Brantley v. State
| Citation | 71 N.E.3d 397 |
| Decision Date | 24 February 2017 |
| Docket Number | Court of Appeals Case No. 49A04-1606-CR-1401 |
| Parties | Billy BRANTLEY, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff. |
| Court | Court of Appeals of Indiana |
Attorney for Appellant : Valerie K. Boots, Marion County Public Defender Agency, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Attorneys for Appellee : Curtis T. Hill, Jr., Attorney General of Indiana, Ian McLean, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, Indiana.
[1] Billy Brantley appeals his conviction for Voluntary Manslaughter, a Level 2 felony. He raises three issues for our review, but we need only consider the following dispositive issue: whether the State presented sufficient evidence to support Brantley's conviction for voluntary manslaughter. We reverse.
[2] In July 2014, Brantley lived in a home in Indianapolis with his sister, Martha Gunn ("Martha"), her husband, Bruce Gunn ("Bruce"), and the couple's eight year old son, Sean. Brantley had known Bruce for eighteen years and had lived with Martha and Bruce while Brantley was in high school. After he spent several years in the Air Force after high school, Brantley moved back in with Martha and Bruce in 2012.
[3] Bruce was a fifty-eight year old retired Eli Lilly chemist who suffered from both physical and mental health problems. Bruce suffered from a seizure disorder and he had undergone two back surgeries, one of which had been performed at approximately the beginning of July 2014. Bruce had been prescribed pain medication and had a vagal nerve simulator, which is a device used to interrupt nerve transmissions and lessen chronic pain. Bruce also had a history of harming himself, had engaged in suicidal behavior on several occasions, and had attempted to stab himself with a knife on more than one occasion. Bruce had sometimes kept knives under the cushion of the recliner in which he usually sat.
[4] Bruce and Martha had a history of verbally fighting with each other. And, on one occasion in 2002, while Brantley was in high school, Bruce had physically attacked Martha and Brantley had to intervene to protect his sister. Brantley had heard Martha and Bruce fighting in their bedroom and, when he had subsequently heard his sister softly calling his name, he had entered the couple's bedroom to find Bruce choking Martha. Brantley had then hit Bruce on the head with a pool cue, which had forced Bruce to release Martha. Police then responded to a 9-1-1 call and arrested Bruce. Bruce's resulting domestic battery charges were later resolved by Bruce entering a mental health diversion program.
[5] Brantley was employed as a locksmith but, on the morning of July 14, 2014, he woke up at approximately 9:00 a.m. to prepare for a 10:00 a.m. job interview for a better-paying job. Because Brantley knew his job interview was to take place in a high-crime neighborhood, he armed himself with a new gun he had legally purchased. After he showered, he went downstairs and found Bruce, Martha, and Sean all sleeping in the living room. Bruce was asleep in his recliner just inside the entryway to the room, and Martha and Sean were on the couch. Martha was recuperating from surgery on her foot and hand, and she had slept on the couch all night. Brantley woke Martha up, as he was concerned that she had overslept. Martha then woke Bruce up and asked him to give Brantley the twenty dollars they had decided to give him the night before for gas. Bruce gave Brantley the money and wished him good luck with the interview.
[6] Brantley arrived back home at about 11:00 or 11:30 a.m. He warmed some pizza for himself in the microwave in the kitchen, went into the living room where Bruce, Martha, and Sean were still located, and sat down to eat in front of the TV. Bruce and Martha were arguing loudly, but Sean was still asleep on the couch. The couple stopped yelling at each other for five or ten minutes after Brantley came into the room, and Bruce asked Brantley about the interview. Soon, though, Bruce became upset again—about something Martha had said in a telephone call—and he began yelling at Martha again. Brantley listened to the argument as he sat in his chair, eating and trying to tell Martha and Bruce about his job interview. Martha got up and tried to leave the room, but Bruce stood up quickly and blocked her exit. Martha then returned to the couch and sat back down.
[7] The argument continued to escalate between Martha and Bruce, with both of them yelling at each other. Brantley repeatedly asked Bruce to calm down, but Bruce became increasingly irate. Bruce began yelling at Brantley, too, and stated as he rose from his recliner that he was going to "take care of all of his problems." Tr. Vol. III at 679, 686. Brantley and Martha both saw Bruce holding something in his clenched fist as he rose from his chair. The only path out of the room to the rest of the house was through a small opening between Bruce's recliner and a large entertainment unit. There was a sliding glass door to the back yard, but there was "no way out" because the yard was fenced and the exit gate was padlocked on the outside. Id. at 511-12, 593-94.
[8] Brantley drew his gun and fired it once at Bruce. The bullet from Brantley's gun entered Bruce's body in the left chest area and exited from the left lower back area. It was a fatal wound
. The bullet did not enter Bruce's chair but passed through the wall behind and above his recliner. When Bruce fell to the floor, Martha grabbed her son and took him out the front door to a neighbor's house. Martha and Brantley each separately placed calls to 9-1-1 almost immediately after the shot. In her 9-1-1 call, Martha was frantic and crying and repeatedly stated that her brother had shot her husband when her husband had tried to attack her and was coming at them. Brantley, who had military and law enforcement training, was more composed in his 9-1-1 call and told the operator Bruce had tried to attack him and he had to shoot him. It was later discovered that the item Bruce had been holding in his hand was not a knife but his glasses.
[9] The State charged Brantley with voluntary manslaughter. Brantley raised a claim of self-defense, and he and Martha testified at his April 11-13, 2016, jury trial in support of that defense. Both Brantley and Martha testified that Brantley had remained calm during the entire incident on July 14, 2014. They both also testified that Bruce had an object in his hand as he rose from his recliner, screaming; however, neither could see what the object was. Brantley testified that he could only see that the object in Bruce's hand was shiny and that he believed it was a knife. Both Brantley and Martha testified that they knew Bruce had kept knives in his recliner and that they had been poked by knives before when they had tried to sit in Bruce's recliner. Sean also testified at the trial and stated that his brother had found two butter knives and a steak knife behind the cushion in Bruce's recliner on the evening of July 14, after the shooting. Sean testified that, although he occasionally had heard his parents' voices raised during the events of the morning of July 14, he was sleeping most of the time. The State presented evidence at trial that the position of Bruce's body after he was shot indicated he was not coming toward Bruce but was only in the process of rising from his chair when he was shot.
[10] The trial court gave the jury the following instruction on the charged offense:
Appellant's App. Vol. II at 95 (emphases added). The court also instructed the jury as follows on the term "sudden heat":
The term sudden heat , as applied to the crime of Voluntary Manslaughter, means an excited state of mind. It is a condition that may be created by strong emotion such as anger, rage, sudden resentment, or jealousy. It may be strong enough to obscure the reason of an ordinary person and prevent deliberation and meditation. It can render a person incapable of rational thought.
Id . at 98 (emphasis in original). The trial court also gave the jury an instruction on self-defense.
[11] The jury found Brantley guilty of voluntary manslaughter, and the trial court sentenced him accordingly. This appeal ensued.
[12] Brantley maintains that, if it was permissible for the State to bring a stand-alone charge of voluntary manslaughter against him, then in so doing the State had the burden of providing sufficient evidence that he acted with "sudden heat." Because we decide this matter based on Brantley's sufficiency of the evidence claim, we need not address his contention that the trial court committed fundamental error by instructing the jury that the State had conceded "sudden heat," or the State's contention that there was no such error or, if there was, that Brantley "invited" the error.1 We need not consider the correctness of the jury instructions because the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution protects every defendant against...
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