State v. Tyler

• Decision Date: 22 January 2016
• Docket Number: No. 14–0256.,14–0256.
• Citation: 873 N.W.2d 741
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Kent Anthony TYLER III, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

873 N.W.2d 741

STATE of Iowa, Appellee,

v.Kent Anthony TYLER III, Appellant.

No. 14–0256.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Jan. 22, 2016.

Angela Campbell of Dickey & Campbell Law Firm, PLC, Des Moines, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Bruce L. Kempkes and Linda J. Hines, Assistant Attorneys General, John P. Sarcone, County Attorney, and Daniel Voogt and Stephanie Cox, Assistant County Attorneys, for appellee.

MANSFIELD, Justice.

This case requires us to consider whether substantial evidence supports the second-degree murder conviction of an individual who struck the first, nonlethal blow in a fatal beating. The defendant's blow knocked the victim down. Others in the group surrounding the victim then kicked and stomped him to death.

We conclude that substantial evidence supports the jury's guilty verdict on theories of both principal liability and accomplice liability. However, there is not substantial evidence to support the theory of joint criminal conduct that was also submitted to the jury. Since the jury returned a general verdict of guilty, and the possibility exists that one or more jurors found the defendant guilty only on the basis of the invalid theory of joint criminal conduct, we must reverse the defendant's conviction and remand for a new trial. In doing so, we affirm the district court's evidentiary ruling relating to prior fighting by the defendant and others who assaulted the victim.

I. Facts and Procedural Background.

We recite the facts in the light most favorable to the State. State v. Neiderbach, 837 N.W.2d 180, 187 (Iowa 2013). On the night of August 24–25, 2013, a crowd of twenty to forty teenagers was gathered at an empty lot next to the Des Moines River in downtown Des Moines. They were drinking, dancing, and listening to music. About ten to fifteen cars were present. Some in the crowd were dancing on the cars.

Richard Daughenbaugh, a forty-year-old man who was under the influence of alcohol and methamphetamine, pulled up in his truck uninvited. He honked his horn repeatedly at one of the male teenagers present, insisting he move out of the way so Daughenbaugh could park. After they had exchanged words, Daughenbaugh parked his vehicle. Daughenbaugh then got out of his vehicle and began mingling, dancing, and drinking with the crowd for about fifteen minutes.

Isiah Berry had been fishing with his girlfriend Monica Perkins nearby for most of the day. He gave up trying to fish because one of the teenagers had grabbed his fishing pole and made a sarcastic comment when Berry asked for it back. Berry and Perkins were making plans to go home. But they stayed when Perkins saw a situation that made her believe something was about to happen.

A group of the partiers had surrounded Daughenbaugh. One of the people in the group, the defendant Kent Tyler, threw a punch at Daughenbaugh's face that knocked him to the ground.¹ Daughenbaugh moved on the ground and tried to get up. He never did get up. Members of the group immediately jumped and stomped on Daughenbaugh as he was lying on the ground. While he was being stomped on, Daughenbaugh was helpless, doing nothing to defend himself.

Perkins rushed over and threw herself on top of Daughenbaugh, attempting to protect him. When one person tried to kick Perkins, Berry ran in to rescue his girlfriend. An assailant hit Berry from behind; Berry hit his assailant back. Eventually some of the partiers chased Berry, tripped him, hit him, and stomped on him as well.

Perkins made a frantic call to 911 and tried to describe what was happening. Two girls in the crowd grabbed Perkins's phone from her and threw it away. Still, the call went through long enough that police soon arrived.

Berry suffered bruises and abrasions. Daughenbaugh died from his injuries. Although Daughenbaugh also had facial abrasions and bruising, the autopsy revealed that the cause of his death was a severely torn mesentery, leading to internal bleeding. The mesentery is the membrane connecting several body organs to the posterior abdominal wall. Daughenbaugh's mesentery was torn due to his being kicked and stomped on when he was unable to defend himself. As the medical examiner later explained, a torn mesentery is typically seen in child abuse cases but is unusual in the case of an adult like Daughenbaugh who can normally protect himself. The medical examiner added, "[T]hese injuries from a forensic standpoint indicate that the victim, the decedent, was probably unable to defend himself at the time the blows were rendered to the abdomen."

The next day, Tyler was Mirandized and interviewed. He admitted he had attended the party by the river that night. However, he claimed he had been sitting in a parked car playing music at the time and had no involvement in the beating whatsoever.

Tyler and three others—James Shorter, Yarvon Russell, and Leprese Williams—were subsequently charged with first-degree murder. See Iowa Code § 707.2 (2013). The cases were severed for trial. Tyler's case went to trial from December 9 through December 17. In addition to first-degree murder, the jury was instructed on the lesser included offenses of second-degree murder, attempted murder, voluntary manslaughter, willful injury causing serious injury, willful injury causing bodily injury, involuntary manslaughter by public offense, involuntary manslaughter by act, assault with intent to inflict serious injury, assault causing serious injury, assault causing bodily injury, and assault.

At trial, the State's witnesses included B.B.² She testified that she saw a group form around Daughenbaugh that included Tyler, Shorter, Russell, and Williams. Over Tyler's objection, she also testified that she wanted to leave at that point because she had seen them fighting before, she knew what was going to happen, and she didn't want to be a part of it. She testified that although she did not see who struck the first blow, she did see Daughenbaugh fall to the ground and get beaten.

On first-degree murder, the jury was instructed that they could find Tyler guilty as a principal or under an aiding and abetting or joint criminal conduct theory. Thus, the instruction read as follows:

The State must prove all of the following elements of Murder in the First Degree:

1. On or about August 25, 2013, the defendant, individually or through joint criminal conduct or through aiding and abetting another and without justification, assaulted Richard Daughenbaugh.

2. Richard Daughenbaugh died as a result of the assault.

3. The defendant, individually or through joint criminal conduct or someone he aided and abetted, acted with malice aforethought.

4. The defendant, individually or through joint criminal conduct or someone he aided and abetted, acted willfully, deliberately, premeditatedly and with a specific intent to kill Richard Daughenbaugh.

The court's second-degree murder instruction restated these same elements, except it omitted the fourth element of a specific intent to kill.

The jury acquitted Tyler of first-degree murder, but found him guilty of second-degree murder. See id. § 707.3. It did not reach the remaining lesser included offenses. The court overruled Tyler's motions for judgment of acquittal and for new trial and sentenced Tyler to fifty years imprisonment. See id. § 707.3; id. § 902.12(1).

Tyler appealed, arguing there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction on any of the three murder theories. In addition, Tyler asserted the district court erred in admitting B.B.'s testimony that when the group formed around Daughenbaugh including Tyler, Shorter, Russell, and Williams, B.B. wanted to leave because after having seen them fight in the past, she thought fighting was going to happen again.

We transferred Tyler's appeal to the court of appeals. That court reversed Tyler's second-degree murder conviction, finding insufficient evidence to support any of the three theories advanced by the State at trial—i.e., principal liability, aiding and abetting, or joint criminal conduct.³ One member of the panel dissented and would have found sufficient evidence to support the aiding and abetting and joint criminal conduct theories. We granted the State's application for further review.

II. Standard of Review.

As we explained recently,

We review sufficiency-of-evidence claims for correction of errors at law. In reviewing the evidence, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the State. "[W]e will uphold a verdict if substantial evidence supports it." "Evidence is considered substantial if, when viewed in the light most favorable to the State, it can convince a rational jury that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."

State v. Rooney, 862 N.W.2d 367, 371 (Iowa 2015) (citations omitted) (quoting State v. Sanford, 814 N.W.2d 611, 615 (Iowa 2012) ). "We review evidentiary rulings regarding the admission of prior bad acts for abuse of discretion." State v. Putman, 848 N.W.2d 1, 7 (Iowa 2014).

III. Sufficiency of the Evidence.

For reasons that will be discussed below, we must address all three theories of criminal liability that were presented to the jury. We should be clear at the outset what Tyler does and does not challenge. He does not dispute there was substantial evidence that he threw the first punch that knocked Daughenbaugh to the ground.

A. Liability as a Principal. On the individual liability theory, Tyler challenges only the State's evidence of causation. He does not dispute the State presented substantial evidence on the other elements, including malice aforethought.

To find Tyler guilty on a theory of individual liability, the jury had to conclude that Tyler's own personal assault on Daughenbaugh caused Daughenbaugh's death.⁴ While there is certainly evidence that Tyler started a chain of events by punching Daughenbaugh in the face and knocking him to the ground, the autopsy indicated that none of the blows to Daughenbaugh's head were fatal. Rather, Daughenbaugh died as a result of tears in his mesentery that occurred when...