State v. Giles
| Decision Date | 20 August 2021 |
| Docket Number | L-20-1076 |
| Parties | State of Ohio Appellee v. Kveon Carnell Giles Appellant |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
Julia R. Bates, Lucas County Prosecuting Attorney, and Evy M Jarrett, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.
Autumn D. Adams, for appellant.
DECISION AND JUDGMENT
{¶ 1} Appellant, Kveon Giles, appeals his conviction on charges of aggravated murder, murder, and four counts of felonious assault, each with a three-year and a five- year gun specification, with an aggregate prison sentence of life with the possibility of parole after 45 years. Finding no error, we affirm.
{¶ 2} On November 22, 2018, as Anthony Barnes drove away from a Thanksgiving celebration with his three children, a white vehicle drove up beside him on the freeway and Barnes heard some popping sounds. By the time that Barnes understood someone was firing at his car, the bullets had pierced the vehicle and shattered the windows along the driver's side, front and back. A round struck his three-year-old son, M.B. Gunfire missed Barnes and his other son, but his daughter, T.B., was cut by flying glass. When Barnes realized M.B. was gravely injured, he took the next exit and drove straight to St. Vincent's Hospital. Doctors removed a .40 caliber bullet from M.B.'s head. M.B. did not survive.
{¶ 3} Police responded to the hospital and interviewed Barnes. Barnes recalled seeing a white vehicle that resembled a PT Cruiser, and he also identified the location of the shooting, along the freeway just after he entered at Miami Street. Barnes told police he had attended a Thanksgiving celebration just before the shooting at the America's Best hotel, located in Northwood, Ohio. Police viewed surveillance video from the hotel, as well as ODOT video from the route between the hotel and the freeway, and identified the suspect vehicle as a white Chevrolet HHR.
{¶ 4} Video from the hotel showed a white HHR parked near Barnes' car, and at least two of the occupants entered the hotel lobby.[1] From that video, police identified two of appellant's codefendants, Andre White and Matthew Smith. After White and Smith returned to the car, the HHR circled the hotel before driving to a spot just off the property, where it parked in a neighbor's driveway with the headlights off, in view of Barnes' car. When Barnes drove off, the HHR followed. Various surveillance videos showed the HHR trailing Barnes' car to the freeway, and ODOT cameras captured video of the HHR speeding up to drive next to Barnes' car before driving off.
{¶ 5} In the hours after the shooting, police issued an alert to officers for the HHR. Within a short time, an officer spotted an HHR at a gas station near the hospital, and took down the vehicle's tag number. The HHR was registered to Matthew Smith's mother, and surveillance video at the gas station showed White as the driver. Police matched the vehicle with the individuals appearing in surveillance video, and stopped the vehicle soon after. Smith's mother was driving at the time. Police secured the HHR as evidence.
{¶ 6} Police processed the HHR and lifted numerous fingerprints from the outside and inside of the vehicle. Prints taken from the exterior of the HHR, from both rear doors, and also from the interior, rear, passenger-side door, matched known prints of appellant. The inside of the HHR also had damage consistent with a bullet fired from inside the vehicle. Police collected an unfired cartridge under the front passenger seat, and a shell casing from the rear passenger-side.
{¶ 7} Police also secured and examined Barnes' car. The vehicle sustained damage only to the driver's side, including shattered windows and bullet holes. Police recovered a piece of jacketing from a .40 caliber bullet at the foot of the driver's seat, and noted blood on the console near the front passenger seat. They also found a bullet fragment behind the driver's seat, and a bullet inside the interior of the rear, driver's-side car seat. Additionally, there was blood and "biological material" on the rear, driver's-side seat and bullet "defects" in the frame of the car.
{¶ 8} From the hospital, police collected the bullet removed from M.B.'s head. It was consistent with a .40 caliber bullet. Within hours of the shooting, police also closed the north-bound lanes of the expressway, near Collingwood, and recovered four, nine-millimeter shell casings and one bullet fragment. Subsequent testing of the shell casings indicated the same gun fired all four, nine-millimeter rounds.
{¶ 9} Two days after the shooting, White was arrested in Detroit for a separate homicide. He entered a plea and received a sentence of 24 to 50 years for second-degree murder, with an additional two years for a firearms charge. Police traveled to Detroit to interview White, and White eventually cooperated with the Ohio investigation, identifying appellant as one of the shooters involved in this incident. White's description of events matched the surveillance video and the fingerprint evidence.
{¶ 10} Police obtained a warrant for the cell phone records of Smith and appellant, and tracking information placed Smith and appellant near each other, moving together from the area of the America's Best hotel to the area of the shooting, contemporaneously with the shooting. Police also obtained White's cell phone records, but despite White's claim that he was on his phone during the shooting, the records did not indicate White's phone "pinged" any cell towers during that time period.
{¶ 11} According to White, the group ended up at the Quality Inn on Secor Road where they were finally able to get a room with the help of Smith's mother. The group then left, and stopped at Smith's brother's house, the gas station, a hall for a performance and party, and a restaurant, before returning to the Quality Inn around 2:00 a.m. Appellant appeared for the first time on surveillance video at the Quality Inn as they finished the night, hours after the shooting.
{¶ 12} On February 14, 2019, the state filed an indictment charging appellant and his codefendants, White and Smith, each with one count of aggravated murder in violation of R.C. 2903.01(A) and (F) in Count One, one count of murder in violation of R.C. 2903.02(B) and 2929.02 in Count Two, and four counts of felonious assault in violation of R.C. 2903.11(A)(2) and (D) in Counts Three through Six. All counts were accompanied by a firearm specification pursuant to R.C. 2941.145(A), (B), (C), and (F), and a specification for discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle pursuant to R.C. 2941.146(A), (B), and (D). Appellant was taken into custody on March 5, 2019, and arraigned on March 13, 2019, with appointed counsel. He entered pleas of not guilty to all charges. Appellant and White remained in local custody, leading up to trial, but the two were held in different sections of the jail. Smith also remained in custody, but he was held in the juvenile detention center prior to trial.
{¶ 13} On February 5, 2020, pursuant to a plea agreement, White entered a guilty plea to complicity to involuntary manslaughter as a lesser offense to Count Two, murder, with the attached specification for discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle, and complicity to Count Three, felonious assault, with the attached specification for discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle. The state dismissed Counts One, Four, Five, and Six, charging aggravated murder and three counts charging felonious assault, including all attached specifications. The trial court accepted the plea, and scheduled White's sentencing hearing for a date after appellant's and Smith's joint trial.
{¶ 14} Appellant's trial counsel filed several pretrial motions challenging the state's evidence. Pertinent to this appeal, appellant challenged admission of a note received by White in jail and attributed to appellant, evidence of cell phone tracking data, and surveillance video of the HHR for times preceding appellant's appearance as an occupant of the vehicle.
{¶ 15} As to the note, appellant argued that there was no basis for authentication, as White met appellant on Thanksgiving night and had no further interaction with him after that one-time association. Appellant further argued White had no knowledge of his handwriting, as the two had never exchanged notes or letters, and therefore, White had no basis to attribute the writing to appellant. Furthermore, he argued that the state had no "chain of custody" to demonstrate appellant's purported authorship, as a third person delivered the note to White and did not testify regarding the note's origin. The trial court considered the contents of the note, and determined the note was properly authenticated pursuant to Evid.R. 901(B)(1) and (4), based on White's belief of authorship and the note's distinctive contents, and denied the motion.
{¶ 16} Appellant also challenged the basis for the search warrant, seeking to preclude admission of cell-site location information (CSLI). Specifically, appellant challenged the affidavit proffered in support, arguing the phone number attributed to appellant was based only on information given by an unknown informant. The trial court denied the motion, determining the affidavit contained sufficient evidence to support probable cause and in the alternative, found the good-faith exception applied.
{¶ 17} Finally, appellant challenged admission of surveillance video of the HHR, recorded during the hours preceding his appearance on the video. Appellant argued such evidence was irrelevant without proof that he was in the car at the time the video was recorded. Appellant relied on the lack of any...
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