State v. Meeks

• Decision Date: 23 April 2004
• Docket Number: No. 89,204,89,204
• Citation: 277 Kan. 609,88 P.3d 789
• Parties: STATE OF KANSAS, Appellee, v. REGINALD MEEKS, Appellant.
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

277 Kan. 609

88 P.3d 789

STATE OF KANSAS, Appellee, v. REGINALD MEEKS, Appellant.

No. 89,204

Supreme Court of Kansas.

Opinion filed April 23, 2004.

Sandra Carr, assistant appellate defender, argued the cause and was on the brief for appellant.

Kristen Chowning-Martin, assistant district attorney, argued the cause, and Phill Kline, attorney general, was with her on the brief for appellee.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

NUSS, J.

Reginald Meeks appeals his conviction for the first-degree premeditated murder of James Green. Our jurisdiction is under K.S.A. 22-3601(b)(1), a maximum sentence of life imprisonment imposed.

The issues on appeal, and this court's accompanying holdings, are as follows:

1. Did the trial court commit error in allowing the admission of the victim's statement, "Meeks shot me?" No 2. Did the trial court abuse its discretion in denying defendant's request for a continuance? No.

3. Did the trial court abuse its discretion in permitting the jury to hear the entire recording of the 911 call? No.

4. Did the cumulative effect of trial errors deny the defendant a fair trial? No.

5. Did sufficient evidence establish that the murder was premeditated? Yes.

Accordingly, we affirm.

FACTS

At 9 p.m. on August 21, 2001, the decedent, James Green, his brother Imon (a/k/a Shawn) Wright, Mia Taylor, and Dennis Jennings (a/k/a Rusty) were with Christopher Graves at his home at 647 Troup in Kansas City, Kansas. The defendant, Reginald Meeks, who was a friend of Christopher Graves' brother Jesse, came to the Graves house and demanded an apology from Green regarding a prior incident where Green had shut Meeks' hand in a door. Green refused to apologize.

Meeks challenged Green to fight outside, and Green reluctantly agreed. Meeks went outside first, followed by Green and the others. Green and Meeks fought and wrestled for about 5 minutes. Green then stopped, telling Meeks that he was tired and that they did not need to fight.

Green's brother, Wright, testified that Meeks continued trying to get to Green, so Wright stepped in to calm Meeks down. As Green was walking away toward his home at 648 Troup, Meeks pulled out a handgun. As everyone scattered, Wright warned Green that Meeks had a gun. Meeks began chasing Green around Wright's car, which was parked on the street.

When Green slipped and fell, Wright threw a brick toward Meeks. Meeks turned and aimed his handgun at Wright, so Wright ran to 647 Troup. As Wright reached the door, he heard two gunshots. After he went inside the house and shut the door, he looked back into the street. He saw his brother, Green, lying on the ground and Meeks standing in front of Green. Meeks then ran away with the gun in his hand. The other people present testified to similar events. Taylor testified that as Green got up and started to walk away from the fight, Meeks followed him and pulled out a gun. When someone yelled that Meeks had a gun, Green turned around and then began running around Wright's car. Meeks fired several shots, Green fell down, and Meeks ran away.

Jennings testified that after Meeks and Green were wrestling, Meeks pulled out a gun and fired. When Jennings heard the first shot, he ran to his house with Graves.

Wright, Taylor, and Graves were later shown photographic lineups; each one separately identified Meeks as the shooter.

Around 9 p.m., Reverend Lacy Rydell, a neighbor, heard two gunshots and heard Green cry for help. Rydell went to the door and saw Green stooped down in the street behind a car. Rydell then called 911. He saw Green fall to the ground and the other man shoot at Green and then run. Rydell heard five to six gunshots in all.

Two other people in the neighborhood also heard the shots that evening and saw Green running around a car. Barbara Ann Brooks, Green's girlfriend, was at 648 Troup. She testified that when she heard gunshots, she ran to the door and saw a guy chasing Green around the car and shooting him. Cassie Glover, who lived at 650 Troup, heard five or six gunshots and went to her door. She saw Green running around a car, but saw no one else. After running upstairs to lay her stepdaughter down, she returned and saw Green lying on the street.

Officer Terrance Hall was the first police officer to arrive at the scene, appearing approximately 10 minutes after the shooting. He asked Green who shot him, and Green answered, "Meeks shot me." By 9:22 p.m. Green was unconscious; at 10:47 p.m. he was pronounced dead. The coroner found one gunshot wound in the chest from a .25 caliber bullet which missed Green's right lung but pierced his left lung and one of the major veins that drains blood from the arm. He also found several small abrasions. He opined that based upon Green's wound, Green could have remained conscious for 10 to 15 minutes after being shot. Detective Terry Zeigler spoke with Meeks on August 27, 2001, 6 days after Green's death. Meeks waived his Miranda rights and told Zeigler that he was with his mother at her house at 9 o'clock the night of Green's death. However, his mother, Esther Hawkins, later testified that she worked from 3 p.m until 11 p.m. that night, that she got home from work around 11:15 p.m., and that she saw Meeks coming down the street. He stayed for only a few minutes.

Despite what Meeks had initially told Detective Ziegler about being with his mother at her house at 9 o'clock the night of Green's death, his theory of defense at the trial was that he was at the Club Uptown that night, not wrestling and shooting Green on Troup. As support, his sister, Ra'meka Meeks, testified that when she was still 19 years old, she went to the Club Uptown with Reginald Meeks, Jason Meeks, and a friend named Mike one weeknight sometime around August 2001. The defendant then testified that the night they had gone to that club was Tuesday, August 21.

However, Norma Harris, the manager and owner of Club Uptown, testified as a State rebuttal witness that her club was only open Thursdays through Saturdays before August 28, 2001. She also testified that the club's video system, which through its video tape might confirm or deny Meeks' defense that he was present, was not in place until the end of January 2002. She also provided summaries of liquor purchases during various months in an attempt to corroborate her testimony that the club was not open on the night of the murder.

The jury convicted Meeks of first-degree premeditated murder, and the court sentenced him to life, without eligibility for parole for 25 years.

ANALYSIS

Issue 1: Did the trial court err in allowing the admission of Green's statement, "Meeks shot me?"

Meeks claims that the trial court abused its discretion in admitting Green's statement, "Meeks shot me," because the statement lacked adequate indicia of reliability, thus violating his Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him. The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him or her. As acknowledged by the parties in their briefs and oral arguments, however, this constitutional provision does not preclude the admission of all out-of-court statements. See State v. Sanders, 258 Kan. 409, 417-18, 904 P.2d 951 (1995). As this court stated 6 years ago in State v. Bailey, 263 Kan. 685, 692-93, 952 P.2d 1289 (1998) (quoting State v. Bratt, 250 Kan. 264, Syl. ¶ 1, 824 P.2d 983 [1992]):

"`The Confrontation Clause operates in two ways when determining the admissibility of hearsay statements. First, the Sixth Amendment establishes a rule of necessity. In the usual case, the prosecution must either produce or demonstrate the unavailability of the declarant whose statement it wishes to use against the defendant. Second, once a witness is shown to be unavailable, the witness' statement is admissible only if it bears adequate indicia of reliability. Reliability can be inferred where the evidence falls within a firmly rooted hearsay exception. If the evidence does not fall within a firmly rooted hearsay exception, the evidence must be excluded absent a showing of particularized guarantees of trustworthiness.'" (Emphasis added.)

Consistent with this guidance in Bailey, the trial court allowed the admission of Green's statement into evidence under K.S.A. 2003 Supp. 60-460(d)(3). That statutory hearsay exception requires that the declarant be unavailable and the statement be made at a time when the declarant had recently perceived the matter, while the declarant's recollection was clear, and that the statement was made in good faith prior to the commencement of the action and with no incentive to falsify or distort.

That ruling is now suspect, however, because in an opinion filed on March 8, 2004, approximately 6 weeks after oral arguments in the instant case, the United States Supreme Court substantially altered the Confrontation Clause analysis expressed in Bailey which was in large part based upon Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 65 L. Ed. 2d 597, 100 S. Ct. 2531 (1980). In Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 158 L. Ed. 2d 177, 124 S. Ct. 1354 (2004), the Court drew distinctions between testimonial and nontestimonial hearsay evidence. It held:

"Where nontestimonial hearsay is at issue, it is wholly consistent with the Framers' design to afford the States flexibility in their development of hearsay law—as does Roberts, and as would an approach that exempted such statements from Confrontation Clause scrutiny altogether. Where testimonial evidence is at issue, however, the Sixth Amendment demands what the common law required: unavailability and a prior opportunity for cross-examination. We leave for another day any effort to spell out a comprehensive definition of `testimonial.' Whatever else the term covers, it applies at a minimum to prior testimony at a preliminary hearing, before a grand jury, or at a formal trial; and to police

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