State v. Banks
| Decision Date | 21 July 2017 |
| Docket Number | No. 114,614,114,614 |
| Citation | 397 P.3d 1195 |
| Parties | STATE of Kansas, Appellee, v. Antwon D. BANKS, Sr., Appellant. |
| Court | Kansas Supreme Court |
Corrine E. Gunning, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, argued the cause and was on the brief for appellant.
Lance J. Gillett, assistant district attorney, argued the cause, and Marc Bennett, district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, were with him on the brief for appellee.
Antwon D. Banks, Sr., directly appeals his jury trial conviction for the premeditated first-degree murder of Daniel Flores. He contends that the State failed to present sufficient evidence to support the conviction, that the prosecutor committed reversible error during closing argument, and that the district court violated Banks' right to present a defense by excluding certain photographs. We affirm the conviction.
The victim, Flores, worked at Steckline Communications (Steckline), which operated a radio station in Wichita, where Banks' former girlfriend, Lisa Bryce, was the office and human resources manager. Flores' deadly encounter with Banks appears to have been an ill-fated happenstance.
Banks and Bryce had dated sporadically for a little over a year before Banks moved in with Bryce in December 2013. Banks' suspicions of infidelity soured the relationship, and by February 2014, Bryce told Banks to move out. Nevertheless, Banks continued to text or call Bryce, sometimes several times a day. He made multiple contacts with Bryce on Sunday, February 9, 2014, the date of the murder.
At some point on February 9, 2014, Banks hatched a plan to break into the Steckline building and "mess with" Bryce's computer. Banks shared the idea with his friend, Dartonja Looney, who advised Banks to disturb multiple offices inside the building to avoid the appearance that Bryce was the targeted victim. About 8 p.m. that evening, Banks was driven to a parking lot directly across the street from the Steckline building by Camishia Ford, another woman he was dating at the time, on the pretense that he was going to retrieve his stolen wallet.
Surveillance cameras revealed that Banks sat in Ford's vehicle for 14 minutes before exiting and crossing the street to the Steckline building. He returned to Ford's car 41 minutes later. Ford said that Banks was breathing heavily when he returned to the car carrying an object wrapped in a jacket or hoodie, saying they needed to leave. Banks related that he had been in the basement of the Steckline building and had heard two men fighting upstairs. He said that he had bumped into a fire extinguisher which he said was the object in his possession, albeit Ford could not verify the identity of the object.
The next morning, Monday, February 10, 2014, about 7 a.m., the first employee to arrive at the station, Blake Cripps, discovered that Bryce's office and the office of station owner, Greg Steckline, had been disturbed. Cripps texted a picture of the damage to Bryce, who said she would arrive soon to report the incident.
At approximately 7:45 a.m., Flores' immediate supervisor, Phillip Padilla, arrived and checked the basement area. Padilla had difficulty opening the door because it was blocked by Flores' body. Upon discovering the body, Padilla called 911 at 7:58 a.m.
On arrival, the investigators found Flores lying flat on his face, with his arms underneath his body, just inside the basement door. There was blood spatter on several walls, with a large area of blood on the wall close to the floor, near Flores' head. Five of Flores' teeth were found nearby, two of which were under the body. Flores was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators also discovered that one of the fire extinguishers was missing, a wall had damage that appeared consistent with the bottom of a fire extinguisher, and a service tag from a fire extinguisher was on the floor near Flores. The missing fire extinguisher was never found.
Investigators found a critical clue on the basement walls. Someone had written violent, racist, and misogynistic messages directed towards Bryce and had drawn a stick person in a noose with the words "Hang nigga!" Bryce told police that the writing did not look like Banks' handwriting but that the content of the messages, the poor spelling, and the use of the word "nigga" all pointed to Banks as the author.
Flores' autopsy revealed that he had been struck in the head four times—twice in the front and twice in the back—and that five teeth had been knocked out. Flores did not have any defensive wounds
. The coroner could definitively state that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, albeit the coroner could not establish what instrument had been used to cause the injuries or the exact time of death.
DNA testing did not produce results that definitively pointed to Banks as the killer.
Ford was interviewed twice by police. After learning that a murder had occurred in the Steckline building, she was more forthcoming during the second interview. Ford related the information about her conversations with Banks and admitted that she had driven him to the Steckline building.
Banks was arrested February 12, 2014, after officers saw Banks driving near his apartment. Upon making a traffic stop and approaching the vehicle, the arresting officer discovered that Banks had stabbed himself in the stomach.
While in jail, Banks talked to another inmate, Cortez Williams, who later contacted police. According to Williams, Banks initially said that he had gone to the Steckline building to retrieve tax paperwork, but when he heard noises in the basement, he went down to investigate and tripped over a body in the basement. But Williams testified that Banks later told him something to the effect that he "didn't mean to" or "didn't mean for it to happen like that." Williams also said that Banks had related that he used a fire extinguisher, which he later discarded in a Wal-Mart dumpster.
While in custody, Banks indicated that he wanted to talk with the police. During the ensuing police interview, Banks said that he was at the Steckline building to retrieve insurance papers and that once inside, he heard the sounds of arguing upstairs, prompting him to leave through the basement. But he explained that, because he had seen the derogatory writing on the wall referencing Bryce and her daughter and knew it would look bad for Banks, he returned to the station later to remove the writing.
Banks' trial began March 30, 2015, and on April 7, 2015, the jury found Banks guilty of premeditated first-degree murder. The district court sentenced Banks to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years. He timely appeals, raising the issues recited above.
Due process requires the State to prove every element of the charged crime. In re Winship , 397 U.S. 358, 361-64, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970) ; State v. Gould , 271 Kan. 394, 411, 23 P.3d 801 (2001). Here, the charged crime was premeditated first-degree murder and, pursuant to the statutory definition of that crime in K.S.A. 2013 Supp. 21-5402(a)(1), the State had to prove that Banks killed Flores, that Banks intended to kill Flores, and that Banks premeditated the killing of Flores.
Banks contends that the State's evidence was insufficient to prove the premeditation element because it was based upon impermissible inference stacking. The State persuasively counters that there was direct evidence of multiple circumstances, each of which could reasonably support an inference of premeditation.
When the sufficiency of evidence is challenged in a criminal case, the appellate court reviews all the evidence in the light most favorable to the State. A conviction will be upheld if the court is convinced that a rational factfinder could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt based on that evidence. State v. Laborde , 303 Kan. 1, 6, 360 P.3d 1080 (2015). In determining whether there is sufficient evidence to support a conviction, an appellate court generally will not reweigh the evidence or reassess witness credibility. State v. Daws , 303 Kan. 785, 789, 368 P.3d 1074 (2016).
An oft-recited, longstanding maxim provides that a conviction of even the gravest offense can be based entirely on circumstantial evidence. See, e.g. , State v. Logsdon , 304 Kan. 3, 25, 371 P.3d 836 (2016) ; State v. Richardson , 289 Kan. 118, 127, 209 P.3d 696 (2009) ; State v. Hunter , 50 Kan. 302, 304, 32 P. 37 (1893) (). A verdict may be sustained if the circumstantial evidence supporting it permits the factfinder to draw a reasonable inference regarding the fact(s) in issue. This court has even said that circumstantial evidence need not exclude every other reasonable conclusion in order to be sufficient to support a conviction. Logsdon , 304 Kan. at 25, 371 P.3d 836.
The fact in issue here—premeditation—is most often proved by circumstantial evidence. State v. Scaife , 286 Kan. 614, 620, 186 P.3d 755 (2008). We permit the factfinder to infer premeditation from the established circumstances of the case, provided that the inference is a reasonable one. Scaife , 286 Kan. at 617, 186 P.3d 755 (citing State v. Morton, 283 Kan. 464, 475, 153 P.3d 532 [2007] ).
On the other hand, convictions based entirely upon circumstantial evidence State v. Richardson , 289 Kan. 118, 127, 209 P.3d 696 (2009). Where the State relies on such inference stacking, i.e. , where the State asks the jury to make a presumption based upon...
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State v. White
...a defense is "subject to statutory rules and judicial interpretation of the rules of evidence and procedure." State v. Banks , 306 Kan. 854, 865, 397 P.3d 1195 (2017). Still, our Supreme Court has long expressed its hostility to the admission of unstipulated polygraph evidence. It has consi......
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State v. Valdez
...on other presumptions, it does not carry its burden to present sufficient evidence to sustain a criminal conviction. State v. Banks , 306 Kan. 854, 859, 397 P.3d 1195 (2017). But this impermissible inference stacking does not occur when different circumstances are used to support separate i......
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State v. Aguirre, 119,529
...374 P.3d 639 (2016). Discussion By its very nature, premeditation "is most often proved by circumstantial evidence." State v. Banks , 306 Kan. 854, 859, 397 P.3d 1195 (2017). We have previously recognized several factors that, if present, could support an inference of premeditation, includi......
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State v. Shields
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