allen, and Williams then drove to Williams's apartment. Williams went inside while Allen and Beamon began to unload Allen's things onto the sidewalk. Beamon heard what at first he thought were fireworks, but quickly realized were gunshots, and saw three men approaching the vehicle on foot, firing repeatedly. Allen died on the spot. Beamon sustained multiple gunshot wounds

, but still managed to flee, call 911, and flag down a passing police car. Beamon told the officer that “Little Rock” and “J Rock” were two of the shooters, and he was immediately taken to the hospital. Tr. at 398. After he was hospitalized, he indicated he had recognized Leandrew and James from the photographs Allen had showed him earlier in the day. Police retrieved the photos and returned with three separate photo line-ups, from which Beamon identified Leandrew and James as two of the shooters, and correctly identified who was who based on the information he had previously received from Allen.

Leandrew and James Beasley were subsequently charged with murder and attempted murder, and they were tried jointly.¹ The court permitted Beamon to testify—over both defendants' repeated hearsay objections—as to what Allen had told Beamon about the altercation between Allen and Leandrew Beasley, as a statement against Allen's penal interest under Indiana Evidence Rule 804(b)(3)

. The jury found Beasley guilty of murder and attempted murder.

Beasley appealed, and our Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed his convictions, finding the admission of this hearsay evidence was erroneous, but harmless. Beasley v. State, 30 N.E.3d 56, 67 (Ind.Ct.App.2015)

. The panel found that the admission of Allen's hearsay statements were not “facially incriminating” since Allen only described acts of self-defense, and thus the statements did not qualify for a Rule 804(b)(3) hearsay exception. Id. In support, it discussed Jervis v. State in depth, where this Court found a hearsay statement was properly excluded from admission as a statement against penal interest when it was “uncorroborated, only marginally against penal interest, and only marginally relevant.” Id. at 65–67 (quoting Jervis v. State, 679 N.E.2d 875, 878–80 (Ind.1997) ). Nevertheless, the panel found this error to be harmless, as there were independent non-hearsay grounds for the conviction, specifically Beamon's identification of the Beasley brothers at trial as two of the shooters. Id. at 67.

We now grant transfer on this issue, vacating that portion of the opinion below. Ind. Appellate Rule 58(A)

. We summarily affirm the remainder of the Court of Appeals decision pursuant to Indiana Appellate Rule 58(A)(2).

Standard of Review

“Wide discretion is afforded the trial court in ruling on the admissibility and relevancy of evidence.” Nicholson v. State, 963 N.E.2d 1096, 1099 (Ind.2012)

. Our review is thus limited to determining whether the court abused that discretion. Id. An abuse of discretion occurs when the decision is “clearly against the logic and effect of the facts and circumstances and the error affects a party's substantial rights.” Clark v. State, 994 N.E.2d 252, 260 (Ind.2013). We do not reweigh the evidence; rather, “we consider only evidence that is either favorable to the ruling or unrefuted and favorable to the defendant.” Pierce v. State, 29 N.E.3d 1258, 1264 (Ind.2015).

Beamon's Hearsay Testimony Was Admissible as a Statement Against Interest Under Indiana Evidence Rule 804(b)(3)

.

Beasley contends it was harmful error to admit Beamon's hearsay testimony of Allen's statements to him, because: (1) Allen's statements described acts of self-defense that would not subject him to any criminal liability, and thus their admission under Rule 804(b)(3)

was error; and (2) since this was the State's only evidence of Beasley's motive, the error was harmful.

We agree with Beasley's second contention, in principle. “While motive is not an element of the crime, the absence of motive is a significant exculpatory factor....” Kiefer v. State, 761 N.E.2d 802, 806 (Ind.2002)

(reversing conviction for attempted murder in the absence of any evidence of motive, in part because “an inference is necessary to establish Kiefer's intent to kill”). Likewise, the inclusion of evidence of motive is likely a significant incriminating factor in the eyes of the jury. Moreover, we can discern no independent evidence in the record to explain why Beasley would have shot Allen and Beamon aside from Beamon's hearsay testimony of the previous night's altercation between Beasley and Allen; thus, the State's loss of that evidence would almost certainly have made it more difficult to reach a conviction. Beasley is therefore correct that if this testimony were erroneously admitted, it would be grounds for reversal.

We do not, however, agree with Beasley's first contention, and we find the trial court was within its discretion in ruling that Allen's statements were against his interests, such that they were admissible hearsay.

Indiana Evidence Rule 804(b)(3)

reads, in relevant part:

The following are not excluded by the hearsay rule if the declarant is unavailable as a witness.²

...

(3) Statement Against Interest. A statement that [ ] a reasonable person in the declarant's position would have made only if the person believed it to be true because, when made, it was so contrary to the declarant's proprietary or pecuniary interest or had so great a tendency to invalidate the declarant's claim against someone else or to expose the declarant to civil or criminal liability....

Although we have not yet had occasion to review the current version of Rule 804(b)(3)

, we have reviewed prior iterations of this rule, which were substantively the same.³ Most significantly, in Jervis v. State, the defendant wished to introduce hearsay testimony regarding an alternate perpetrator of the murder. 679 N.E.2d at 878. The statements in question were between Tony Floyd and his coworker, Marilyn Molinet; Molinet testified that the morning after the victim's body was discovered, Floyd told her that:

[H]e had gone out “partying” two nights earlier (the same night [the victim] was killed), picked up a woman at Frenchie's, gone “riding around” with her, and then “dumped her off” behind Newburgh Cinema around 3 or 4 a.m. Molinet also testified that Floyd told her that he knew “the best way to kill a girl” and put his hands around his own neck to indicate strangulation, and that Floyd, who appeared to be “awful nervous,” asked Molinet to be on the lookout for “detective cars.”

Id. We found the trial court was within its discretion in determining that Rule 804(b)(3)

did not permit introduction of this testimony, because it was not sufficiently against Floyd's interests: “The statements attributed to Floyd did not constitute an admission of a crime. In and of themselves they did not even ‘tend to subject’ Floyd...