Lewis v. State
| Decision Date | 21 November 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 49A05-0104-CR-157.,49A05-0104-CR-157. |
| Parties | Russell LEWIS, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Janice L. Stevens, Public Defender, Indianapolis, IN, Attorney for Appellant.
Steve Carter, Attorney General of Indiana, Richard C. Webster, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee.
Russell Lewis was convicted following a jury trial of confinement, a Class B felony, and battery, a Class C felony. He was sentenced to a total of twenty years. He now appeals his convictions and sentence. We affirm in part and reverse and remand in part.
Lewis raises two issues for our review, which we restate as follows:
1. Whether the trial court properly instructed the jury regarding the elements of confinement; and
2. Whether the trial court properly sentenced Lewis.
Christopher Moss and Naisha Goodner shared an apartment in Indianapolis. Goodner is Lewis' sister. On March 29, 1999, Moss and Goodner were in the process of moving out of their apartment when the apartment was burglarized. Several days later, Lewis, Peter Carter and Delwin Williams were at the apartment to help Moss with the move. By nightfall, the move was mostly complete, and the men were drinking and talking at the apartment. Lewis asked Williams if he knew anything about the burglary, and Williams denied any involvement. Lewis persisted in asking Williams if he knew anything about the burglary, and eventually became angry with Williams. The two fought. Moss and Williams testified at trial that Lewis hit Williams in the head repeatedly with a gun during the fight, although Lewis denied having a gun. Eventually, Williams told Lewis that Marvin Maxwell had broken into the apartment. Williams' face was bleeding after the altercation.
The four men went to Maxwell's aunt's apartment, which was in the same complex as Moss' apartment. Williams testified that he was forced by the three other men to go with them and that Lewis had a gun with him as they walked. Moss and Lewis both testified that Williams went with them voluntarily, and Lewis denied having a gun. When they arrived at Maxwell's aunt's apartment, Maxwell answered the door. He joined the men outside, where he and Moss began to argue and then to fight. Williams ran from the scene. Maxwell was found murdered later that night.
Lewis was charged with murder, a felony, burglary, a Class A felony, and criminal confinement, a Class B felony, for the altercation with Maxwell, and with criminal confinement, a Class B felony, and battery, a Class C felony, for the altercation with Williams. The jury was unable to reach a verdict as to the counts involving Maxwell, but found Lewis guilty of the criminal confinement and battery of Williams. A mistrial was declared on the Maxwell counts, but judgment of conviction was entered on the Williams counts. Lewis was sentenced to twenty years for the criminal confinement conviction and eight years for the battery conviction, the sentences to be served concurrently. He now appeals his convictions and his sentence. Additional facts will be provided as necessary.
Lewis first contends that the trial court erred in instructing the jury regarding the elements necessary to convict him of the criminal confinement of Williams.
The well-settled standard by which we review challenges to jury instructions affords great deference to the trial court. State v. Snyder, 732 N.E.2d 1240, 1244 (Ind.Ct.App.2000). The manner of instructing the jury lies within the trial court's sound discretion. Id. Thus, the trial court's ruling will not be reversed unless the instructional error is such that the charge to the jury misstates the law or otherwise misleads the jury. Id. Jury instructions must be considered as a whole and in reference to each other; even an erroneous instruction will not be error if the instructions taken as a whole do not misstate the law or otherwise mislead the jury. Womack v. State, 738 N.E.2d 320, 325 (Ind.Ct.App.2000),trans. denied.
Lewis was charged, in part, as follows:
Count III
... Russell Lewis ... on or about March 31, 1999, while armed with [a] deadly weapon[], that is: [a] handgun[ ], did knowingly, by fraud, enticement, force or threat of force, remove Marvin Maxwell from one place to another, that is: forced Marvin Maxwell to walk from a residence at 9022 East 39th Place, Apartment #1, to a residence at 3906 North Breen Drive, which resulted in serious bodily injury, that is: blunt force injuries of the body and head, and a gunshot wound to Marvin Maxwell;
Appellant's Appendix at 112-13.
The preliminary instructions read to the jury included the charging information for all counts of which Lewis was accused and also the following:
CRIMINAL CONFINEMENT
Appellant's Appendix at 129, 135. The final instructions included the following:
Appellant's Appendix at 161. The final instructions also included the definitions of "deadly weapon," "handgun," "bodily injury," and "serious bodily injury." Appellant's Appendix at 166-67, 170-71.
Lewis contends that the trial court's instruction regarding the statutory definition and elements of criminal confinement was in error.1 His specific complaint is that he was charged with confinement as a Class B felony against Williams for using a deadly weapon, but the instruction would allow him to be convicted of confinement as a Class B felony for causing Williams serious bodily injury. Thus, he contends that the instruction allowed the jury to convict him of a crime with which he was not charged.
Lewis cites Kelly v. State, 535 N.E.2d 140 (Ind.1989) in support of his position. That case, however, does not compel the result that he seeks. In Kelly, the defendant was charged with knowingly confining the victim without his consent and while armed with a deadly weapon. Indiana Code section 35-42-3-3 defines criminal confinement as knowingly or intentionally confining another person without his consent or removing another person by fraud, enticement, force, or threat of force from one place to another. The trial court instructed the jury of this definition and that the State was required to prove, in part, that the defendant knowingly confined the victim or removed him from one place to another. The problem lay in the fact that although the information charged the defendant only with non-consensual confinement, the final instructions allowed conviction on either non-consensual confinement or confinement by removal, the jury returned a general verdict, and the evidence arguably could have supported a conviction of either confinement by removal or non-consensual confinement. Id. at 143. Thus, the defendant's conviction was reversed and he was granted a new trial.
The primary difference between this case and Kelly is that herein, Lewis was charged with two counts of confinement: one against Williams by using a deadly weapon, and one against Maxwell by causing serious bodily injury. The trial court instructed the jury on the charges against Lewis and then instructed the jury regarding each of the elements of confinement relevant to the charges, as opposed to Kelly, in which the trial court instructed the jury on an element which was completely foreign to the charge against the defendant. In Emerson v. State, 695 N.E.2d 912 (Ind.1998), which Lewis also cites, our ...
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