Chambers v. State

• Decision Date: 27 March 1990
• Docket Number: No. 48A04-8908-CR-362,48A04-8908-CR-362
• Parties: George E. CHAMBERS, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below).
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

Page 1154

551 N.E.2d 1154

George E. CHAMBERS, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below).

No. 48A04-8908-CR-362.

Court of Appeals of Indiana,

Fourth District.

March 27, 1990.

Michael R. Withers, Anderson, for appellant.

Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen., John D. Shuman, Deputy Atty. Gen., Office of Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.

CONOVER, Judge.

Defendant-Appellant George E. Chambers (Chambers) appeals his conviction and sentence for Burglary, a class B felony, pursuant to IND.CODE 35-43-2-1.

We affirm.

Chambers raises the following restated issues for our review:

1. whether there was sufficient evidence to support Chambers' conviction;

2. whether the State improperly challenged black prospective jurors;

3. whether trial counsel's failure to object to the State's challenge of black prospective jurors constituted ineffective assistance of counsel;

4. whether the trial court erred in giving instructions which were allegedly misleading; and 5. whether the court erred in sentencing Chambers.

The victim, Lydia Melson (Melson), lived with her two children in a townhouse in Anderson, Indiana. On the night of August 17, 1987, she went upstairs to bed at approximately 10:30 p.m. She left the sliding glass door at the rear of the townhouse open approximately five or six inches. A rod, similar to a dowel rod, was placed in the door's inside track to prevent the door from opening any further. A sliding screen door outside the glass door was closed but not locked.

Melson left her purse on a table in the downstairs living room. Inside the purse was a wallet containing $25.00 in cash.

On the morning of August 18, 1987, the victim awoke and found the $25.00 was missing from her wallet. She noticed the sliding glass door was open about halfway and the rod was laying outside the track. She then called the Anderson police.

William Castro, an Anderson City police officer, acted as scene technician at the townhouse and took four prints from the exterior of the sliding glass door. Prints were also taken from a metal box located inside the townhouse. At trial, officer Terry Ward, an Anderson Police Department lab technician and a qualified expert in fingerprint identification, testified one of the prints from the outside of the sliding door was from Chambers' right palm. No other prints were identifiable.

The jury found Chambers guilty of Burglary and he received a sixteen year sentence.

Additional facts are provided below as necessary.

Chambers contends there was insufficient evidence to support the jury's verdict since the sole evidence against him was his palm print on the outside of the sliding glass door.

Our standard of review for sufficiency claims is firmly established; we neither reweigh the evidence nor judge the credibility of the witnesses. We consider only the evidence most favorable to the State and all reasonable inferences therefrom. Mediate v. State (1986), Ind., 498 N.E.2d 391, 393 (citing Freeze v. State (1986), Ind., 491 N.E.2d 202). We review the evidence to determine, as a matter of law, whether there is substantial evidence of probative value from which a jury could reasonably infer or find the existence of each material element of the crime in order to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. (citing Baker v. State (1956), 236 Ind. 55, 138 N.E.2d 641). Substantial evidence of probative value is evidence having the qualities of directness and freedom from uncertainty. Id. (citing Vuncannon v. State (1970), 254 Ind. 206, 258 N.E.2d 639).

Reasonable doubt "is not a fanciful doubt--it must be more than speculation or whim. And it is a doubt which arises from the evidence, the lack of evidence, or a conflict in the evidence." Brown v. State (1977), 266 Ind. 82, 360 N.E.2d 830, 836. Reasonable inference of guilt must be based on more than a mere suspicion, conjecture, conclusion, guess, opportunity, or scintilla. Mediate, supra (citing Harris v. State (1978), 269 Ind. 672, 382 N.E.2d 913).

When latent prints constitute the principal evidence establishing an appellant committed burglary, sufficiency of the evidence is an important and difficult question. Mediate, supra. Here, the question is even more important because the sole evidence against Chambers is the presence of his palm print on the outside of the sliding glass door.

A print found at the point of entry is accorded substantial weight because of its direct relationship to the element of illegal entry. In fact, prints found near the point of entry inside a dwelling may be sufficient standing alone. Mediate, supra, at 394. However, when the location of the print does not readily indicate a forced or illegal entry, additional evidence may be necessary to sustain the conviction. Id. A significant factor in determining the conclusiveness of a print is whether appellant had legitimate access to the fingerprinted object. Id., at 393. A conviction may be sustained only if appellant's legitimate access is precluded by evidence presented at trial. If legitimate access is not precluded, then the jury's verdict is based on speculation rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Id., at 395.

Three Indiana Supreme Court cases are instructive. In Evans v. State (1986), Ind., 495 N.E.2d 739, a divided court vacated this court's reversal of appellant's trial court conviction on the basis prints found at the point of entry, a basement window which had been shattered, were sufficient evidence of guilt. The court reasoned:

The facts clearly show that between the hour of 10:00 a.m., and 11:00 a.m., on the date in question, the victim's residence was entered through the basement window and property being removed therefrom. The point of entry was the basement window where Appellant's prints were found. Entry at that point resulted in the security lock being latched on the front door and property removed from the interior of the residence. The circumstantial evidence was such that the fingerprints were not made in any legitimate manner that would otherwise explain their presence. Further inferences are justified that the one who left those prints also entered and removed the property in question. The trier of fact therefore was justified in finding these facts and inferences as it did. (Citations omitted.)

495 N.E.2d at 741.

In Mediate, supra, a unanimous court held appellant's fingerprints on the shotgun shell box which had been moved during a burglary of a dwelling to the garage area were sufficient to uphold his conviction because the possibility of appellant's legitimate access to the box had been adequately foreclosed. The court specifically held the reasonable inference to be derived from absence of legitimate access and the relocation of the box from its point of origin was that appellant was guilty. Id. at 395.

Finally, in Johnson v. State (1987), Ind., 512 N.E.2d 1109, 1110, the court held fingerprints found on a window covered with a screen prior to the burglary, coupled with fingerprints found on the door damaged in the burglary, constituted sufficient evidence to support the jury's verdict.

The evidence in the case at bar establishes the victim's townhouse was entered and burglarized after she went to bed on August 17, 1987 and before she arose on August 18, 1987. Access was made through the sliding glass door off the patio. On the morning of the eighteenth the door was open half-way instead of only a few inches and the rod was out of the track it had been placed in the night before. Chambers' palm print was on the glass door, a print which could only be made by first sliding back the screen door. The victim testified the door was bordered by fences on both sides, foreclosing the possibility of legitimate access. The evidence, even though circumstantial, is substantial and supports the jury's verdict.

Chambers, a black man, contends the State violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment when the prosecutor peremptorily challenged the only two prospective black persons on the venire, citing Batson v. Kentucky (1986), 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69, as support for his contention. In Batson, the Supreme Court held the Equal Protection Clause forbids the prosecution from challenging potential jurors solely on account of their race or on the assumption black jurors will be unable to impartially consider the State's case against a black defendant. The court further held a criminal defendant may establish a prima facie case of purposeful racial discrimination solely on evidence concerning the prosecutor's exercise of peremptory challenges at the defendant's trial without showing repeated instances of such discriminatory conduct over a number of cases.

In Phillips v. State (1986), Ind., 496 N.E.2d 87, 89, our supreme court stated a defendant relying on Batson must show: 1) he is a member of a cognizable racial group; 2) the prosecutor has exercised peremptory challenges to remove that group's members from his jury; and 3) the facts and circumstances of his case raise an inference the exclusion was based on race. Once the defendant makes a prima facie showing, the burden shifts to the State to come forward with a neutral explanation for challenging black prospective jurors. Id. The trial court then has the duty to determine whether the defendant has established purposeful discrimination. Id. (citing Batson, supra, 476 U.S. at 97, 98, 106 S.Ct. at 1723, 1724).

In the present case, the record does not conclusively show the black prospective jurors were peremptorily challenged. The record of voir dire is silent regarding the race of any prospective jurors challenged. Trial counsel did not make a contemporaneous objection to any of the prosecutor's challenges. The issue was first raised in the motion to correct errors, wherein the trial counsel stated

That the Court erred in permitting the State of Indiana to strike two black jurors in a case wherein the Defendant,...