State v. Jackson
| Decision Date | 27 December 2011 |
| Docket Number | 67160-0-I |
| Court | Washington Court of Appeals |
| Parties | STATE OF WASHINGTON, Respondent, v. RYAN RAYNARD JACKSON, Appellant. |
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
Ryan Raynard Jackson appeals his conviction for attempted robbery in the first degree. Jackson claims the police unlawfully seized him in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 7 of the Washington State Constitution. He challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction and claims the trial court abused its discretion in admitting certain evidence while excluding other evidence. Jackson further alleges that the trial court failed to properly instruct the jury about unanimity, demeaned his counsel in front of the jury, and erred by denying his motion for a mistrial. Alternatively, Jackson asserts his counsel was ineffective for failing to object to testimony, for failing to challenge his seizure as unlawful, and for failing to request a limiting instruction for ER 404(b) evidence. Jackson also alleges prosecutor misconduct. Finally, in a pro se statement of additional grounds, Jackson contends the trial court failed to follow the proper procedures for protecting his right not to be tried while incompetent. Because none of Jackson's claims warrant appellate relief, we affirm.
The State charged Ryan Jackson with one count of attempted robbery in the first degree. The following facts are taken from the testimony presented at trial.
On September 19, 2009, at about 1:30 in the morning, two men approached Kelly Crithfield and Jerry Little as they were walking to Crithfield's apartment. One of the approaching men asked, "How's it going?" before asking for money. When Crithfield informed the man he did not have any money, the man stopped walking alongside Crithfield and Little. But a few seconds later, the man returned, pointed a handgun at Crithfield's stomach, and demanded items from Little. Crithfield froze, and Little ran into the middle of the street, yelling for help. The man with the gun turned walked to a car in the middle of the street, entered the passenger side door, and left.
Crithfield called 911 and reported the incident. Officer Billman responded and took statements from Crithfield and Little. Based on the description of the assailants Crithfield and Little provided, Billman transmitted that the assailants were "[t]wo black males about 30 years of age." Crithfield and Little described the one with the firearm as "the smaller of the two" and wearing "a blue and white striped shirt with blue Dickie-type pants."
After Billman left to patrol, Crithfield and Little continued walking to Crithfield's apartment. Little observed two men resembling their assailants walking near Crithfield's apartment steps. Crithfield observed the men from behind and recognized one of them as the man who tried to rob them. Crithfield again called the police, and the dispatcher recommended that they get off the street. Crithfield went inside his apartment, and Little drove home.
About one-half hour later, Billman came upon a group of four to five males standing in an alleyway. One of the men matched the description provided by Crithfield. Billman exited his car, identified himself, and asked to speak to a man wearing a blue-and-white patterned shirt. The suspect, Jackson, then turned and attempted to walk away. Billman told him that he could not leave and began interviewing people in the group. Officer Spencer was also present, and in a pat down search of Jackson, he located a realistic-looking CO2-powered BB gun.
Shortly after Crithfield returned to his apartment, he received a call from a police dispatcher, telling him that an officer outside was ready to drive him to a nearby location to identify a possible suspect in the attempted robbery. The officer drove Crithfield to a location six blocks away where Spencer and Billman had detained Jackson. Spencer asked Crithfield whether he recognized the detained man. Crithfield identified Jackson as the man who tried to rob him. Crithfield also identified Jackson at trial. Although Little identified Jackson at trial, he could no longer recall what the defendant was wearing on the night of the incident.
The jury convicted Jackson as charged. He appeals.
Jackson argues that Officer Billman unlawfully seized him in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 7 of the Washington Constitution. Jackson further alleges that the unconstitutional seizure requires suppression of all the evidence obtained after the seizure occurred. We review claims of unlawful seizures de novo.[1]
Preliminarily we note that Jackson failed to raise the suppression issue in the trial court. Generally, a failure to move in the trial court to suppress improperly obtained evidence waives the right to raise the issue on appeal.[2]RAP 2.5(a)(3) allows a party to raise for the first time on appeal a "manifest error affecting a constitutional right." This court previews the merits of the constitutional argument to determine whether it is likely to succeed.[3] Because Jackson has not shown a constitutional error occurred, he may not challenge the validity of the search for the first time on appeal.
Generally a warrantless seizure is per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I section 7 of the Washington Constitution.[4] Terry v Ohio[5] provides an exception for a brief investigative stop of limited scope and duration, commonly known as a Terry stop.[6]
To justify a Terry stop, the State must prove the officer had "'a reasonable, articulable suspicion, based on specific, objective facts, that the person seized has committed or is about to commit a crime.'"[7] This seizure must be justified at its inception, [8] and Washington courts look to the totality of the circumstances presented to the officer when reviewing the propriety of an investigative stop.[9] These circumstances must give rise to "a substantial possibility that the particular person has committed a specific crime or is about to do so."[10]
Here, Billman had sufficient facts to form a reasonable, articulable suspicion that Jackson attempted to rob Crithfield and Little. Billman arrived shortly after Crithfield reported the incident, took statements from Crithfield and Little, and only a short time later, he identified a suspect six blocks from Crithfield's apartment matching the description of the assailant. Under the totality of these circumstances, we hold that Billman acted reasonably when he stopped Jackson. Therefore, Jackson's claim of a manifest error fails.
Despite the alleged incongruities in the testimony at trial, sufficient evidence supports Jackson's conviction. Crithfield and Little both testified that they were walking home from a bar in Tacoma when they were approached by two men. One man asked them for money, their wallets, and jewelry and brandished what appeared to be a firearm. Little then ran into the street yelling for help, while Crithfield dialed 911. Later, when Billman and Spencer detained Jackson, Spencer found a realistic-looking CO2-powered BB gun on him. Another officer drove Crithfield to Jackson's location, where Crithfield positively identified Jackson as the man who tried to rob him. Crithfield and Little also positively identified Jackson as their assailant at trial.
We conclude that a rational trier of fact could have found each element of the charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt from this evidence. Jackson's sufficiency challenge therefore fails.
Jackson claims the trial court abused its discretion in admitting certain evidence while excluding other evidence. We review the trial court's admission or exclusion of evidence under an abuse of discretion standard.[13] A trial court abuses its discretion when no reasonable person would have decided the matter as the trial court did.[14]
First Jackson claims that the trial court erred in excluding Crithfield's and Little's written statements as inadmissible hearsay. Jackson argues that the statements were...
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