State v. Jones

• Decision Date: 20 August 2018
• Docket Number: No. SD 34928,SD 34928
• Citation: 553 S.W.3d 909
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Brian Shawn JONES, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

553 S.W.3d 909

STATE of Missouri, Respondent,
v.
Brian Shawn JONES, Appellant.

No. SD 34928

Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District, Division Two.

Filed: August 20, 2018

Appellant’s Attorney: Rick D. Farrow, of West Plains, Missouri.

Respondent’s Attorneys: Joshua Hawley, Attorney General, and Julia E. Neidhardt, Assistant Attorney General, of Jefferson City, Missouri.

WILLIAM W. FRANCIS, JR., P.J.

Brian Shawn Jones ("Jones"), appeals his convictions of second-degree murder and armed criminal action. Jones asserts that the trial court erred in overruling his motion for judgment of acquittal at the close of all the evidence in that there was insufficient evidence to support his convictions of second-degree murder and armed criminal action. Finding no merit to Jones' points, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Factual and Procedural History

We summarize the evidence in the light most favorable to the judgment. State v. Lammers , 479 S.W.3d 624, 632 (Mo. banc 2016). We recite other evidence as necessary for context.

Jones and his girlfriend ("girlfriend") were methamphetamine addicts, and were living together. On October 6, 2014, they wanted to buy some methamphetamine. To that end, girlfriend contacted J.M., who had none to sell. J.M. then contacted S.G., who also had none to sell, but had a friend (Victim) she could contact. S.G. contacted Victim, a twenty-year old man, and he agreed to supply methamphetamine for the transaction.

S.G. was to purchase an "eight ball" (three-and-a-half grams of methamphetamine in a "baggie") from Victim for "between [$]150 or [$]160[,]" and was then to resell the eight ball to Jones for "between [$]190 and [$]200[.]" J.M. was then to barter some computer equipment to Jones in exchange for a portion of the eight ball. The four companions picked up Victim, and dropped him off at a house where Victim sometimes stayed. The others remained in the car, where the transaction was to proceed upon Victim’s return with the eight ball.

Victim came out of the house and walked to the car. He opened the rear-passenger door and got in, leaving the rear-passenger door open. Jones was in the driver’s seat, girlfriend was in the front-passenger seat, J.M. was in the driver-side rear seat, S.G. was in the rear-middle seat, and Victim was in the rear-passenger seat. Victim handed Jones a scale and the eight ball. Jones put the scale on his lap, and began to weigh the eight ball.

There was no "arguing going on[.]" Victim did not say "anything threatening," did not have a "gun on him," did not have "anything that look[ed] like a gun[,]" and did not have anything "sticking out of his waistband[.]"

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Jones pulled out a pistol, pointed it in the direction of the back seat, and ordered the occupants out of the car. Girlfriend, J.M., S.G., and Victim were stunned. J.M. asked, "Is this a joke?" because "everything[ ] [had] been going well. There[ ] [had] been really no issues, and then [Jones] brings out a gun." Jones responded, "Does this look like a joke[?]" Victim had "nothing in his hands[,]" and looked "bewildered, like he [was] not quite sure what to do or what’s going on or like he’s not prepared to just get out of the car."

Then "Jones got greedy and started shooting everybody." "[A]s [J.M.] and [S.G.] were jumping out, [Jones] was already firing at [Victim]." Jones shot Victim twice in the chest and once in the groin—he shot S.G. once in her right hand. J.M. and S.G. made it out of the car.

J.M. and S.G. tried to hide, fearing that Jones would "keep shooting" so that he would not "leave any witnesses[.]" Girlfriend remained in the car, but was "worried [Jones] might shoot [her] next[.]"

Jones "punched the gas" toward the dead-end of the street. He "did a U-turn" in a neighbor’s yard, running over some "big rocks ... that lined ... the road from the grass[.]" The rear-passenger door was still open, and Victim was slumped over, "half hanging out of the car." Jones yelled to girlfriend to "[g]et [Victim] out of the car." She "dragged [Victim] out and they sped off."

J.M., S.G., and J.P. (the owner of the house where Victim was staying) ran to Victim, who was non-responsive and struggling to breathe. Police arrived shortly thereafter. J.M., S.G., and J.P. were standing by Victim’s body. "They were very upset and distraught[,]" "yelling [Victim’s name] over and over again." Victim was transported to a hospital where he died from his injuries. Victim did not have any weapons on his person, and none were found at the scene.

After fleeing the scene with girlfriend, Jones drove to the house where they were living with M.P., a friend. Jones told girlfriend "she needed to get whatever she was going to get because [Jones] wasn't coming back [there] no more." Girlfriend complied. When she was finished, girlfriend found Jones in the garage, removing "casings or shells" from the car. Jones would later claim he was trying to remove anything "illegal." He never told girlfriend that he shot Victim in self-defense, never mentioned anything about Victim having (or seeming to have) a weapon, and never showed girlfriend a BB gun he later alleged to have found in the car.

Jones hid and actively fled from authorities for some time, but was eventually apprehended. The car Jones was driving contained the pistol Jones used to shoot Victim and S.G. The vehicle did not contain drugs or any other weapons.

Jones was charged as a prior and persistent offender with one count of murder in the second degree and one count of armed criminal action.

A three-day jury trial commenced on December 5, 2016. Jones testified in his own defense. The defense theory of the case was that Jones shot Victim in self-defense after Victim pulled a BB gun. In support, Jones testified that when he was removing items from his car at M.P.’s house, he found Victim’s black backpack and BB gun. He put the backpack in his trunk, and placed the BB gun on top of the refrigerator in M.P.’s house.

Additional evidence was adduced from witness Darik Thibodeau, a long-time friend of Victim. Thibodeau testified that Victim possessed a black backpack and a BB gun, and Thibodeau had seen Victim earlier in the day of the shooting with the

553 S.W.3d 913

BB gun tucked in his waistband. Sergeant Brandon Cole testified that a search of Jones' car yielded a black backpack, containing two to three dozen BBs. Several BBs were also found under the back seat. Two CO2 air cartridges, typically used to power a BB gun, were found in the front-passenger floorboard.

Jones moved for judgment of acquittal at the close of the State’s evidence and at the close of all the evidence, and the trial court denied both motions. The jury found Jones guilty of both counts. The trial court found Jones to be a prior and persistent offender, and sentenced Jones to life imprisonment on the second-degree murder conviction, and ten years' imprisonment for the armed criminal action conviction, with the sentences to run concurrently.

In two points on appeal, Jones asserts the trial court erred in overruling his motion for acquittal at the close of all the evidence: (1) as to the charge of murder in the second degree, because the evidence was insufficient to show that Jones did not act in self-defense when he shot Victim; and (2) as to the charge of armed criminal action, because a prerequisite element of that charge is absent without the murder in the second degree conviction.

Standard of Review

Appellate review of sufficiency of the evidence is limited to whether the State has introduced adequate evidence from which a reasonable finder of fact could have found each element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. This Court considers all evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and grants the State all reasonable inferences. Contrary evidence and inferences are disregarded. The Court will not supply missing evidence or grant the State unreasonable, speculative, or forced inferences.

Lammers , 479 S.W.3d at 632. We do not weigh the evidence anew on appeal, as that function is reserved for the exclusive province of the fact-finder in a criminal case. See State v. Letica , 356 S.W.3d 157, 167 (Mo. banc 2011).

"The State may prove its case by presenting direct or circumstantial evidence. Upon appellate review, circumstantial evidence is given the same weight as direct evidence and the fact-finder may make reasonable inferences from the evidence presented." State v. Cordell , 500 S.W.3d 343, 345 (Mo.App. S.D. 2016). "All decisions as to what evidence the jury must believe and what inferences the jury must draw are left to the jury, not to judges deciding what reasonable jurors must and must not do." State v. Jackson , 433 S.W.3d 390, 399 (Mo. banc 2014). "[T]he jury may believe or disbelieve all, part, or none of the testimony of any witness." Id. at 403 (internal quotation and citation omitted).

Analysis

Sufficiency of the Evidence on the Self-Defense Theory

In his first point, Jones argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction of murder in the second degree, in that the...