Glover v. State

• Decision Date: 13 December 2021
• Docket Number: Court of Appeals Case No. 21A-CR-1422
• Citation: 179 N.E.3d 526
• Parties: Abram Lamar GLOVER, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

179 N.E.3d 526

Abram Lamar GLOVER, Appellant-Defendant,

v.STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.

Court of Appeals Case No. 21A-CR-1422

Court of Appeals of Indiana.

FILED December 13, 2021

Attorney for Appellant: Lisa M. Johnson, Brownsburg, Indiana

Attorneys for Appellee: Theodore E. Rokita, Attorney General of Indiana, Ian McLean, Supervising Deputy Attorney, General Indianapolis, Indiana

Mathias, Judge.

[1] Abram Lamar Glover appeals his convictions for Level 6 felony strangulation and Level 6 felony domestic battery. Glover raises four issues for our review, but we address only the following three issues:¹

I. Whether the State's questioning of prospective jurors was inappropriate jury conditioning.

II. Whether a witness's unprompted statement that Glover had previously been in jail, which the trial court immediately struck and admonished the jury not to consider, warranted a mistrial.

III. Whether the State committed prosecutorial misconduct when it stated during opening remarks that Glover's victim had paid for Glover's defense counsel.

[2] We affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

[3] In June of 2020, the State filed its information against Glover, which the State later amended to allege that Glover had committed Level 6 felony strangulation and Level 6 felony domestic battery against his girlfriend, E.A. In May of 2021, the trial court held jury selection for Glover's trial. At the commencement of the selection proceedings, the court informed the prospective jurors as follows:

Jurors must be as free as humanly possible from bias, prejudice or sympathy and must not be influenced by pre-conceived ideas as to either the facts or the law. During the first step of selecting the jury, the Court and counsel will ask you questions concerning your competency and qualifications to serve as a juror in this case.

* * *

Under the law, lawyers are within their rights in asking questions to test the juror's state of mind and qualifications....

* * *

You are to consider and decide this case only upon the evidence received during the course of the trial in the courtroom....

Tr. Vol. 2 pp. 43–44, 47.

[4] The State informed the prospective jurors that it would do a "mini opening" and "tell you a little bit about the case." Id. at 53. Glover objected, stating that the mini opening would be "exposing the jury to ... possible evidence during the jury selection" and doing so is "more than asking if they can be impartial.... This is ... preconditioning them to what the evidence is going to be." Id. at 53–55. The State responded that Indiana Jury Rule 14(b) allowed for such an opening statement.² The trial court overruled Glover's objection.

[5] The State provided the following mini opening to the prospective jurors:

As the Judge told you, this Defendant is charged with two counts. Count I, strangulation[,] and Count II, domestic battery resulting in moderate bodily injury. What you're going to hear about this case is that you're going to meet E.A. And E.A. is going to tell you that she wanted the Defendant to leave her house.

She called her brother to be there, kind of as back up. And at some point the Defendant gets into a fight with E.A.’s brother. Police are called. And in the process, the police end up noticing things and taking pictures of injuries, which E.A. told them happened about ten days before that. That's the basis of the charges. That's what this trial is about.

Now ... that we have a little bit of background and you know why we're here, we're going to discuss some of the issues. Just give you a roadmap here. First of all, we're going to talk about domestic violence for a little bit. Find out your thoughts and feelings and things you know about domestic violence. Then we're going to talk about things called elements, very, very briefly. Talk about evidence. Again, very briefly. What exactly is evidence. We're going to discuss something called beyond a reasonable doubt, which may of you have heard of.

And finally I'm going to answer questions that you may have. And keep in mind, this is really the only time that you get to talk with me. So if you have any questions at all, that's the time we're going to take those up. If you have questions between now and then, feel free to just raise your hand or whatever.

Id. at 58–59.

[6] The State began asking questions of the prospective jurors:

All right. By a show of hands, how many of you have read any articles about domestic violence? Okay. All right. How about TV shows? Seen domestic violence on TV shows? All the time, right?

What about, have any of you got any kind of specialized like reading or seminars, or through your work or anything like that, about domestic violence?

Okay. A few of you have....

Id. at 59. The State called on Juror Number 10 to explain her background. Juror Number 10 stated:

I have worked most of my life in the elementary school system. And as such, we are trained in handling, and noticing, and reporting abuse, domestic violence signs through children. I also have had firsthand knowledge of court cases where children in our school have gone along with the mother and that type of situation. So ... I'm always very, very aware of that type of a situation. We actually have in-service training. We have things that we are required to do every year for the State of Indiana, as far as training in seeing and reporting, and noticing that type of a situation.

Id. at 60. Juror Number 10 continued:

And ... an avenue that also is always there is when you bond with a child, the first thing that they want to do is come in and tell you what dad did to mom last night, or what mom did to dad. And then we have steps that we follow. So that ... has happened to me several times.

[The State]: So sometimes it gets disclosed because of the kid ... [and] not because anybody called the police.

[Juror Number 10]: Absolutely....

[The State]: Why do you think a parent who is being abused might not call the police?

Id. at 61.

[7] At that point, Glover again objected on the ground that the State was using "this line of questioning" to turn the prospective juror into "an educational juror." Id. The State responded that it was "free to explore this juror's opinions about certain issues." Id. at 62. The court overruled Glover's objection. Juror Number 10 then responded to the State's question:

Well, in the situations I've had firsthand knowledge of, I probably would say that the number one cause is ... fear or the need to keep the family unit as a whole and not do anything to disrupt that. You know that dynamic. Possibly low self-esteem. They've—you know, the victim maybe thinks they won't be believed or there's going to be retribution perhaps....

Id.

[8] The State continued:

Okay. How many of you have known someone who was affected by domestic violence? Most everybody, right?

Juror Number 1, what about you? Do you know of cases where somebody didn't report it, or didn't call the police?

[Juror Number 1]: Yes.

[The State]: Okay. And why do you think that happens?

[Juror Number 1]: Well, like she was saying, I think the number one thing is fear.

[The State]: Uh-huh.

[Juror Number 1]: I have been a victim of domestic violence, so I know firsthand.

[The State]: Did you call every time something happened?

[Juror Number 1]: No.

[The State]: And why not?

[Juror Number 1]: I was scared.

[The State]: Did you eventually get out of that?

[Juror Number 1]: Yes.

[The State]: Good for you.

[Juror Number 1]: Yes.

[The State]: Do you have children?

[Juror Number 1]: Yes, I do.

[The State]: Was it affecting them?

[Juror Number 1]: He was about [one] year old at the time. The way I was able to get out before he was old enough to, you know, comprehend any of that. But I know that, you know, he's the reason why I did leave because I didn't want him growing up around that.

[The State]: Is that something you could do right away, or did you have to work up to it?

[Juror Number 1]: (inaudible).

Tr. at 63–64. The State went through a similar discussion with Juror Number 2, Juror Number 4, Juror Number 7, and Juror Number 11. The State also asked the prospective jurors about victim blaming and if they would be able to avoid blaming the victim in a domestic violence case.

[9] The State then returned to Juror Number 7:

[H]ave you, in your experiences, learned [that domestic violence is] more a crime of control?

[Juror Number 7]: I think so, yes.

[The State]: Okay. And that's what a lot of the literature says, isn't it?

[Juror Number 7]: Uh-huh.

[The State]: Okay. In your experiences, what types of things have you seen an abuser do to control their victim?

Id. at 75–76. At that point, Glover renewed his objection "to this form of questioning," which Glover argued was telling "what a jury should look for" and "trying to get information in front of the jury[ ] and then use that information to say if you apply this ... here, then you can find him guilty." Id. at 76. The trial court overruled the objection but "admonish[ed] the jurors that this is not evidence in the trial." Id. at 77.

[10] The State then engaged the prospective jurors on how perpetrators of domestic violence might control their victims. Responses from the prospective jurors included "threaten[ing] ... to take the kids," "threaten[ing] [their victims] with further harm," and not "let[ting the victims] go places without them." Id. at 77–79. The State added, "how many of you have heard of a case where somebody controls somebody by taking their phone away from them," and "[h]ow about isolating from friends and family?" Id. at 79-80.

[11] The State asked one prospective juror whether her experiences with domestic violence showed that "there [were] times ... where [the perpetrator] would be really, really nice" after an incident of domestic violence. Id. at 80. That prospective juror gave an equivocal response, and the State asked another prospective juror, Juror Number 12, whether "in your training, did you have any training about this cycle, where they're mean, and then they're sorry for it, and really nice, and...