Hall v. State

• Decision Date: 13 April 2021
• Docket Number: Court of Appeals Case No. 21A-CR-41
• Citation: 166 N.E.3d 406
• Parties: Melvin Eugene HALL, II, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

166 N.E.3d 406

Melvin Eugene HALL, II, Appellant-Defendant,

v.STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff

Court of Appeals Case No. 21A-CR-41

Court of Appeals of Indiana.

FILED April 13, 2021

Attorney for Appellant: Marc Lopez, The Marc Lopez Law Firm, Indianapolis, Indiana

Attorneys for Appellee: Theodore E. Rokita, Attorney General of Indiana, George P. Sherman, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, Indiana

Crone, Judge.

Case Summary

[1] Melvin Eugene Hall, II, appeals the trial court's denial of his petition for release on bail following his arrest and charge for murder. He contends that the denial was an abuse of discretion because the State failed to carry its burden to show that the proof of his guilt for murder is evident or the presumption of guilt is strong. Specifically, he argues that the State failed to rebut his claims that he acted in self-defense or sudden heat. We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the State carried its burden, and therefore we affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

[2] Late in the evening of August 27, 2020, Hall, Natisha Staffney, and Danielle Taylor were working as security guards at the Brentwood apartment complex in Indianapolis. This was a new contract with their security firm, and it was only their second day on the job. That night, as often happened, there was a large gathering of about thirty people standing in the yard and the parking area and street next to the apartments. The security guards asked the people "to disburse [sic] out of the middle of the street." Tr. Vol. 2 at 66. Some of the people complied. The security guards then left the area and patrolled the rest of the apartment complex. Later, they returned to the area and observed that some of the people had not moved. The guards again asked them to disperse from the street, and "some people moved, and some didn't." Id. [3] Naytasia Williams, accompanied by her friend Liberty Carnell, drove her car to the Brentwood apartment complex. Williams parked her vehicle,¹ and Carnell moved to the back seat so that another of Williams's friends could sit in the front seat. When that friend exited the vehicle, Carnell remained sitting in the back seat. Williams pulled out of the parking space, did a U-turn, and parked on the side of the street near a "large crowd" of people, with the street on the driver's side and the curb on the passenger's side. Id. at 88. The security guards had returned to the area by this time. When Williams parked, Hall was standing near the guardrail on the side of the street a couple feet from the passenger's side of Williams's vehicle. Staffney and Taylor were present but were farther away. Maurice Parker, a former correctional officer who had grown up in the area and frequently visited the apartment complex, was also present in the crowd. Parker had never seen security guards at the Brentwood apartments before, but he was familiar with Hall because he had seen him working as a security guard at other apartments over the years. Parker was also somewhat familiar with Williams.

[4] Two women on the driver's side of Williams's car started "having words" with her, and Williams got out of the car and started to argue with them in the street. Id. Carnell, who was still in the back seat behind the driver's seat, observed that Williams's handgun was lying on the driver's seat. Williams and the other women started pointing at each other, yelling, cussing, and threatening to kill each other. Parker was not worried that the argument would lead to violence because he had often seen this type of behavior and knew that the women were just blowing off steam. Id. at 40. Staffney was not alarmed by the argument; she did not perceive any threat and thought that "[j]ust because you're saying stuff don't mean you're going to do anything." Id. at 81. According to Parker, "[e]verybody was, like, ‘Guys, just stop arguing.’ Like, ‘Just forget it,’ everybody was just brushing it off like it was nothing." Id. at 57. At no time did Williams direct her anger at anyone other than the women she was arguing with on the driver's side of her vehicle. Hall remained on the passenger's side of her car. Hall did not say anything during the argument, try to stop the argument, or intervene in any way to defuse the situation. Id. at 60.

[5] At one point, one of the women arguing with Williams said, "Don't get too close to the car. You know she got a gun." Id. at 92. Parker heard Williams yell more than once, "You lucky I ain't got no bullets." Id. at 42. Eventually, Williams said, "I'm going to spin the block," which according to Carnell meant "I'm going to leave." Id. at 89. The women continued to argue as Williams was getting back into her vehicle. Williams yelled, "Oh really? Oh really? .... That's how you motherfuckers feel? I got something for that ass. I'm about to do everybody." Id. at 110. Once back in the car, Williams continued to argue with the women through the open driver's side window. Williams put the car in drive to leave, and the car started to roll forward. Williams yelled out the window, "You ain't going to do nothing, woo, woo, woo," and the other women were pointing at her and yelling back. Id. at 46. At no point did Williams turn her head in Hall's direction. Id. at 60-61. Carnell saw Williams pick up the gun to move it "out of her way" and put it in the passenger's seat. Id. at 89. At that moment, Hall shined his flashlight into the vehicle through the passenger's window. Id. Hall said, "She has a gun. She has a gun," and fired three gunshots through the passenger's window into the vehicle. Id. at 111. Williams threw up her hands and said, "I've been hit. I've been hit." Id. at 112. She got out of the car, and Hall ordered her, "Get the F on the ground. Get down. Get down." Id. at 47. Williams complied. Her vehicle was still in drive and rolled into the nearby guardrail. Parker came forward to help Williams, but Hall told him, "Get the F back. Get the F back.... I'll shoot you if you don't get back." Id. at 48. The police later found Williams's loaded gun lying in her car on the driver's seat.

[6] Williams was taken to the hospital, where she died an hour or so later. The autopsy revealed that she had been shot three times and had bullet wounds on her right arm, the right side of her upper body, and her left leg.

[7] In September 2020, the State charged Hall with murder. Hall filed a petition for release on bail. In November 2020, the trial court held a hearing on Hall's petition, at which the State submitted the testimony of witnesses Carnell, Staffney, Parker, and Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Detective Christopher Winter, as well as exhibits including body cam footage and crime scene and autopsy photographs. Taylor testified on behalf of Hall. Following the hearing, the parties submitted written arguments. Hall argued that he acted in self-defense or in sudden heat. On January 4, 2021, the trial court denied Hall's petition, finding that the State met its burden to show by a preponderance of the evidence that the proof is evident or the presumption strong that Hall committed the offense of murder. This appeal ensued.

Discussion and Decision

[8] The Indiana Constitution provides that "[o]ffenses, other than murder or treason, shall be bailable by sufficient sureties. Murder or treason shall not be bailable, when the proof is evident, or the presumption strong." IND. CONST . art. 1, § 17. In 2013, our supreme court reversed nearly 150 years of precedent and held that "when a criminal defendant is charged with murder or treason, whether by indictment or information, the burden lies with the State to show that the ‘proof is evident, or the presumption strong,’ if it seeks to deny bail to that defendant." Fry v. State , 990 N.E.2d 429, 443-44 (Ind. 2013) ; Satterfield v. State , 30 N.E.3d 1271, 1276 (Ind. Ct. App. 2015) ; see also Ind. Code § 35-33-8-2 ("Murder is not bailable if the state proves by a preponderance of the evidence that the proof is evident or the presumption strong. In all other cases, offenses are bailable."). To carry its burden, the State must demonstrate that the defendant is "more likely than not" guilty of murder or treason. Fry , 990 N.E.2d at 448. "Only if the State cannot make this minimal showing may the trial court establish monetary bail or other conditions of pre-trial release." Id. at 452 (Dickson, C.J., concurring opinion joined by Justice Rush). To make such a showing,

the State must ... present competent evidence either upon which those charging documents relied or upon which the State intends to rely at trial. Additionally the evidence cannot simply be statements by the prosecutor as to what the proof will–or might–be at trial. .... The magistrate must be shown information at the hearing from which he can make his own independent determination whether there is admissible evidence against an accused that adds up to strong or evident proof of guilt. [T]he evidence presented by the State must show culpability of the actual capital crime for which bail may be wholly denied–i.e. murder or treason–and not simply implicate a lesser-included offense such as voluntary or involuntary manslaughter.

Id. at 449 (citations and quotation marks omitted). In addition, another panel of this Court has held that the defendant has the right to present exculpatory evidence during a bail proceeding and the trial court has the duty to take this evidence into account when considering a request for bail. Satterfield , 30 N.E.3d at 1279. Such exculpatory evidence includes evidence of an affirmative defense, such as self-defense. Id.

[9] We will reverse a trial court's denial of bail in a murder case only upon an abuse of discretion. Doroszko v. State , 154 N.E.3d 874, 876 (Ind. Ct. App. 2020), trans. denied. An abuse of discretion occurs when the trial court's decision "is clearly against the logic and effect of the facts and circumstances." Prewitt v....