People v. Johnson

• Decision Date: 23 July 2018
• Docket Number: No. 154128, No. 154130,Calendar No. 2,154128
• Citation: 502 Mich. 541,918 N.W.2d 676
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Justly Ernest JOHNSON, Defendant-Appellant. People of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Kendrick Scott, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

502 Mich. 541
918 N.W.2d 676

PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Justly Ernest JOHNSON, Defendant-Appellant.

People of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Kendrick Scott, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 154128
No. 154130
Calendar No. 2

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Argued April 11, 2018
Decided July 23, 2018

918 N.W.2d 678

Bill Schuette, Attorney General, Aaron D. Lindstrom, Solicitor General, Kym L. Worthy, Prosecuting Attorney, Jason W. Williams, Chief of Research, Training, and Appeals, and David A. McCreedy, Lead Appellate Attorney, for the people.

Michigan Innocence Clinic (by Imran J. Syed, David A. Moran, Detroit, and Rebecca L. Hahn) for defendants.

BEFORE THE ENTIRE BENCH (except McCormack and Wilder, JJ.)

Bernstein, J.

502 Mich. 548

In these consolidated cases, we consider whether the trial court erred by declining to grant new trials following defendants’ motions for relief from judgment. After weighing the evidence presented at the trials along with defendants’ claims of newly discovered evidence, we hold that the evidence in the form of testimony given by Charmous Skinner Jr. (Skinner) would make a different result probable on retrial. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of

918 N.W.2d 679

the Court of Appeals in part and remand these cases to the trial court for new trials.¹

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

These cases arise from the murder of Lisa Kindred. Between midnight and 1:00 a.m. on May 9, 1999, Lisa was shot and killed while in her vehicle with her three children—Decola (newborn), Shelby (2 years old), and Skinner (8 years old). Earlier in the evening, Lisa, her husband (William Kindred), and her three children had gone to see a movie, "Life," at a drive-in theater in Dearborn, Michigan. On their way home, William announced that he wanted to make a stop on the east side of Detroit to talk to his sister’s boyfriend, Verlin Miller, about purchasing a motorcycle. Lisa, who was driving, parked their minivan across the street from Miller’s home and waited in the van with the children while William went inside. At one point, Lisa went to the door of the house and asked William to come back to the van, but William told her that he would be out shortly, and Lisa returned to the van. Soon afterward, William heard a noise, which turned out to be gunfire, and went to the

502 Mich. 549

front door just in time to see both Lisa’s van speeding away and a man fleeing on foot. William chased after the fleeing individual but failed to catch him.

Having been struck by the gunfire, Lisa drove the van to a nearby gas station, stopped, and then collapsed out of the vehicle. She later died at the hospital. The medical examiner’s report revealed that Lisa’s death was caused by a single gunshot wound to the chest. The report also revealed that small wounds on her body were consistent with her having been shot through an intervening medium. The driver’s window had been shattered, but nothing had been stolen from the van. The children were not harmed, and they were still in the vehicle when the police arrived at the scene. A .22 caliber spent casing was found in the street at the scene of the shooting.

Two individuals who were in the same neighborhood at the time of the crime, Antonio Burnette and Raymond Jackson, implicated defendants Justly Johnson and Kendrick Scott in the shooting.² All four individuals knew each other from the same neighborhood. Johnson and Scott were tried separately—Johnson by bench trial and Scott by jury trial. Judge Prentis Edwards presided over both trials. Burnette and Jackson testified at both trials.

A. JOHNSON’S BENCH TRIAL

In both trials, Burnette was the prosecutor’s key witness. However, it is difficult to construct a linear

502 Mich. 550

time line of events from the night of the shooting according to Burnette’s testimony, given the many inconsistencies in his testimony. According to Burnette, he was initially with both defendants the evening before the shooting. Burnette testified that Scott had discussed "planning something" but that Johnson had not

918 N.W.2d 680

said anything. However, when the prosecutor pointed out that Burnette had previously testified at the preliminary examination that both defendants had discussed plans for that evening with him, Burnette agreed that such a conversation had occurred. Burnette also failed to recall whether defendants had mentioned planning to "hit[ ] a lick," which he explained meant robbing someone. The prosecutor refreshed Burnette’s memory with his preliminary examination testimony, and Burnette then clarified that defendants had discussed hitting a lick.

Burnette then testified that his father picked him up at 10:30 p.m. Burnette claimed that he again met up with both defendants around 2:30 a.m., at which point Johnson told him that Scott had shot a lady because she owed Scott money. However, Burnette also testified that he and Johnson drove around with an individual named Mike at some point in the evening. It is unclear from Burnette’s testimony whether this drive took place earlier in the evening, before Burnette’s father picked him up and before the shooting, or whether it occurred after Burnette met up again with defendants at 2:30 a.m. Burnette testified that Mike drove Johnson and him around and that Mike eventually dropped them both off when their plans fell through. At one point during his testimony, Burnette stated that he was dropped off at the same gas station that Lisa drove to. Burnette also testified that he saw an ambulance and police vehicles at the gas station, suggesting that this took place after the shooting. However, Burnette’s

502 Mich. 551

testimony changed several times as to whether Johnson was with him when he saw the ambulance at the gas station. Burnette also testified that, alternatively, he was dropped off elsewhere in Detroit, that he did not return to the gas station, and that he did not see an ambulance there.

Burnette further testified that when he met up with both defendants at 2:30 a.m., all three of them were smoking and drinking. Burnette testified that he had consumed 32 bottles of Budweiser and a half pint of Hennessy the day of the shooting, in addition to smoking 10 marijuana cigars. Burnette claimed that, while he was in this state, Johnson told him that Scott had shot a woman because she owed Scott money. Burnette also testified that he had first learned that a woman had been shot when he went to purchase marijuana earlier that evening and saw an ambulance and police officers in the neighborhood. It is unclear from Burnette’s testimony whether this was related to his purported sighting of an ambulance and police officers at the gas station, or whether this was a separate incident. In any case, Burnette later contradicted himself yet again by stating that defendants were the ones who first informed him that someone had been shot.

Burnette also testified unclearly about whether his knowledge of the victim’s name came from defendants or the police. Burnette agreed that, in his police statement, he stated that the woman who owed Scott money was named "Lisa." However, when Burnette was asked whether he knew anyone by that name, he testified that he did not. When he was asked if the police had given him that name, Burnette said that they had.

Burnette claimed that he saw both defendants with guns that night, an AK-47 and a .22 caliber rifle, albeit only after his memory was refreshed. Burnette testified

502 Mich. 552

that he saw Johnson place a gun in a vehicle and that Scott, sometime around 7:00 or 8:00 a.m. the morning after the shooting, placed the other gun in a different vehicle. Burnette went to sleep in Scott’s car, where the police later found him. Burnette was taken in for questioning, and he testified that the police told

918 N.W.2d 681

him that he would be charged with a homicide offense.

Turning to Jackson’s testimony, Jackson stated that, in the early morning hours on the day of the shooting, he woke up in his grandmother’s home after hearing a gunshot.³ When Jackson eventually went outside to see what had happened, he saw a police car in front of the field next door to his grandmother’s house. Jackson testified that when he looked down the street, he saw Scott standing on his girlfriend’s porch and saw Scott hand his girlfriend something long and covered in clothing. Jackson testified that he believed this object to be a dog leash. Shortly thereafter, the police took Jackson and Scott downtown for questioning, and Jackson said that he eventually returned home while the police kept Scott at the station. A police officer confirmed that Scott was still in custody when the officer reported to work between 8:00 and 8:30 a.m. that morning.

Sometime after Jackson returned to his grandmother’s house, Johnson came over. Jackson...