Reynolds v. State
| Decision Date | 01 October 2021 |
| Docket Number | Court of Appeals Case No. 20A-PC-2374 |
| Parties | Landis REYNOLDS, Appellant-Petitioner, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Respondent. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Attorney for Appellant: Cynthia M. Carter, Indianapolis, Indiana
Attorneys for Appellee: Theodore E. Rokita, Attorney General of Indiana, Jodi Kathryn Stein, Supervising Deputy Attorney, General, Indianapolis, Indiana
[1] Landis Reynolds appeals the post-conviction court's denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. Reynolds raises one issue for our review, namely, whether the post-conviction court erred when it concluded that he was not denied the effective assistance of counsel.
[2] We affirm.
[3] On the night of March 8, 2004, Reynolds was at the home of Brooke Hober. Hober received a phone call from Reynolds’ girlfriend, Alte Raices, and Raices asked to speak with Reynolds. Raices then told Reynolds that Jerry Douglas, Reynold's mother's boyfriend, had "tried to rape her." Tr. Vol. 2 at 18.1 At that point, Reynolds "got mad," "cocked back one of the guns he had," and "said that he was going to have to kill somebody." Id. Reynolds left Hober's house at approximately 11:30 p.m. and returned to the apartment he shared with Raices.
[4] Reynolds called his friend, Jonathon Heath, and asked Heath to come over. When Heath arrived at Reynolds’ apartment, Reynolds informed Heath that Douglas had tried to rape Raices. Approximately fifteen minutes later, Reynold's mother, Ruth Ann Reynolds, arrived at the apartment. The three individuals then left the apartment with a baseball bat and went to Wal-Mart to purchase masks. Ruth Ann purchased sock hats, and the three left Wal-Mart and began driving around looking for a "secluded area." Id. at 47. They found a house that was under construction, which they considered to be the "perfect" spot. Id. at 48. At that point, the three went to Ruth Ann's house and got a second baseball bat and a pair of scissors so they could "[c]ut holes in the mask[s]." Id. at 49. Ruth Ann then used a pay phone to call Douglas to ask Douglas to meet them at the house. The three drove back to the secluded house to wait for Douglas. During the drive back, Ruth Ann handed Reynolds a gun.
[5] Once the three arrived, Reynolds and Heath exited the car with the two baseball bats. They then walked to the empty house and waited by a dumpster for Douglas to arrive. When they saw Douglas, Reynolds and Heath put on the masks and moved to hide behind the dumpster. Once Douglas exited his car, Heath and Reynolds approached him and "started swinging" the baseball bats. Id. at 58. Heath "might have" hit Douglas "once," but Reynolds hit Douglas "repeatedly" in his head and chest. Id. at 59, 62. Reynolds kept hitting Douglas even after Douglas had fallen to the ground. At some point, Reynolds "picked [Douglas] up" by his shoulder and "shot him in the head." Id. at 62. The two ran back to Heath's car, and Reynolds told Ruth Ann that he had "shot" Douglas. Id. at 63. The three then drove back to Reynolds’ apartment. Heath stayed for "[n]ot even a minute" and then left and threw the baseball bats and the masks in a dumpster. Id. at 64.
[6] At around 3:00 a.m. on March 9, Reynolds called Hober and asked her to say that he had been at her house "all night." Id. at 19. Then, at around 11:00 a.m., Reynolds again called Hober and asked her to say that the two had been together in Indianapolis for two days. Reynolds also told Hober that he had "killed Jerry Douglas" by beating him with a bat and then shooting him. Id. at 20. Reynolds further told Hober that he had given the gun to "[s]ome girl named Brandi[.]" Id. at 21. Later that morning, construction workers discovered Douglas, who had died as a result of his injuries, outside of the vacant home.
[7] During the ensuing investigation into Douglas’ death, officers recovered the masks and baseball bats from the dumpster, fingerprints from Douglas’ car, and a bullet from Douglas’ body. Thereafter, Lieutenant David Galloway with the Kokomo Police Department ("KPD") interviewed Brandi Foster, and Foster provided Lieutenant Galloway with a handgun. Officers were able to determine that the firearm Foster had provided was the same firearm that had fired the bullet recovered from Douglas’ body. Officers were also able to determine that DNA from one of the sock hats matched Reynolds, and DNA found on the other matched Heath. And a fingerprint from Douglas’ car matched that of Reynolds. The State charged Reynolds with murder, a felony, and aggravated battery, as a Class B felony.
[8] The trial court then held a six-day jury trial. Prior to trial, Reynolds filed a motion for funds to hire an investigator. On the morning of the first day of trial, the court granted that motion in part and awarded Reynolds $500. Tr. Vol. 1 at 102. During the trial, the State called Foster as a witness. Foster testified that Reynolds had showed her a gun on March 9, 2004, and that she again saw the gun when he gave it to her on "the day that [Reynolds] got arrested," which was March 10. Tr. Vol. 2 at 209. She then testified that Reynolds told her that he had "shot someone with it." Id. And she testified that she had turned that gun into the police.
[9] The State also called KPD Captain Michael Wheeler as a witness. During his testimony, the State moved to introduce as evidence phone records that Captain Wheeler had subpoenaed. After the court admitted those records, Captain Wheeler testified that he had encountered "difficulties" while attempting to obtain them. Id. at 248. Specifically, he testified:
Cell phone records are difficult to obtain because ... the companies that control their records change just about every other day. One company merges with another and it goes from one name to another and so on. Often times the information from one cell phone company's not passed through to another cell phone company. In obtaining the records themselves, since it's not a landline or a hardline or hard-wired telephone like in your home, information sometimes is not passed through. The cell telephone works through towers. Often times the calls don't go through nor does the information sometimes go through. So they're difficult, one, to get the right company and two, to get the records if they have them.
Id. at 249. Reynolds did not object to Captain Reynold's testimony. On cross-examination, Reynolds questioned Captain Wheeler about the lack of contact between Hober's and Raices’ phones on March 9, 2004. Captain Wheeler acknowledged that the phone records showed "no contact" between those phone numbers at the relevant time. Id. at 250.
[10] The State also called Heath as a witness, who testified that Reynolds had killed Douglas. On cross-examination, Reynolds elicited testimony that Heath had "blacked out" due to anger on the night of March 9, 2004. Id. at 109. Reynolds also elicited testimony from Heath that he had previously testified in a deposition that he "might have" hit Douglas during the time that he was "blacked out." Id. at 127. And the State called Raices as a witness, who testified that, on March 9, 2004, she told Reynolds that Douglas had tried to rape her. She also testified that either the next day or two days later, Reynolds told her that he had "beat[en]" Douglas with a bat and then "shot him in the head." Tr. Vol. 3 at 111.
[11] After both parties had rested, Reynolds made his closing argument. In particular, Reynolds argued that the phone records did not "support the State's case" and pointed out inconsistencies between the State's evidence and the phone records. Id. at 201. In addition, Reynolds argued to the jury that Heath's statements were contradictory and that he admitted to having "blacked out" during the offense. Id. at 230. Reynolds then asserted that Heath had killed Douglas. At the conclusion of the trial, the jury found Reynolds guilty as charged, and the court sentenced him to an aggregate sentence of fifty years in the Department of Correction. Reynolds appealed, and this Court affirmed his convictions. Reynolds v. State , No. 34A05-0508-CR-482, 849 N.E.2d 180 (Ind. Ct. App. June 9, 2006).
[12] On April 20, 2015, Reynolds, pro se , filed an amended petition for post-conviction relief. In that petition, Reynolds asserted that his trial counsel had rendered ineffective assistance of counsel by failing to: 1) rebut the State's fingerprint evidence; 2) impeach two witnesses; 3) "investigate evidence essential to the effective cross-examination" of Raices; 4) move to suppress evidence obtained following his arrest; and 5) object to the testimony of Captain Wheeler. Appellant's App. Vol. 2 at 40. Reynolds also asserted that his trial counsel's "cumulative errors and omissions" deprived him of a fair trial. Id. at 41.
[13] The court held a hearing on Reynolds’ petition.2 At the hearing, Reynolds questioned his trial counsel. His counsel testified that it was his position that the phone records "contradicted" some of the testimony by the State's witnesses. P.C. Tr. at 46. Reynolds’ counsel further acknowledged that he did not present evidence to rebut the State's fingerprint evidence. And Reynolds’ counsel testified that his defense theory was that several of the State's witnesses were "colluding" or lying and that Heath had killed Douglas. Id. at 85.
[14] Reynolds’ counsel further testified that he had received a supplemental officer's report during discovery that stated that, on March 10, 2004, Timothy Spencer and Jonathan Clark were at Raices and Reynolds’ apartment. In addition, he testified that he had received money for an investigator. However, Reynolds’ counsel stated that he did not have a "recollection" of having followed up with either Clark or Spencer. Id. at 97.
[15] Reynolds then called Clark as a witness. Clark testified that he was present at Raices and Reynolds’ apartment on March 10, 2004, when "the...
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