Dennis v. State, 1185S476
| Decision Date | 27 October 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 1185S476,1185S476 |
| Citation | 498 N.E.2d 1209 |
| Parties | Leon DENNIS, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below). |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
Leon Dennis, defendant, appeals his conviction of burglary, a class B felony. 1 He raises two issues:
1) failure to either declare a mistrial or admonish the jury about a newspaper article; and,
2) sufficiency of evidence.
We affirm.
On the morning of the first day of evidence at defendant's trial, the local morning newspaper contained the following:
Jury selection was completed Tuesday afternoon in the burglary trial of an Anderson man.
Leon Dennis, 49, is charged with a May 1982 house burglary.
DENNIS WAS convicted of two similar crimes on May 23 by a Superior Court I jury.
Deputy prosecutor Kevin Eads is trying the state's case. Dennis is being represented by Indianapolis attorney Dean Knapp.
Opening arguments will start at 9 a.m. today.
Defendant promptly moved for a mistrial on grounds the jury may have become aware of his prior convictions and therefore be prejudiced against him. Defendant did not intend to take the stand, for the same reason. The jury was then returned to the court room and carefully polled by the judge. Each juror denied seeing and reading the newspaper article. The mistrial motion was denied. Trial resumed without further admonishment, and concluded with a jury verdict rendered later the same day.
Defendant relies on Lindsey v. State (1973), 260 Ind. 351, 295 N.E.2d 819, for the proposition that a jury must be admonished even if there has been no exposure to potentially prejudicial publicity:
Upon a suggestion of improper and prejudicial publicity, the trial court should make a determination as to the likelihood of resulting prejudice, both upon the basis of the content of the publication and the likelihood of its having come to the attention of any juror. If the risk of prejudice appears substantial, as opposed to imaginary or remote only, the court should interrogate the jury collectively to determine who, if any, has been exposed. If there has been no exposure, the court should instruct upon the hazards of such exposure and the necessity for avoiding exposure to out-of-court comment concerning the case. If any of the jurors have been exposed, he must be individually interrogated by the court outside the presence of the other jurors, to determine the degree of exposure and the likely effect thereof. After each juror is so interrogated, he should be individually admonished. After all exposed jurors have been interrogated and admonished, the jury should be assembled and collectively admonished, as in the case of a finding of "no exposure."
260 Ind. at 355-359, 295 N.E.2d at 824.
We find the case at bar more analogous to Davis v. State (1979), Ind.App., 397 N.E.2d 301, where one juror was exposed to the newspaper article. The juror was admonished, but the remaining jurors, who had not been exposed to the article, were not collectively admonished. Noting that the trial court had generally admonished the jury to disregard out-of-court comments and had also instructed jurors to consider only the evidence before them, the Court held that any error was harmless. 397 N.E.2d 303. In the case at bar, not one juror was exposed to the potentially prejudicial article; the jury returned its verdict later the same day, and there is no showing that jurors had any subsequent opportunity for exposure to the same or further newspaper accounts of the trial. Thus an admonishment would have served no purpose. A defendant bears the burden of showing which jurors were exposed to harmful material, the content of it, and how the jurors were prejudiced,
Wilburn v. State (1982), Ind., 442 N.E.2d 1098. We find any error on this issue to be harmless.
Defendant argues that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict.
In addressing the issue of sufficiency of evidence, we will affirm the conviction if, considering only the probative evidence and reasonable inferences supporting the verdict, without weighing evidence or assessing witness credibility, a reasonable trier of fact could conclude that the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Case v. State (1984), Ind., 458 N.E.2d 223; Loyd v. State (1980), 272 Ind. 404, 407, 398 N.E.2d 1260, 1264, cert. denied, 449 U.S. 881, 101 S.Ct. 231, 66 L.Ed.2d 105. A conviction can be based upon the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice. Smith v. State (1985), Ind., 475 N.E.2d 1139. An accomplice's credibility is an issue for the jury to resolve. Lowery v. State (1985), Ind., 478 N.E.2d 1214.
Defendant drove the vehicle but did not enter the dwelling. He argues that he was unaware that his companions were committing a burglary, and did not know that the property they obtained was stolen. He contends that there is no...
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...issue was raised and discussed in an analogous case involving this defendant's appeal from a separate conviction. Dennis v. State, (1986), Ind., 498 N.E.2d 1209. For the same reasons as expressed there, we find determinative the absence of any showing as to the specific jurors exposed to th......
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