State v. Henderson

• Decision Date: 11 January 2001
• Docket Number: No. C4-99-1276.,C4-99-1276.
• Citation: 620 N.W.2d 688
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Keith HENDERSON, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

620 N.W.2d 688

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Keith HENDERSON, Appellant.

No. C4-99-1276.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

January 11, 2001.

John M. Stuart, State Public Defender, Lawrence Hammerling, Jodie L. Carlson, Asst. State Public Defenders, Minneapolis, MN, for appellant.

Mike Hatch, Attorney General, St. Paul, MN, Amy Klobuchar, Hennepin County Attorney, Paul R. Scoggin, Asst. County Attorney, Minneapolis, MN, for respondent.

Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc.

OPINION

LANCASTER, Justice.

A jury found appellant Keith Henderson guilty of first-degree murder in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.185(1) (2000), and guilty of a crime committed for the benefit of a gang in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.229, subds. 1 and 2 (2000), in connection with the shooting death of Juwan Gatlin. The district court sentenced Henderson to life in prison on the first-degree murder conviction and imposed a consecutive five-year sentence for conviction of a crime committed for the benefit of a gang. Henderson appeals his convictions and requests a new trial on several grounds. First, he argues that the cumulative effect of numerous evidentiary rulings and prosecutorial misconduct violated his constitutional right to a fair trial. Second, Henderson complains that the prosecutor's use of a peremptory challenge to strike a juror was racially motivated and thus violated the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution pursuant to the rule in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 86, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). Third, he argues that evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support his convictions. Finally, he contends that his sentence of life plus a term of years violates Minn.Stat. §§ 609.095 and 609.10 (2000). We affirm Henderson's convictions and sentence.

Juwan Gatlin was shot to death at approximately 11:00 a.m. on August 7, 1998, in an alley near Logan Avenue in Minneapolis. He was shot between 13 and 15 times with a .40 caliber Smith and Wesson handgun. The handgun was never recovered.

Gatlin, like Henderson, was a member of a street gang called the Mickey Cobras. Gatlin was murdered because he provided the police with information about the unsolved murder of Anthony Dawson. Because of the information Gatlin provided to police, the two individuals who had been arrested for Dawson's murder were released and the police arrested Arthur Hurd and Mitchell Douglas, also members of the Mickey Cobras.¹ In exchange for the information, Gatlin entered into a plea agreement on an unrelated robbery charge whereby he received a probationary sentence on what otherwise would have been a prison sentence. Both Hurd and Douglas pleaded guilty to the murder of Anthony Dawson.

About six weeks before Gatlin's death, while Hurd was in the Carver County Jail on the Dawson murder charge, he mailed a copy of Gatlin's police statement to Andrew Neal. Attached to the statement was a letter from Hurd indicating that "something needs to be taken care of." Shortly thereafter Neal gave the statement to Donald Carter. Fellow members of the Mickey Cobras referred to Carter as the "don of dons." Carter had the authority, within the organizational structure of the gang, to order a "hit" on another Mickey Cobra. According to the internal rules of the Mickey Cobras, providing information to police about a fellow Mickey Cobra is considered "probable cause" for a "hit" in retaliation for betraying the gang.

In August 1998, April Bell (Bell) lived in a house in Minneapolis with her mother Melanie Bell. Bell was a member of the Mickey Cobras. The Bell residence was one block from where Gatlin's body was found, and Bell testified at Henderson's trial.

On the morning of August 7, 1998, at around 11:00 a.m., Bell was home taking a shower when she heard Darryl McKee call her name. McKee was a Mickey Cobra. Bell got out of the shower and went into her room. McKee asked Bell where she hid a duffel bag of guns that he had brought to her house about a week before. Bell said the duffel bag was in her closet. When she asked McKee why he wanted the guns, McKee responded that "[w]e fixin' to smoke [Gatlin]." McKee told Bell that Gatlin was waiting downstairs. McKee then retrieved the duffel bag from the closet. In the bag there were two Uzis² and an automatic silver and black handgun. While McKee loaded the handgun with bullets from the bag, Donte Evans, another Mickey Cobra, joined McKee in Bell's room. McKee told Evans that Evans and Henderson were to go outside and walk with Gatlin and then McKee would shoot Gatlin. Bell asked McKee why they were going to kill Gatlin, and McKee responded that it was because Gatlin had been "snitching." Bell did not see Henderson before the shooting.

Approximately five minutes later, McKee and Evans returned to the Bell residence with Henderson; they were very excited. McKee changed into clothes he had previously stored at the Bell house and put the handgun back in the same duffel bag with the two Uzis. Evans removed one of the two shirts he had been wearing. Henderson did not change his clothes. Bell had a doctor's appointment and McKee insisted, over Bell's objection, that the three men would accompany her. The four of them left Bell's house at approximately 11:45 a.m. Bell testified that, while they were in the car, McKee stated that after Gatlin was shot he said "I'm already dead, T."³ Bell stated that McKee told her that he responded, "you ain't dead, you just trying to talk yourself out of being dead."

The group ate lunch and then went to Bell's 1:25 p.m. doctor's appointment, after which McKee directed her to drive by the alley to see if Gatlin's body had been discovered. They could see that the alley was the scene of a homicide investigation. Bell then dropped off Evans and Henderson, and McKee and Bell returned to the Bell residence. About 30 minutes later, McKee and Bell went to Carter's residence. Bell testified that McKee said to Carter words to the effect "[g]uess what we just did." McKee and Carter then had a private conversation, and Bell left the Carter residence without McKee. Upon returning to her house, Bell moved the bag of guns from her bedroom to a basement closet. McKee returned to the Bell residence later that evening with a copy of Gatlin's statement to the police regarding the Dawson murder. McKee told Bell to put the statement in the bag with his clothes. McKee came back the next day to pick up his clothes and told Bell he was going to Chicago. The same day McKee retrieved the clothes, Carter came by the Bell residence and retrieved the two Uzis and the duffel bag from the basement. He left the silver and black automatic handgun behind. Evans fled Minnesota after the murder of Gatlin and was killed in Chicago.

During the investigation of Gatlin's murder, two homicide detectives stopped by Bell's house to question her about the murder. Bell told the detectives that she knew nothing about it. After the police left, Bell told her mother everything she knew about Gatlin's murder.

Later that same day, Henderson went to see Bell and she told him that he had to get the automatic handgun out of her house. In discussing the impending investigation, Henderson told Bell he would say he was with someone else when the murder occurred, and told Bell to tell the detectives that she did not know anything. Henderson told her that he would be back the next day to retrieve the handgun. The following day Henderson returned to the Bell residence. Bell was not at home but Melanie Bell told Henderson that she knew he had come for the gun and that he was to go to the basement to retrieve it. Henderson wanted to come back when Bell was home, but Melanie Bell ordered Henderson to get the gun out of her house immediately. Henderson had difficulty locating the gun and Melanie Bell helped him find it. Melanie Bell watched as Henderson put socks on his hands before touching the gun and then put the gun in his pants.

As a result of the investigation, Evans, McKee, and Henderson were indicted for the murder of Juwan Gatlin. During voir dire, the prosecutor used a peremptory strike to strike an African-American woman from the jury. Henderson's attorney challenged the strike under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). The district court rejected the challenge.

At trial Herbert Williams, a member of the Mickey Cobras, testified to a conversation he had with Evans regarding Evans' participation in the Gatlin murder. According to Williams, Evans told him, "T, we got away with it * * * we got [Gatlin], we got [Gatlin]." Evans described to Williams how he, Henderson, and McKee went to the back of Bell's house, that Henderson pulled out the gun and shot Gatlin and then passed the gun to him (Evans). Evans told Williams that Gatlin, still alive, said, "I'm dead, T, I'm dead." Evans then told Williams that he shot Gatlin five times in the head.

Dedra Johnson, a former girlfriend of Gatlin and a neighbor of Henderson, testified that Henderson told her, "I did it" in reference to Gatlin's murder, but after seeing the shock on Johnson's face, Henderson told her he was joking. Johnson testified before the grand jury that Henderson told her he shot Gatlin after pushing him in an alley. When Johnson recanted this testimony at trial, the court allowed the prosecution to admit Johnson's grand jury testimony as substantive evidence.

Cherry Bell, April Bell's cousin, testified that in a phone conversation Henderson told her to tell April Bell that she should tell police that Henderson was out of town at the time of the murder.

Paul Givens testified that while in jail with Henderson, Henderson told him that he pushed a guy over in an alley and shot him in the leg, arm, and head. Givens testified that Henderson told him the victim said, "[d]on't shoot me no more. I'm already dead." Although Givens had been declared incompetent to stand trial due to marginal...