Hobson v. State

• Court: Indiana Appellate Court
• Writing for the Court: Crone, Senior Judge
• Docket Number: 24A-CR-2748
• Decision Date: 22 December 2025
• Citation: Hobson v. State, 24A-CR-2748 (Ind. App. Dec 22, 2025)
• Parties: Tremayne Hobson, Jr., Appellant-Defendant, v. State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.

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Tremayne Hobson, Jr., Appellant-Defendant, v. State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.

No. 24A-CR-2748

Court of Appeals of Indiana

December 22, 2025

Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), this Memorandum Decision is not binding precedent for any court and may be cited only for persuasive value or to establish res judicata, collateral estoppel, or law of the case.

Appeal from the Marion Superior Court The Honorable Mark D. Stoner Judge Trial Court Cause No. 49D32-2201-MR-697

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT Talisha R. Griffin Matthew D Anglemeyer Marion County Public Defender Agency Indianapolis Indiana

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE Theodore E. Rokita Attorney General of Indiana, Rebekah D. Bennett Deputy Attorney General Indianapolis, Indiana

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Crone, Senior Judge

Case Summary

[¶1] In 2021, then sixteen-year-old Tremayne Hobson, Jr., along with three other teenagers, hatched a plan to trade guns with Dusty Lawrence. Unbeknownst to Lawrence, Hobson and his cohorts intended to trick Lawrence into accepting a broken gun for Lawrence's operational gun and a box of ammunition. During the trade, Lawrence was shot in the chest and robbed of his firearm and ammunition. He died from his wound. Hobson was charged as an adult with felony murder and level 2 felony robbery. A jury found Hobson guilty as charged.

[¶2] Hobson appeals the fifty-five-year aggregate sentence imposed by the trial court following his conviction of felony murder.^[1] Hobson asserts that his sentence is inappropriate in light of the nature of the offense and his character. Finding that he has not met his burden to demonstrate that his sentence is inappropriate, we affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

[¶3] In 2021, sixteen-year-old Hobson lived with his mother in a house located in a subdivision on the east side of Indianapolis. On the evening of March 27, and while Hobson's mother was out of town, Hobson threw a party at his home that attracted around sixty teenagers. The party ended in the early morning hours of March 28. Some of Hobson's friends spent the night at his house, including Hobson's best friend, sixteen-year-old Demetrius Coakley seventeen-year-old Jalen Spivey; and Demarion Bean and Isaiah,^[2] who were sixteen or seventeen years old at the time.

[¶4] On the morning of March 28, the teens cleaned up the house and the backyard. After Coakley finished his part of the cleanup, he picked up his cell phone and opened an application (app) for a communication platform made popular by gamers. The app was also used to post firearms for sale or trade. As Coakley scrolled through the app looking at pictures of guns, Spivey stopped Coakley at a black Glock handgun that Dusty Lawrence had posted.

[¶5] Coakley messaged Lawrence and determined that Lawrence wanted to trade his handgun, not sell it. Coakley and Lawrence did not know each other. They used usernames to identify themselves on the app. Spivey used Coakley's phone to send Lawrence pictures of two Glock handguns: a black colored gun, and Hobson's "peanut butter" colored gun that Hobson's mother had given him. Tr. Vol. V at 3.

Lawrence agreed to trade his handgun and a box of ammunition for Hobson's peanut butter colored gun and a drum magazine with a fifty-round capacity.

[¶6] Hobson, Coakley, Spivey, and Bean had no intention of trading Hobson's gun. Instead, they hatched a plan to trick Lawrence into taking a broken, pink-colored gun that belonged to Spivey. The plan was to "swap" the broken gun for Lawrence's gun and ammunition, and "walk away." Id. The teens concealed the broken gun in a gun case owned by Hobson's mother.

[¶7] Coakley messaged Lawrence, indicating that he did not have a car, and Lawrence agreed to come to Coakley's location. The teens did not want Lawrence to go to Hobson's house; so, when Lawrence asked for the address, Hobson took Coakley's phone outside to find the address of a nearby house. Hobson messaged Lawrence with a fake address, and Lawrence agreed to meet at that address.

[¶8] At the time the trade took place, thirty-year-old Lawrence lived in Anderson, Indiana, with his then-pregnant wife and their five-year-old daughter. Lawrence worked at a warehouse facility, but his hobby was buying and trading firearms. Lawrence's wife and daughter would often accompany Lawrence to the transactions, and the transactions typically occurred in a public place. Before March 28, 2021, Lawrence and his family had never been to a residence to make a trade.

[¶9] On March 28, Lawrence, along with his wife and daughter, drove from their home to the address Hobson had provided. Lawrence was driving his blue sedan, Lawrence's wife was in the passenger seat, and their daughter was seated in the middle of the back seat in a car seat. They arrived in Hobson's neighborhood a little before 3:00 p.m.

[¶10] When Lawrence arrived at the address that was "closest" to the address that had been provided,^[3] he pulled into the driveway and saw an older woman standing in the garage. Tr. Vol. III at 205. Lawrence asked the woman about the gun trade, but she appeared to have "no idea what [he] was talking about[,]" telling him and his wife that they "were in the wrong area to be doing what [they] were doing and that [they] needed to go home." Id. at 205, 232. Lawrence backed out of the woman's driveway, drove a "couple houses down," and parked along the side of the road. Id. at 206. He sent a message to the username of the person he was supposed to meet, asked if the person could meet him where he had parked, and described his vehicle. Coakley told Hobson, Spivey, and Bean what kind of car Lawrence was driving and where Lawrence was parked.

[¶11] Spivey, Bean, and Hobson armed themselves before leaving the house to meet Lawrence. Coakley gave his gun to Spivey, "[j]ust in case … something went bad." Tr. Vol. V at 8. Spivey also carried the gun box with the broken gun inside. Bean had a peanut butter colored gun of his own, and Hobson carried his gun. Spivey, Bean, and Hobson left the house to meet Lawrence, wearing hoodies with the hoods pulled up over their faces. Coakley and Isaiah stayed behind.

[¶12] As the teens approached, Lawrence exited his car and placed his personal firearm in his waistband. He introduced himself to the teens and then retrieved from the driver's side back seat what he had brought to trade: the gun box, which contained the gun, and the ammunition. He closed the back door and handed the gun box to one of the teens. Lawrence and the teens positioned themselves such that they were standing at the trunk of the car. Lawrence's wife and daughter stayed in the car, and Lawrence's wife began "playing" on her cell phone. Tr. Vol. III at 211.

[¶13] Approximately two minutes later, Lawrence's wife heard five or six rapid gunshots. She looked over her left shoulder and saw two of the teens running away from the car. Lawrence had been shot three times: once in his chest, once in his index finger, and once in his left upper buttock. Lawrence stumbled to the front passenger door, his pants covered with blood, and told his wife, "[Y]ou're gonna have to drive me." Id. at 212. She climbed out of the car, headed toward the trunk of the car, grabbed from the trunk's surface the gun and gun box Spivey had brought, placed the items in the back seat of the car, and climbed into the driver's seat. Lawrence climbed into the front passenger seat.

[¶14] Lawrence's wife drove away from the scene of the shooting but only traveled around fifty to one hundred feet before noticing that Lawrence had slumped down in his seat and turned blue. She stopped the car, screamed for help, and called 9-1-1.

[¶15] When law enforcement officers arrived on the scene at 2:56 p.m., they removed Lawrence from his car and began administering first aid. Lawrence was in critical condition, struggling to breathe and bleeding heavily. Paramedics transported Lawrence to a local hospital, where he died from his injuries that same day. Lawrence's cause of death was determined to be the gunshot wound to his chest; his manner of death was listed as homicide.

[¶16] After Lawrence was shot, Spivey took the gun and ammunition that Lawrence had brought to trade, and all the teens ran back to Hobson's house, "panicking" and out of breath. Tr. Vol. V at 11. The teens hid the guns around the house, and Hobson, Spivey, and Bean split the stolen ammunition. For several hours, the teens watched from an upstairs window as law enforcement officers canvassed the area.

[¶17] While they waited for the police to leave, Hobson sent several text messages to a person named "Tati." Id. at 160. Around 4:00 p.m., Hobson messaged the following: "Sum just happened I'll tell u later … we can't leave the house I'll tell u later do say nun tho don't trip[.]" Ex. Vol. III at 110 (State's Ex. 201). Hobson then sent two additional messages: "We f***ed rn I think everything should be coo bae[,]" and "What we just did was not supposed to go like that[.]" Id. at 111-12 (State's Ex. 201). Around 9:30 p.m. that night, Hobson messaged Tati, stating, "[I]t's over with not going home for a few days[.]" Id. at 116 (State's Ex. 203).

[¶18] After the police left the area, the teens ¶ed from Hobson's house. Spivey sold Lawrence's gun; Hobson's gun "got thrown in the lake"; and Hobson left Indianapolis for several months. Tr. Vol. V at 16. In September 2021, after Lawrence was killed but before Hobson was arrested for that incident, Hobson was arrested for resisting law enforcement and for dangerous possession of a firearm. A true finding was entered for the dangerous possession of a firearm act.

[¶19] In January 2022, Hobson and Coakley were arrested for the incident involving Lawrence, and both were charged with felony...