State v. Gooding

• Decision Date: 03 October 2014
• Docket Number: 110,352.
• Citation: 50 Kan.App.2d 964,335 P.3d 698
• Parties: STATE of Kansas, Appellee, v. Jessika D. GOODING, Appellant.
• Court: Kansas Court of Appeals

50 Kan.App.2d 964
335 P.3d 698

STATE of Kansas, Appellee
v.
Jessika D. GOODING, Appellant.

110,352.

Court of Appeals of Kansas.

Oct. 3, 2014.

Adam D. Stolte, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, for appellant.

Matt J. Maloney, assistant district attorney, Marc Bennett, district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, for appellee.

Before MALONE, C.J., LEBEN and ATCHESON, JJ.

Opinion

MALONE, C.J.

Jessika Gooding appeals following her conviction of one count of voluntary manslaughter. Gooding claims: (1) there was insufficient evidence of a sudden quarrel to convict her of

50 Kan.App.2d 965

voluntary manslaughter; (2) the district court erred in instructing the jury on the definition of “knowingly”; (3) the district court erred in failing to consider her ability to pay the Board of Indigent Defense Services (BIDS) application fee; and (4) the district court violated her constitutional rights when it imposed an increased sentence based upon her prior criminal history without requiring the State to prove the criminal history to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

We agree with Gooding that under the facts of this case, there was insufficient evidence of a sudden quarrel to support her conviction of voluntary manslaughter. We also agree with Gooding that without sufficient evidence of a sudden quarrel between her and the victim, there is no legal basis to uphold her voluntary manslaughter conviction even if the evidence may have been sufficient to support a conviction of intentional second-degree murder. Thus, we reverse the district court's judgment and remand with directions to discharge Gooding.

Factual and Procedural Background

On the morning of January 7, 2012, Gooding was preparing to visit several rental properties with her boyfriend, Christopher

335 P.3d 701

Mills. Gooding had arranged to meet with the landlord of one of those properties that morning—the earlier the better. She and Mills had spent the night at the home of Gooding's mother, located five or six houses north of the intersection of Santa Fe and Kinkaid Street in Wichita. Gooding was ready to go before Mills. She went outside to start her car, which was parked on Santa Fe in front of the house. As Gooding sat in the car, she saw Mills emerge from the house wearing a tank top. Concerned about the “chilly” temperature and Mills looking presentable for the meeting with the landlord, Gooding told him to go back inside the house and put a sweater on if he was going to accompany her to the rental property.

Mills was in a “grumpy” mood, and when he turned and re-entered the house, he shut the screen door and front door. Gooding interpreted this as a sign that Mills was not going to come with her; she figured he was going back to bed. Gooding began driving toward the intersection of Santa Fe and Kinkaid Street, where she

50 Kan.App.2d 966

stopped at a stop sign. While stopped at the intersection, Gooding heard Mills yelling at her to wait. Gooding later testified that Mills was not being kind or reasonable.

Mills approached Gooding's car. He was standing close to the passenger's side of the vehicle “right on the curb area,” looking in the window and gesturing with his hands. Gooding testified that she, too, was gesturing with her right hand and beckoning Mills to “come on” and get in the car. As this was happening, Gooding noticed a man in an SUV drive by. She testified that Mills was “cussing [her] out,” acting belligerently, and waving his arms. Gooding said she just wanted him to calm down so they could go.

The parties dispute what happened next. Gooding testified that Mills was “hyped up” and upset that she had left him at her mother's house. He was walking back and forth between Gooding's car and the grassy easement next to the curb. Gooding decided that she would just “get out of there” because it was obvious to her that Mills was mad and did not intend to go with her. Gooding turned the corner and started driving west on Kinkaid Street. Mills initially continued to run back and forth between Gooding's car and the easement, but then he started walking away—“kind of cooling down.”

At this point, Gooding said that she pulled up a little behind Mills and again told him to come on and get in the car. Gooding was in the driver's seat with her left hand on the steering wheel and her right hand extended out toward Mills. She was leaning toward the passenger's side window in order to see Mills' face. Gooding testified: “When I was sitting like this and I was leaning in, my whole body shifted towards [Mills] and my foot accidentally pressed on the accelerator and my left hand went towards [Mills].” Gooding testified that she accidently hit Mills with the car.

The State provided a different account, based on the eyewitness testimony of D'Andre Thomas. Thomas was the driver of the SUV that drove eastward on Kinkaid Street past Gooding and Mills while Gooding's car was stopped at the intersection of Santa Fe and Kinkaid Street. As Thomas approached the intersection, he saw a man standing outside of a car on the grass waving both of his hands.

50 Kan.App.2d 967

Thomas testified that the man “ [l]ooked like he was arguing with somebody inside the car.”

As Thomas drove closer, he saw that there was a woman inside the car. The man was standing away from the car, but he was talking to the woman through the passenger's side window. As Thomas approached, he saw the woman “swing the car” like she was trying to hit the man on the grass. The car “made a quick swing as if it was going to jump the curb right there where he was.” However, the car did not jump the curb at that point. When the car made the jerking motion, the man jumped back further onto the grass.

Thomas continued to watch through his rearview mirror as he drove east on Kinkaid Street. The car at the intersection stopped for a moment, and the man turned around and started walking west on Kinkaid Street. The car turned west onto Kinkaid Street and started following the man as he walked on the grass. Thomas said the man never stepped into the street and he did not appear

335 P.3d 702

to be communicating with the woman in the car. Thomas testified that the man “was just walking like he was trying to get away from [the car].” According to Thomas, the car slowly followed the man before it sped up, jumped the curb, and hit him. The man flipped into the air and onto the car before rolling off into the grass. Thomas testified that he never saw any brake lights on the car.

The parties generally agree on the events that took place immediately after Mills was struck. When Thomas saw the car strike Mills, he shifted his vehicle into reverse and drove back toward the scene. Thomas saw Gooding get out of her car, run around to where Mills was lying in the grass, and start shaking him as if she were trying to see if he was okay. Gooding ran up to Thomas' car and started yelling, “I need a phone, I need to use the phone, we were fighting, we were arguing.” Thomas ran to check on Mills. He had blood on his face and there was blood running out of his ears. Eventually, Gooding retrieved her own phone from her car and called 911. Thomas took over the 911 call because Gooding was hysterical and incoherent.

Officer Daniel Brown of the Wichita Police Department was the first law enforcement officer to arrive at the scene. Thomas contacted

50 Kan.App.2d 968

Brown and identified himself as the man who had called 911. Thomas told Brown that he had seen Gooding and Mills arguing and that Gooding ran over Mills. Officer Michael O'Brien also arrived at the scene. O'Brien testified that Gooding was distraught and crying. O'Brien instructed Gooding to sit in the back of his patrol car while he waited for a female officer to arrive to conduct a search of her person. As Gooding sat in the car, she asked O'Brien whether Mills was going to be okay. She told O'Brien that Mills “jumped out in front of me.”

Emergency responders transported Mills to the hospital. Trauma physicians determined that Mills was unresponsive and called Dr. John Dickerson, the on-call neurosurgeon. Dickerson testified that Mills had a traumatic brain injury, as well as other abrasions, lacerations, and bruising on his extremities. Upon his initial examination of Mills' head injury, Dickerson noted a lot of swelling. A CT scan revealed a depressed skull fracture that wrapped all the way around Mills' head, centering on the right side.

Dickerson performed a decompressive craniectomy in response to severe swelling in Mills' brain. However, Mills' medical condition never improved. Based on the treatment administered and his own observations, Dickerson opined that Mills had sustained an unrecoverable injury. Mills died 11 days later on January 18, 2012. The coroner determined that Mills' cause of death was blunt force injuries of the head.

Detective Blake Mumma of...