People v. Seals
| Decision Date | 13 November 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. 316474,316474 |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US |
| Parties | PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. WAYNE SEALS, Defendant-Appellant. |
UNPUBLISHED
Wayne Circuit Court
Before: WHITBECK, P.J., and FITZGERALD and MURRAY, JJ.
Defendant, Wayne Seals, appeals as of right his convictions, following a bench trial, of second-degree murder,1 assault with intent to do great bodily harm,2 and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony (felony-firearm).3 The trial court sentenced Seals to serve 15 to 25 years' imprisonment for his second-degree murder conviction, 3 to 10 years' imprisonment for his assault with intent to do great bodily harm conviction, and two years' imprisonment for his felony-firearm conviction. We affirm.
Seals's conviction arises from an altercation that occurred at Cheetah's Lounge on April 7, 2011. Todd Costello testified that he and the victim, Christopher Rice, were friends and members of the Liberty Riders Motorcycle Club. According to Costello, he and his girlfriend went to Cheetah's some time after 5:30 p.m. While at Cheetah's, Cecil Dunlap, a bouncer who is black, approached Costello and told him that his conduct with his girlfriend was against the establishment's rules. Dunlap told Costello to leave.
Daniel Abraham, a valet at Cheetah's, testified that he witnessed Costello get thrown out of the building around 7:00 p.m. According to Abraham, Costello started making threats to Dunlap, used racial slurs, and said that he was going to "come back and get you[.]" Costello got into a car with a group and left his car at Cheetah's. Jason Stafford, another Cheetah's employee, testified that he heard Costello yell that he would "be back up here[.]"
Costello testified that he left Cheetah's and went to the Liberty Club's club house. Some point after 11:00 p.m., he and members of the Liberty Club returned to Cheetah's. Costello testified that he intended to retrieve his car. Abraham testified that Costello returned to Cheetah's with 20 to 30 men, and he heard three or four gunshots shortly thereafter.
According to Costello, immediately on entering Cheetah's, Costello approached Dunlap and hit him in the mouth. Others became involved in the fight, including Seals, a white bouncer. Dunlap fell to the ground during the fight, drew a gun, and started shooting. Dunlap shot Costello in the hip, and Costello, Rice, and others ran out of the building. Costello testified that Seals chased Rice and continued to strike Rice in the back of the head with a blackjack.
According to Costello, he and Rice entered Rice's Tahoe. While Costello was in the Tahoe, bullets came from behind the vehicle and he was shot in the shoulder. Costello testified that it was Seals, not Dunlap, who was shooting at the Tahoe. Costello admitted that as soon as he saw the vehicle's rear window break, he ducked down between the seats. However, Costello testified that he was "a hundred and ten percent sure" that it was Seals who was shooting at the Tahoe. Rice was also shot and told Costello that he was dying. Rice stopped the Tahoe and moved to a rear seat, and Elliott drove the Tahoe to the hospital. Rice was pronounced dead from a gunshot wound to his back.
Abraham testified that he was 15 to 20 feet away from Seals when he heard gunshots. According to Abraham, he did not see anything in Seals's hands, but Abraham saw flashes on both sides of him. Stafford also testified that he did not see Seals with a gun in his hands. According to Stafford, the gunshots fired outside the building were fired from near the street and came from a red truck.
Jason Gartin testified that he was good friends with Rice and Costello. Gartin's testimony was similar to Costello's, but Gartin testified that Dunlap started the fight by swinging at Costello. According to Gartin, someone fired shots in the air during the fight, and everyone started to run outside. Gartin testified that he did not see Dunlap outside the building. Gartin did see Seals holding a gun out and firing it "in front." Gartin saw Seals firing at the back window of the Tahoe. Gartin testified that he also saw Seals reach for a second gun. Gartin got into a friend's vehicle and left.
The prosecutor played portions of surveillance videos from Cheetah's. Detroit Police Sergeant Ron Gibson testified that one portion of the video showed a person laying two guns on a counter. Sergeant Gibson testified that the person in the video was Seals. According to Gibson, there was no surveillance video that captured the shooting itself because the outside camera's lighting and focus was bad.
Sergeant Samuel Mackie testified that he spoke with Seals while investigating the shooting. According to Sergeant Mackie, Seals admitted that he and Dunlap were the only bouncers working that night, but denied that any shooting took place at Cheetah's or that he or Dunlap ever had a gun. Seals also denied that gunshots were fired inside or outside Cheetah's.
Detroit Police Officer Mary Gross testified that she examined the Tahoe on April 14, 2011. According to Officer Gross, she found five suspected bullet impact points on the back of the vehicle. Two impacts were the rear doors. One bullet had passed through the back seat and driver's seat. Officer Gross concluded that the shooter shot the Tahoe from its right rear side. Officer Gross testified that additional bullets could have shattered the vehicle's windows and passed through the Tahoe without leaving marks.
Matthew Fillmore testified that, in April 2011, he overheard a conversation at a gym between a person he was "pretty sure" was Seals and an unknown man. Fillmore heard Seals say that he was working as a bouncer, something happened, and he ended up shooting and killing someone. Fillmore contacted the police and spoke with a sergeant about what he had heard because he thought it was the right thing to do.
The trial court found that either Dunlap or Seals had killed Rice. It found that, on the basis of the video, after Dunlap fired his gun, Costello's group "all rushed out the door." The trial court found that the video showed Seals chasing after and hitting Rice.
The trial court found that the prosecutor had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that it was Seals who shot Rice, and it noted that it relied on the testimony of Officer Gross, the video of Seals in the kitchen area with guns, and Fillmore's testimony to reach this conclusion. The trial court also noted that there was no testimony from Costello and Gartin that placed Dunlap outside, but that Gartin and Costello both testified that Seals was outside. The trial court also found that Officer Gross's investigation corroborated Gartin's testimony that he saw Seals firing at the vehicle.
The trial court also noted that the kitchen video showed Seals "nonchalantly taking guns . . . from his waist area and so forth and laying them on the counter . . . ." The trial court noted that Seals had denied ever having a gun when Sergeant Mackie questioned him, which showed his consciousness of guilt. The trial court also accepted Fillmore's testimony that he overheard Seals admit to shooting and killing someone.
This Court reviews for clear error the trial court's findings of fact following a bench trial.4 The trial court clearly errs if we are definitely and firmly convinced that it has made amistake.5 Courts review a defendant's claim that the jury's verdict was against the great weight of the evidence to determine whether "the evidence preponderates so heavily against the verdict that it would be a miscarriage of justice to allow the verdict to stand."6
The presence of conflicting testimony alone does not provide a sufficient ground to discard a verdict as against the great weight of the evidence.7 This Court does not resolve questions of credibility on appeal.8 This Court must defer to the trier of fact's determination of credibility "unless it can be said that directly contradictory testimony was so far impeached that it was deprived of all probative value or that the [trier of fact] could not believe it, or contradicted indisputable physical facts or defied physical realities . . . ."9
Seals contends that the trial court's finding that Seals was the shooter rested on its clearly erroneous determination that Dunlap was not outside. We disagree.
The prosecutor has the constitutionally based burden to prove each element of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt.10 "[I]dentity is an element of every offense."11
We are unable to locate in the record an explicit finding that Dunlap was never outside. Rather, the trial court noted that neither Gartin nor Costello testified that they saw Dunlap outside, but they did testify that they saw Seals there. The trial court also noted that the video evidence showed Seals chasing Rice outside. Further, the video shows that, while a person matching Dunlap's description is outside Cheetah's, that person does not move toward the area of the building where the shooting occurred until after it appears that the shooting has ended.
Further, even presuming that the trial court erroneously found that Dunlap was not outside, we conclude that the trial court did not rely on this finding to subsequently find Seals guilty. Here, Gartin testified that he saw Seals standing with his arm extended toward the Tahoe, Officer Gross's testimony about the bullet trajectories corroborated Gartin's testimony of where he saw Seals standing, a video inside Cheetah's shows Seals placing guns on a counter after the shooting, and Fillmore testified that he overheard Seals tell someone that he was a bouncer andhad killed someone. Costello and Gartin's testimonies were not so impeached that they had no probative value or contradicted physical reality. And it is clear from the trial court's statement of its findings that it...
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