Shane v. State

Decision Date22 September 1999
Docket NumberNo. 68S00-9710-CR-526.,68S00-9710-CR-526.
Citation716 N.E.2d 391
PartiesDavid SHANE Appellant (Defendant), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff).
CourtIndiana Supreme Court

Jack Quirk, Muncie, IN, Attorney for Appellant.

Jeffrey A. Modisett, Attorney General of Indiana, Priscilla J. Fossum, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee.

SELBY, J.

Defendant David Shane ("Shane" or "Defendant") was convicted in the Randolph Superior Court of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, feticide, and assisting a criminal. He was sentenced to sixty years for murder with four years suspended, to run concurrently to a fifty year conspiracy sentence, and eight years for feticide, to run consecutively to the murder charge and concurrently to a four year sentence for assisting a criminal. Shane brings three claims in this appeal. He argues that 1) his convictions are unsupported by sufficient evidence, 2) the trial court erred in admitting two items of evidence, and 3) Shane's pre-trial jail time was improperly credited against his sentence.1 We reject all claims and affirm all convictions.

Factual and Procedural Background

On the morning of July 28, 1994, a neighbor of Nicole Koontz found her dead in the living room of her trailer. Koontz had been dead for several hours from a gunshot wound to the head, inflicted at close range. She had been shot three times through a pillow with a .25 caliber gun. As a result of her death, her 29 week old fetus also died. Two bullet casings and one live round of ammunition from a .25 caliber handgun were found at the scene.

A police investigation ensued. Robert Hicks, the boyfriend of Koontz, and his best friend and business partner, David Shane, were both questioned during the course of this investigation. During the initial interviews, Hicks and Shane recounted almost identical stories. Shane and Hicks had worked until 2:00 p.m. at a painting job. They returned to Shane's home and worked on the yard. They drank beer, smoked pot, took showers, and eventually left home to go to two bars. They left the second bar at around 1:00 a.m., went to Taco Bell and returned home around 1:30 a.m., at which point they ate and went to bed. The next morning, they went to Hardees, and were on their way to a paint job when Hicks received three pages in a row from Tammy Hodson. Hicks called Hodson and learned of Koontz's death, at which point both men went to Koontz's trailer park. During the initial interrogation, Shane at first denied having a .25 caliber handgun, but quickly retracted, admitting that he kept a .25 caliber in a brief case in his Suburban. He claimed the gun had sentimental value, and had been used for target practice at the residence of Hicks's parents. He consented to a search of his truck, in which a.25 caliber casing was found. A subsequent search of Hicks's parents' residence turned up three spent shell casings.

On August 8, Shane returned to the police station and changed his former statement. At this point, he told the officer that he had concocted the previous story with Hicks. He now stated that after Hicks and Shane returned home from Taco Bell, Hicks left again to go to Koontz's to have sex.

On May 4, 1995, Shane was again questioned. At this point, he had been arrested for feticide and murder, and he again changed his story. This time, he claimed that after arriving home from Taco Bell at around 11:00 p.m., Shane drove Hicks to Koontz's house on a motorcycle. They parked in the back, and Hicks told Shane to wait for him while he checked to see if Koontz would have sexual intercourse with him. Shane watched Hicks go up to the door and go in. He heard nothing inside the trailer. Hicks came out of the house a couple of minutes later, acting flustered, and they returned home around 1:30 a.m. The next morning, on the way to work, Hicks told Shane that something bad had happened, pulled out a gun, and told Shane that he had to get rid of it. They drove to a remote country pond and disposed of the gun.

Shane identified the pond in which the gun had been thrown. Investigators recovered the gun, and subsequent testing showed that the bullets and casings from Koontz's house, Shane's car, and Hicks's parents' residence were all fired from this gun. The autopsy revealed that Koontz had probably died in the early morning of July 28, 1994, several hours before her body was discovered. An investigation of the crime scene revealed no evidence of robbery, but fresh marks on the door frame suggested a forced entrance.

Shane and Hicks were childhood friends and owned a business together. Hicks often lived with Shane and each of them served as best man in the other's wedding. Shane and Hicks spent most of their free time together, and had a close relationship.

At trial, several witnesses testified about the violent relationship between Hicks and Koontz. Hicks at one point became so violent that Koontz was hospitalized. Another time, Koontz stabbed Hicks in the hand. Several witnesses testified that Koontz was afraid of Hicks, telling her friends "[i]f I ever get killed in my living room on my couch [ ] Rob Hicks probably has something to do with it." (R. at 315.) Elizabeth Bentley, a neighbor, testified that the night before the murder, Koontz came over to her house to complain about an argument with Hicks about the baby's room. Koontz told Bentley that she became so mad that she had wet her pants.

Jessica Daniels, a close friend of Shane's, testified as to a conversation between herself, Shane and Hicks two nights before the murder. Hicks began to talk of killing Koontz, and said "yeah, you tell her about it, David." (R. at 584.) Shane told Daniels that Hicks wanted to go and blow "Nickie's" head off one night, and wanted Shane to take him there. (R. at 585.)

Amy Case, Shane's ex-wife, also testified at Shane's trial. Case testified that Shane hated Koontz. She said that she had overheard a conversation between Hicks and Shane in which Hicks said he was so mad at Koontz, he wanted her dead, and Shane responded "it could be done, we could do that." (R. at 744.) She also recounted an overheard conversation between Shane and Hicks on how to commit the "perfect murder" and get away with it. (R. at 746.)

I. Discussion

A. Sufficiency of the Evidence

Shane believes that his convictions are not supported by sufficient evidence. When reviewing a conviction for sufficiency of the evidence, this Court looks to the evidence most favorable to the State and all of the reasonable inferences to be drawn from such evidence. See Blanche v. State, 690 N.E.2d 709, 712 (Ind. 1998)

(citing Deckard v. State, 670 N.E.2d 1, 3 (Ind.1996)). We will affirm the original sentence unless there is no way a reasonable trier of fact could have found Defendant guilty. We do not reweigh the evidence or assess the credibility of witnesses, but merely look to the evidence to determine whether there was substantive probative evidence to support the judgment. See id. (citing Minter v. State, 653 N.E.2d 1382, 1383 (Ind.1995)).

Murder & Feticide

Shane challenges his murder conviction. To sustain a murder conviction, the evidence must show that the defendant intentionally or knowingly killed another. Ind.Code § 35-42-2-1(a) (1998). Furthermore, Indiana Code § 35-41-2-4 allows a defendant to be convicted of a crime based on his accomplice liability, providing that "one who knowingly or intentionally aids, induces, or causes another person to commit an offense commits that offense." An accomplice can be held criminally liable for "everything done by his confederates which was a probable and natural consequence of their common plan." Harris v. State, 425 N.E.2d 154, 156 (Ind.1981) (citing Proctor v. State, 272 Ind. 357, 397 N.E.2d 980 (1979)). In determining accomplice liability, the jury may "infer participation from defendant's failure to oppose the crime, companionship with the one engaged therein, and a course of conduct before, during, and after the offense which tends to show complicity." Harris, 425 N.E.2d at 156. An accomplice is equally as culpable as the one who commits the actual crime. See Johnson v. State, 687 N.E.2d 345, 349 (Ind.1997)

. Therefore, if the evidence shows that Shane, by his course of conduct, assisted Hicks in the Koontz murder, he may be charged with and convicted of murder. To sustain a feticide conviction, the state must show that Shane either knowingly or intentionally terminated a human pregnancy with an intention other than to produce a live birth or to remove a dead fetus, or knowingly or intentionally aided, induced, or caused another to commit that offense. See Ind.Code §§ 35-42-1-6 and 35-41-2-4 (1998). Because Shane and Hicks knew that Koontz was pregnant when the murder occurred, and because the fetus died as a result of the death of the mother, by showing the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the murder conviction, sufficiency of the evidence supporting the feticide conviction follows.

The following evidence supports Shane's murder conviction. Shane had a long-standing dislike of Koontz, and referred to her as a "foul-mouthed bitch." (R. at 744.) Amy Case, Shane's ex-wife, testified that Shane wanted a divorce in order to spend more time as a single man with Hicks. Several other witnesses testified that Shane and Hicks spent all of their free time together. A reasonable juror could infer from this testimony that Shane resented Koontz for interfering in his friendship with Hicks. Mere days before the murder, Shane disclosed to Jessica Daniels that Hicks wanted to kill Koontz and wanted Shane to help him by driving him over to Koontz's residence one night. Shane did, in fact, drive Hicks over to Koontz's house the night of the murder. Further, Shane's gun was used to murder Koontz. Finally, Shane helped Hicks dispose of the murder weapon the next morning. While Shane provided alternative explanations for his behaviors, these alternative explanations also gave the...

To continue reading

Request your trial
86 cases
  • Harris v. State
    • United States
    • Indiana Supreme Court
    • June 29, 2023
    ... ... is relevant if it (1) tends to make a fact more or less ... probable than it would be without the evidence, and (2) the ... fact is of consequence in determining the action. Ind ... Evidence Rule 401. Simply put, "relevant evidence is ... probative evidence," Shane v. State , 716 N.E.2d ... 391, 398 (Ind. 1999); that is, anything "that tends to ... prove or disprove a point in issue," Probative ... Evidence , Black's Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019); ... see also Hill v. Gephart , 62 N.E.3d 408, 410 ... (Ind.Ct.App. 2016) ... ...
  • Albrecht v. State, 49S00-9901-CR-55.
    • United States
    • Indiana Supreme Court
    • October 19, 2000
    ...in Florida expressing his anger toward Cynthia and attempted to hire someone to rough up Cynthia. R. at 2480-82. See Shane v. State, 716 N.E.2d 391, 398 (Ind. 1999) (finding the defendant's expression of animosity toward the victim and discussions about killing the victim supported murder c......
  • Burton v. State
    • United States
    • Indiana Appellate Court
    • January 30, 2015
    ...defendant's contention was waived because it was “supported neither by cogent argument nor citation to authority”); Shane v. State, 716 N.E.2d 391, 398 n. 3 (Ind.1999) (holding that the defendant waived argument on appeal by failing to develop a cogent argument).[40] Nevertheless, to the ex......
  • Wine-Settergren v. Lamey
    • United States
    • Indiana Supreme Court
    • September 22, 1999
    ... ... State Farm Mutual Auto. Ins. Co., 173 Ind.App. 106, 110, 362 N.E.2d 862, 866 (1977), who cause accidental injuries. Ind.Code Ann. § 22-3-2-13 (West ... ...
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT