Joyner v. State, No. 20S00-9505-CR-533

• Docket Nº: No. 20S00-9505-CR-533
• Citation: 678 N.E.2d 386
• Case Date: March 31, 1997
• Court: Supreme Court of Indiana

Page 386

678 N.E.2d 386 Ricky JOYNER, Defendant-Appellant,
v.
STATE of Indiana, Plaintiff-Appellee. No. 20S00-9505-CR-533. Supreme Court of Indiana. March 31, 1997.
Rehearing Denied July 8, 1997.

Page 388

Thomas M. Leatherman, Phillip L. Miller, Goshen, for Defendant-Appellant.

Pamela Carter, Attorney General, Jodi Kathryn Rowe, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

DICKSON, Justice.

The defendant, Ricky Joyner, appeals from his conviction for the murder of Sandra Hernandez. The defendant was charged with her murder first in the LaGrange Superior Court, which granted the defendant's motion to suppress evidence taken from the defendant's apartment and automobile. The State then dismissed the LaGrange County charge, and the prosecutor for neighboring Elkhart County commenced the present case by seeking and obtaining a grand jury indictment charging the defendant with the murder.

Briefly summarized, the evidence favorable to the judgment indicates that the defendant and Sandra Hernandez were co-employees and both resided in Elkhart County. They went to dinner together at a restaurant in Elkhart County on the evening of March 2, 1992. The next day, Hernandez's family reported her as missing. Six weeks later, Hernandez's decomposed body was found in a LaGrange County hayfield twenty-eight feet from the LaGrange/Elkhart county line. A trash bag, tied in a knot around her neck,

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covered her head. Expert testimony connected this trash bag to a trash bag police obtained in a search of the defendant's apartment. A cellmate of the defendant during his pre-trial incarceration in the LaGrange County Jail testified regarding numerous inculpatory statements made by the defendant, including that he drove around with her body in his car and dumped it in LaGrange County so no one could link him with her death.

This direct appeal presents the following issues: exclusion of evidence that the crime was committed by another person; sufficiency of evidence; refusal to provide grand jury testimony; denial of request for release under Indiana Criminal Rule 4(A); dismissal and refiling of the murder charge after the LaGrange County suppression ruling; and denial of motion to dismiss alleging lack of specificity as to the date of the charged offense. ¹

Exclusion of Evidence

The defendant contends that the trial court erroneously prevented him from presenting evidence that another person may have committed the crime. The trial court granted the State's motion in limine to exclude such evidence and at trial the court precluded the jury from hearing the defendant's evidence on this matter.

The State urges that we apply the standard set forth in Burdine v. State, 515 N.E.2d 1085 (Ind.1987), regarding the relevancy, and thus admissibility, of evidence that a person other than the defendant committed the crime. Such evidence "must do more than cast suspicion or raise a conjectural inference that a third party committed the crime; it must directly connect the third party to the crime charged." Id. at 1094. Rather, our review is guided by the Indiana Rules of Evidence, which were adopted, effective January 1, 1994, eleven months before the defendant's jury trial in this case. ² Evidence is relevant when it has "any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence." Ind.Evidence Rule 401. Evidence which tends to show that someone else committed the crime logically makes it less probable that the defendant committed the crime, and thus meets the definition of relevance in Rule 401.

The defendant, in his offer to prove, sought to present evidence of the following: Oral Bowens, a married man, was having an affair with Hernandez; Bowens worked at the same place as Hernandez and the defendant; Bowens had sexual relations with Hernandez the night of March 1; he had lied to his wife about where he was that evening and later told his wife that he had had an argument with Hernandez on March 2, the last day Hernandez was seen alive; and Bowens came in late to work the morning of March 3 and lied about his tardiness on his time card, which showed that he had come in on time.

Some evidence admitted at trial was consistent with the defendant's theory that the crime was committed by Bowens. It included expert testimony about an analysis of a hair sample found inside the plastic bag covering the victim's head which excluded the defendant as the donor of the hair, was inconclusive on whether the sample matched the victim, but indicated that there was a ninety-eight to ninety-nine percent probability match with Bowens's hair. The defendant also impeached State's witness Ruben Hernandez, the victim's brother, with a contradictory earlier statement to the police in which the witness indicated that he may have seen his sister alive and separate from the defendant on Monday night, March 2, at about 9:30 to 10:00 p.m. Independent testimony was introduced to prove that the defendant was seen that night at other places by himself and with a friend between 9:00 and 10:30 p.m., after he had gone out with the victim.

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Appellate review of admissibility determinations by the trial court is for abuse of discretion, and reversal is appropriate only where the decision is clearly against the logic and effect of the facts and circumstances. Tompkins v. State, 669 N.E.2d 394, 398 (Ind.1996); Quillen v. Quillen, 671 N.E.2d 98, 102 (Ind.1996). We find that, under the circumstances presented in this case, it was error to prevent the defendant from offering the proposed evidence. Evidence was presented connecting Bowens to the crime: the hair sample retrieved from the garbage bag over the victim's head which excluded the defendant as the source of the hair and implicated Bowens. Some of the proffered testimony could also have established motive (the argument) and opportunity (the unexplained absence and subsequent coverup of being late to work). Support for the defendant's claim of innocence included impeaching the victim's brother with his earlier police statement placing the victim alive and apart from the defendant later on the evening of their dinner date, and evidence that put the defendant elsewhere and alone at that time.

Upon consideration of the issues raised by the evidence and the rights of an accused to present evidence and to require the State to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, we conclude that it was error to categorically exclude the defendant's evidence supporting his defense that the murder was committed by another person. This erroneous exclusion of evidence appears inconsistent with substantial justice and therefore cannot be deemed harmless error. Ind.Trial Rule 61. This cause will be remanded for a new trial.

Sufficiency of Evidence

The defendant contends that there is insufficient evidence to support his conviction for the crime of Murder and urges that we not consider various evidence which he claims was erroneously admitted. Because this cause is remanded for new trial, we do not address these claims of erroneous admission. Upon reviewing a claim of insufficient evidence, an appellate court considers the evidence as presented at trial, including that which may have been erroneously admitted. Bowman v. State, 577 N.E.2d 569, 571 (Ind.1991); Miller v. State, 575 N.E.2d 272, 276 (Ind.1991).

A claim of insufficient evidence will prevail only if, upon consideration of the probative evidence and reasonable inferences that support the judgment, and without weighing evidence or assessing witness credibility, we conclude that no reasonable trier of fact could conclude that the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Case v. State, 458 N.E.2d 223, 226 (Ind.1984); Loyd v. State, 272 Ind. 404, 407, 398 N.E.2d 1260, 1264 (1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 881, 101 S.Ct. 231, 66 L.Ed.2d 105.

Upon consideration of the evidence previously summarized and, applying our standard of review, we cannot conclude that no reasonable jury could have found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. We therefore reject the defendant's contention that the evidence was insufficient to convict.

The defendant also contends that the evidence was insufficient to prove venue. The applicable statute provides, "If an offense is committed in Indiana and it cannot readily be determined in which county the offense was committed, trial may be in any county in which an act was committed in furtherance of the offense." IND.CODE § 35-32-2-1(d)(1993). The prosecution has the burden to prove venue by a preponderance of the evidence and circumstantial evidence is sufficient to support that determination. Evans v. State, 571 N.E.2d 1231, 1233 (Ind.1991). This...