State v. Krebs, 23296.
| Decision Date | 26 April 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 23296.,23296. |
| Citation | 714 N.W.2d 91,2006 SD 43 |
| Parties | STATE of South Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Jessie KREBS, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | South Dakota Supreme Court |
Lawrence E. Long, Attorney General, Ann C. Meyer, Assistant Attorney General, Pierre, SD, for plaintiff and appellee.
Timothy J. Rensch of Rensch Law Office, Rapid City, SD, for defendant and appellant.
[¶ 1.] Sixteen year-old Jessie Krebs appeals his conviction for first-degree manslaughter. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for trial.
[¶ 2.] Jessie Krebs (Krebs) was charged with murder and manslaughter in the stabbing death of Chance Darrow (Darrow). The charges stem from an incident involving a fight during the early morning hours of July 12, 2003. Events leading up to the incident started on the prior evening of July 11, 2003. After getting off work from his construction job, Krebs met several of his friends to socialize. The group of friends spent most of the evening and early morning hours driving around the area from Box Elder to Rapid City, South Dakota. The group returned to Krebs's apartment in Box Elder after 2:00 a.m. Around 3:00 a.m., Krebs along with two male friends, his girlfriend, and his female cousin headed for Rapid City in Krebs's vehicle. The purpose of the trip was to meet a girl named Rianna who was planning to fight another girl named Angelique. The group knew Angelique was hosting a keg party at her residence in Rapid City. Angelique's party started around 10:00 p.m. in a large open field behind her trailer. A bonfire marked the site of the party. After meeting in a Rapid City parking lot, Krebs's group followed Rianna and three of her friends to the party site.
[¶ 3.] When they arrived, Rianna and her girlfriends headed for the bonfire. Krebs and his two male companions also headed for the bonfire, while his girlfriend and cousin waited in the vehicle. Almost immediately, Rianna confronted Angelique and the two began to fight. Eventually, fighting erupted between Krebs's group and the partygoers.
[¶ 4.] During the melee, Krebs and Darrow began to fight. The two exchanged blows. At some point Krebs stabbed Darrow with Krebs's double-edged, fixed-blade knife that Krebs had brought with him. Krebs and his two male companions fled the scene. Darrow died a short time later en route to the hospital.
[¶ 5.] Krebs was charged with alternative counts of second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter. He moved to transfer the charges to juvenile court. The trial court denied the motion and Krebs was tried as an adult. At trial, Krebs sought to establish a claim of self defense. The jury acquitted Krebs of the murder charge but convicted him of first-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to twenty years in the South Dakota State Penitentiary. Krebs appeals his conviction and raises the following issues:
ISSUES
1. Whether the trial court erred in refusing to transfer Krebs to juvenile court.
2. Whether the trial court erred by allowing the State to present undisclosed inculpatory testimony in violation of a pretrial discovery order.
3. Whether the trial court erred by allowing the State to introduce a video tape showing Darrow's distraught girlfriend and Darrow's body being removed from her vehicle.
[¶ 6.] Krebs contends that it was error for the trial court not to transfer the case to juvenile court. Krebs was 16 years old at the time of the incident, and he was charged with second-degree murder, a Class B felony, and first-degree manslaughter, a Class 1 felony. South Dakota law requires that a child charged with Class B and Class 1 felonies be tried in circuit court as an adult. SDCL 26-11-3.1. The law allows the child to request a transfer hearing "to determine if it is in the best interest of the public that the child be tried in circuit court as an adult." Id. If the child is sixteen years of age or older, "there is a rebuttable presumption that it is in the best interest of the public that [the] child ... be tried as an adult." Id. The statutory factors for the court to consider are as follows:
(1) The seriousness of the alleged felony offense to the community and whether protection of the community requires waiver (2) Whether the alleged felony offense was committed in an aggressive, violent, premeditated, or willful manner;
(3) Whether the alleged felony offense was against persons or property with greater weight being given to offenses against persons;
(4) The prosecutive merit of the complaint. The state is not required to establish probable cause to show prosecutive merit;
(5) The desirability of trial and disposition of the entire felony offense in one proceeding if the child's associates in the alleged felony offense are adults;
(6) The record and previous history of the juvenile;
(7) The prospect for adequate protection of the public and the likelihood of reasonable rehabilitation of the juvenile, if the juvenile is found to have committed the alleged felony offense, by the use of procedures, services, and facilities currently available to the juvenile court.
SDCL 26-11-4.
[¶ 7.] If the court determines that the child should be tried as an adult in circuit court, the court is required to enter an order and findings of fact. Id. The trial court's findings "may not be set aside upon review unless clearly erroneous, and due regard shall be given to the opportunity of the trial court to judge the credibility of the witnesses." Id. As to the seven factors in SDCL 26-11-4, we have stated: "`It is not necessary that evidence be presented on all of these factors at each transfer hearing, or that the trial court must make express findings on each factor.'" State v. Milk, 519 N.W.2d 313, 318 (S.D.1994) (citations omitted). In addition, "[c]ontrolling weight is not given to any one factor, and the court is not `confined to a consideration of only the listed factors to the exclusion of others.'" Id. (citation omitted).
[¶ 8.] Consequently, our initial task is to review the findings of fact of the trial court.1 In its findings, the trial court considered the statutory factors in light of the transfer hearing evidence. Applying the factors, the court found that the alleged offense was (1) "an extremely serious ... felony offense," (2) "committed in an aggressive, violent and premeditated manner," (3) "was against a person," as opposed to property, and (4) had prosecutive merit. Factor (5) did not apply since the disposition did not involve associates. Factor (6) was favorable to Krebs since he had "no prior criminal record or previous history as a juvenile." The trial court specifically pointed out that "Krebs voluntarily brought a knife to a situation where he expected conflict and therefore expected that someone could be killed by his action." "[I]f you take a knife ... to a place where you expect conflict," the court pondered, "then you expect to possibly have to use that knife." The court entered a written finding that "the evidence indicates a deliberate intent to take a weapon to a fight under circumstances where [Krebs] anticipated conflict; further, the victim in this case suffered five stab wounds."
[¶ 9.] As to factor (7), the trial court initially determined that the system had "sufficient resources for the likely reasonable rehabilitation of the juvenile." Nevertheless, the trial court found that the prospect for adequate public protection if Krebs were convicted was small because of the lack of procedures, services, and facilities available in the juvenile system. Based on these findings, the court determined that it was not in the best interests of the public for Krebs to be tried in juvenile court.
[¶ 10.] Krebs claims that the trial court's findings are clearly erroneous. Specifically, Krebs asserts that two of the findings contradict each other. In one finding, the court determined that the juvenile system had resources to rehabilitate Krebs. In a following finding, the court determined that the juvenile procedures, services, and facilities could not adequately protect the public from Krebs. If he can be rehabilitated, Krebs argues, the public is protected. Krebs also claims that there was insufficient proof of an aggressive, violent, or premeditated act or that carrying a knife to a fight constitutes knowledge that someone could be killed.
[¶ 11.] Much of the evidence upon which the trial court based its findings was undisputed. The evidence revealed that Krebs and his friends went to a party anticipating a fight between two girls. One of the girls was a friend of Krebs's group. Krebs took his knife with him to the party. The anticipated fight between the girls ensued. Fighting then broke out between members of Krebs's group and the group at the party. During the fight, Krebs ended up in a struggle with Darrow and stabbed Darrow. There was no evidence that Darrow had been armed. The coroner testified that Darrow suffered five stab wounds and died as the result of a stab wound to the abdomen which perforated the abdominal artery. The coroner also testified that Darrow's lethal stab wound matched the knife recovered from the roof of Krebs's apartment building.
[¶ 12.] Based on these undisputed facts, the court was justified in finding that the offense was a serious felony. Even assuming that premeditation was not supported by the evidence as Krebs claims, the evidence supported a finding that a serious, violent crime against a person resulting in a death had occurred. The statute does not require that the court make a finding of premeditation. The statute only requires the court to consider "[w]hether the alleged felony offense was committed in an aggressive, violent, premeditated, or willful manner." SDCL 26-11-4(2) (emphasis added). Because the statute lists the factors in the disjunctive, the manner of the...
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