Jackson v. State

• Decision Date: 04 November 2004
• Docket Number: No. CR 03-800.,CR 03-800.
• Citation: Jackson v. State, 359 Ark. 297, 197 S.W.3d 468 (Ark. 2004)
• Parties: Anarian Chad JACKSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

197 S.W.3d 468

359 Ark. 297

Anarian Chad JACKSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.

No. CR 03-800.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

November 4, 2004.

Jeremy B. Lowrey, Sheridan; and Hampton & Larkowski, by: Jerry Larkowski, Little Rock, for appellant.

Mike Beebe, Att'y Gen., by: Kent G. Holt, Ass't Att'y Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.

ROBERT L. BROWN, Justice.

The appellant, Anarian Chad Jackson, appeals from his conviction for first-degree murder and his sentence of life imprisonment. We affirm the conviction and sentence.

The facts gleaned from the testimony at trial are these. On January 5, 2001, a witness observed Charles Raynor as he was shot to death in his front yard in Little Rock. The same witness had observed two men approach the victim from behind, at which time Raynor fell to the ground. When he tried to get up, Raynor was shot again. The State's Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. William Sturner, testified at trial that Raynor was killed by a gunshot wound to the head.

Also at trial, the State presented testimony from Chris Bush, who had already pled guilty to first-degree murder for Raynor's murder and had received a sentence of forty years' imprisonment. Bush testified that Jackson had previously told him that Raynor "was talking about [Jackson] to little girls and stuff" and saying "things about [Jackson]," and that Jackson did not like it. Bush stated that the day of the murder, he and Jackson were being driven around by "Little Mark," a friend, when they saw Raynor standing in his front yard. Bush testified that he had a .357 revolver with him, and that Jackson was carrying a .40 caliber semi-automatic gun.

Bush testified that Jackson told Little Mark to park around the corner from the house, and that Bush and Jackson then got out of the car, went down the alley, and walked along the side of the house to where Raynor was standing. Bush said that Jackson started shooting first and that he himself shot about five times and then ran back to the car. He further testified that Jackson finished shooting and came running behind him. Bush admitted that when the police found him, he had the .40 caliber gun which was used to kill Raynor with him, which he had obtained from a "dope house."

The State also presented testimony from Officer Todd Hurd, a gang-intelligence detective with the Little Rock Police Department, who testified that Jackson was classified as both a "slinger" and a "banger." He defined the terms in front of the jury as follows:

"Slinger" is a street term, or "slanger" as it's commonly referred to, is a person who deals dope. They're slinging dope on the streets. And a "banger" is a person that's referred — a gang member that is referred to as really being into the gang rivalries if you will; shooting at, having conflict with other gangs and other gang members.

He further stated that Jackson was a leader of the West Side Posse, also known as the West Side Piru, a gang in Little Rock, and that Raynor was a member of the Monroe Street Hustlers, another gang in the Little Rock area. He said that as a leader of the West Side Posse, Jackson would be the main authority figure over younger gang members, like Chris Bush, who would have been below Jackson in the gang's hierarchy.

Ronald Andrejack, a State Crime Lab firearms-and-tool-mark examiner, testified that four .40-caliber casings, which were found at the scene of Raynor's death, were all fired from the .40-caliber weapon that was retrieved and that a piece of copper jacket from a .38-caliber bullet taken from Raynor's body could have been fired by a.357 Magnum, but not the .40-caliber pistol that fired the casings.

Two other witnesses for the State were treated as hostile witnesses. Markevious King and Rodrick Pennington testified that they did not remember giving statements to Detective Stuart Sullivan of the Little Rock Police Department. When they testified they were unable to remember their statements, the State sought and obtained from the circuit court the permission to introduce into evidence transcripts of both witnesses' testimony before a federal grand jury. King's testimony affirmed a statement he had given to Detective Sullivan in which he named the members of the West Side Posse and discussed times when Jackson gave guns to other gang members and to him and directed them to seek out members of the Monroe Street Hustlers. Pennington's grand-jury testimony affirmed his statement to Detective Sullivan that Jackson had rewarded Bush for shooting Raynor by giving him a car.

Takesha Griffin, Jackson's first cousin, was also called to testify by the State and was treated as a hostile witness. She denied that she gave a statement to police regarding Jackson's involvement in Raynor's death. She stated that she was high on crack at the time of the statement and that she was kept at the Little Rock Police Department for five or six days. She added that she was willing to say or do anything to leave the department. Her testimony before the federal grand jury was also introduced into evidence. The State then called Detective Eric Knowles of the Little Rock Police Department, who took Ms. Griffin's statement. He testified that her statement was taken under oath, which was administered by a deputy prosecutor. An audio tape of Ms. Griffin's statement was admitted into evidence and played for the jury. In that statement, Ms. Griffin testified that Jackson admitted killing Raynor with Bush, because Raynor had supposedly tried to kill Jackson at least four times. She further stated that she had heard on the street that Jackson and Raynor had wanted the same girl. In addition, she told the detective that Jackson told her he had "a .44" and that Bush had "the .357" at the time of the shooting.¹

Detective Knowles testified that Ms. Griffin was not under arrest at the time of her statement and was free to leave and that she appeared very friendly and cooperative the entire time. Detective John White, of the Little Rock Police Department, who was also present at the time of Ms. Griffin's statement, testified that he observed no symptoms of drug withdrawal at the time of her statement. Finally, Detective Sullivan testified that after Jackson was Mirandized, he admitted to being the "top guy" in the West Side Posse. Jackson was convicted of murder and sentenced as already noted in this opinion.

I. Gang Expert

Jackson argues, as his first point on appeal, that the prosecutor's introduction of testimony from Officer Todd Hurd, the purported gang expert, amounted to no more than a character assassination. He claims specifically that the testimony fails to meet the reliability standards of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993), and that its admissibility violated his rights to due process and a fair trial. He contends that the State should have been required to present testimony from an expert with sociological or other comparable training and education that would provide some assurance of both unbiased and well-grounded conclusions, after employing valid data-gathering techniques. Jackson further maintains that Officer Hurd's testimony was based on rumor and hearsay and should have been excluded as improper, highly prejudicial character evidence that compromised the reliability of the jury's fact finding. He concludes that his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated.

a. Standard of Review

In Brunson v. State, 349 Ark. 300, 79 S.W.3d 304 (2002), this court summarized its standard of review for the qualification of experts:

Whether a witness qualifies as an expert in a particular field is a matter within the trial court's discretion, and we will not reverse such a decision absent an abuse of that discretion. Rule 702 of the Arkansas Rules on Evidence entitled "Testimony of Experts" reads: "If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise." We have said that if some reasonable basis exists demonstrating that the witness has knowledge of the subject beyond that of ordinary knowledge, the evidence is admissible as expert testimony.

349 Ark. at 309, 79 S.W.3d at 309 (internal citations omitted).

b. Reliability under Daubert and Kumho Tire

Jackson maintains that while this court has previously addressed the admissibility of gang-expert testimony under the rubrics of relevance and prejudice, such evidence has never been evaluated by this court for its reliability under Daubert.

Jackson is correct that this court has not previously evaluated a gang expert's reliability under Daubert. In Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. Foote, 341 Ark. 105, 14 S.W.3d 512 (2000), we adopted the holding of the United States Supreme Court in Daubert and the inquiry to be conducted by a trial court. We concluded, in accordance with Daubert, that the trial judge, when presented with a proffer of expert scientific evidence, must initially decide if the reasoning behind the evidence is scientifically valid and can be applied to the facts of the case. We noted several criteria to be used by the judge in making that decision.

This court later observed that Arkansas Rule of Evidence 702's requirements apply equally to all types of expert testimony and not simply to scientific expert testimony, citing to Kumho Tire Co., Ltd. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137, 119 S.Ct. 1167, 143 L.Ed.2d 238 (1999). See Coca-Cola Bottling Co. v. Gill, 352 Ark. 240, 100 S.W.3d 715 (2003). In Kumho Tire, the United States Supreme Court concluded that the trial court's general "gatekeeping" obligation, as prescribed under Daubert, applies to all expert testimony when assessing the reliability of that testimony. The Court added that in assessing reliability, the trial court may,...