Jones v. State

• Decision Date: 13 November 1998
• Docket Number: No. 49A02-9706-CR-391,49A02-9706-CR-391
• Citation: 701 N.E.2d 863
• Parties: Michelle JONES, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

Page 863

701 N.E.2d 863

Michelle JONES, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.

No. 49A02-9706-CR-391.

Court of Appeals of Indiana.

Nov. 13, 1998.

Aaron E. Haith, Indianapolis, for Appellant-Defendant.

Jeffrey A. Modisett, Attorney Gen., James D. Dimitri, Deputy Attorney Gen., Indianapolis, for Appellee-Plaintiff.

OPINION

BAILEY, Judge.

Case Summary

Appellant-Defendant Michelle Engron Jones ("Jones") appeals her convictions, after a jury trial, of Murder ¹ and Neglect of a Dependent, a class B felony. ² We affirm.

Issues

Jones raises several issues for our review which we restate as follows:

I. Whether sufficient evidence of corpus delicti exists to justify admission of Jones' confessions into evidence.

II. Whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain Jones' convictions of Murder and Neglect of a Dependent.

III. Whether the trial court erred in permitting the State to dismiss previous charges of Neglect of a Dependent and refile new charges of Murder and Neglect of a Dependent.

Facts

The facts most favorable to the judgment indicate that on November 11, 1987, fifteen-year-old Jones gave birth to a son, Brandon. (R. 611, 1901, 1903). Brandon suffered from gynatictropin independent precocious puberty, a disorder which accelerated the child's physical development. (R. 1876, 1877). Jones' boyfriend, Kevin L. Sims ("Sims"), admitted paternity the year after Brandon's birth. (R.1905, 1907). The trial court awarded Jones custody of Brandon, granted Sims reasonable visitation rights, and ordered Sims to pay child support. (R.1907). When Brandon was approximately seven months old, Jones was removed from her home and placed with the Indianapolis Children's Bureau. (R. 615, 1908, 1909). Thereafter, Sims and his mother, Arlene Blevins ("Blevins"), assumed care of Brandon. (R.1908, 1936). Brandon was returned to Jones when he was three years old. (R.1910, 1936-37). Beginning in May, 1992, Jones and Brandon resided in an apartment which Jones leased from Janet K. Norris ("Norris"). (R. 2231).

In July, 1992, Jones accompanied her friend, Deborah Asante ("Asante"), to a weekend theater network conference in Detroit. (R.2027, 2028). During the trip, Jones informed Asante that a babysitter was caring for four-year-old Brandon. (R.2029). After the conference, Asante and several other friends noticed that they no longer saw Brandon. In response to questioning regarding Brandon's whereabouts, Jones informed friends that he was living either with Sims or with Blevins. (R.2033, 2049). Jones' upstairs neighbor, who also noticed Brandon's absence, observed Jones washing the inside and outside of her car frequently. (R. 2282, 2283).

At some point during the mid-summer of 1992, apartment manager Norris was walking by Jones' residence when she noticed hundreds of flies covering the inside front bedroom window of Jones' apartment. (R. 2249, 2250, 2252). Norris entered the apartment to investigate. (R. 2251). In the front bedroom, which appeared to be a child's room, Norris noticed a "very strong urine smell." (R. 2253, 2254). Norris questioned Jones, who responded that Brandon had been wetting the bed and that she would take care of the situation. (R. 2256).

On January 1, 1993, Jones vacated her apartment. (R. 2267). Norris, who conducted the move-out inspection, observed that although the apartment was generally clean, there was a "brown stain all over the floor" of Brandon's bedroom. (R. 2272). Jones thereafter began living with her friend Mahalia Aamir ("Aamir"). (R.2048).

In December, 1993, after repeated unsuccessful attempts to establish contact with Brandon, Sims and Blevins contacted Aamir for information. (R.2051). Aamir confronted Jones, who confessed to Aamir that when she attended the theater conference during the summer of 1992, she left Brandon alone in her apartment. (R.2052). According to Jones, when she returned from the trip, she discovered Brandon dead in his bedroom. (R.2053). Jones then wrapped Brandon's body in a blanket, placed it in her car, and drove to a wooded area, where she placed the body. (R.2053, 2054). Jones made a similar confession to Asante, but additionally stated that she had placed Brandon's body in a box and attempted to bury it. (R.2037).

At the urging of Aamir and Asante, Jones took a leave of absence from work and checked into a mental health center in January, 1994. (R.2038, 2054, 2082). During her stay at the center, Jones confessed to a crisis clinician counselor and a police officer that she had left Brandon alone for several days and discovered his dead body upon her return. (R.2083-86, 2303-05). Based on the information Jones provided, police made repeated attempts to locate Brandon's body. Those attempts were unsuccessful. (R. 2340, 2341).

Jones returned to work in September, 1994, and changed her health insurance from dependent coverage to single coverage. (R. 2111, 2113). Jones additionally removed Brandon as beneficiary from her life insurance policy. (R. 2112, 2113).

In November, 1995, Jones confessed to her friend Clarissa Dunlap ("Dunlap") that she had beaten Brandon, left him alone in his bedroom, and returned several days later to find him dead. (R. 2149, 2150, 2151). When Dunlap asked whether Jones had beaten Brandon to death, Jones responded, "I guess so." (R. 2156). Jones also told Dunlap she had misled police regarding the location of Brandon's body because she was scared. (R. 2175).

On October 22, 1996, the State charged Jones by information with Murder and Neglect of a Dependent. (R. 38, 66). After a jury trial, she was convicted as charged. The trial court imposed a fifty-year sentence for Murder and a three-year sentence for Neglect of a Dependent, and ordered that the sentences be served concurrently. This appeal ensued.

Discussion and Decision

I. Corpus Delicti

Jones contends the trial court erred in admitting her various confessions into evidence. According to Jones, the State produced insufficient evidence of corpus delicti to justify admission of the statements. In support of this contention, Jones argues that the evidence apart from her confessions does not support an inference that she committed either Murder or Neglect of a Dependent, but indicates merely that "Brandon is missing or has been placed somewhere by Jones." (Appellant's brief at 18-19).

To support the introduction of a defendant's confession into evidence, the corpus delicti of the crime must be established by independent evidence of 1) the occurrence of the specific kind of injury and 2) someone's criminal act as the cause of the injury. Stevens v. State, 691 N.E.2d 412, 424-25 (Ind.1997) (quoting Willoughby v. State, 552 N.E.2d 462, 466 (Ind.1990)). Each element of the crime need not be shown beyond a reasonable doubt; rather, the evidence need only provide an inference that a crime was committed. Stevens, 691 N.E.2d at 425; Weida v. State, 693 N.E.2d 598, 600 (Ind.Ct.App.1998), trans. denied. The corpus delicti may be established solely by circumstantial evidence. Smith v. State, 689 N.E.2d 1238, 1246 n. 10 (Ind.1997); Campbell v. State, 500 N.E.2d 174, 180 (Ind.1986). Further, the State is not required to prove the corpus delicti before the confession is admitted, provided the totality of independent evidence presented at trial establishes it. Willoughby, 552 N.E.2d at 467. Once properly admitted a confession is direct evidence of guilt of the criminal activity admitted. Id.

The evidence at trial showed that Brandon was four years old during the summer of 1992. After Jones returned from a weekend conference in Detroit, neither family nor friends ever saw Brandon again. Jones lied to her friends regarding his whereabouts, informing them that Brandon was living with Sims or Blevins. During this time, Jones also impeded Sims' and Blevins' efforts to see or visit with Brandon. Specifically, Blevins testified that throughout 1992 and 1993, she left messages with Jones "[t]wo and three times a week" attempting to arrange visitation with Brandon, but that Jones never returned her phone calls. (R.1961). Apartment manager Norris testified that sometime during the summer of 1992, she entered Jones' apartment after noticing flies inside the residence. According to Norris, although the apartment generally appeared clean, hundreds of flies were located on the window of what appeared to be a child's room, and the room smelled strongly of urine. State forensic expert John Brooks testified that decaying organic matter, such as flesh, blood, or garbage typically attracts flies in the volume observed at Jones' apartment. Jones' neighbor noticed that during the summer of 1992, she stopped seeing Brandon and began observing Jones repeatedly washing the inside and outside of her car. Finally, there was no record that Jones ever enrolled Brandon in school or filed a missing persons report with police. Rather, after an extended leave of absence from work, Jones removed Brandon from all insurance coverage.

The production of the victim's body is not required in a murder prosecution if circumstantial evidence shows that death did occur. Campbell, 500 N.E.2d at 179. In this case, the evidence apart from Jones' confessions, although circumstantial, gives rise to a reasonable inference that Brandon is dead and that a criminal act was the cause of his death. Accordingly, the surrounding circumstances provide a sufficient inference of criminal agency to satisfy the corpus delicti rule. See Grey v. State, 273 Ind. 439, 404 N.E.2d 1348, 1351 (1980) (stating that although circumstances do not exclude hypothesis of non-criminal cause for injuries, corpus delicti was established by circumstances which are consistent with and give rise to reasonable inference that crime occurred). ³

II. Sufficiency

Standard of Review

Our standard of review for the sufficiency of evidence is well-settled. We examine only the evidence most favorable to the judgment along with all reasonable inferences...