Taylor v. State

• Decision Date: 16 February 2011
• Docket Number: No. F–2009–486.,F–2009–486.
• Citation: 2011 OK CR 8,248 P.3d 362
• Parties: Lawrence Jamere TAYLOR, Appellant,v.STATE of Oklahoma, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma

248 P.3d 362

2011 OK CR 8

Lawrence Jamere TAYLOR, Appellant,

v.STATE of Oklahoma, Appellee.

No. F–2009–486.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma.

Feb. 16, 2011.

¶ 0 An Appeal from the District Court of Tulsa County; the Honorable William C. Kellough, District Judge.Richard Couch, Asst. Public Defender, Tulsa, OK, attorney for defendant at trial.Jason Rush, Asst. District Attorney, Tulsa, OK, attorney for the State at trial.Stuart Southerland, Asst. Public Defender, Tulsa, OK, attorney for appellant on appeal.W.A. Drew Edmondson, Attorney General of Oklahoma, Keeley L. Harris, Assistant Attorney General, Oklahoma City, OK, attorneys for the State on appeal.

OPINION

LEWIS, Vice–Presiding Judge.

¶ 1 Lawrence Jamere Taylor, Appellant, was tried by jury in the District Court of Tulsa County, Case Number CF–2008–2033, and found guilty of Count 1, murder in the first degree, in violation of 21 O.S.Supp.2006, § 701.7(A); and Count 2, shooting with intent to kill, in violation of 21 O.S.Supp.2007, § 652(A). The jury sentenced him to life imprisonment without possibility of parole in Count 1, and life imprisonment in Count 2.¹ The Hon. William C. Kellough, District Judge, pronounced judgment and sentence, ordering the terms served consecutively. Mr. Taylor appeals.

FACTS

¶ 2 Sometime in mid-April, 2008, Anthony Baltazar bought a stereo from the Appellant's brother, Joekele Venson. Baltazar met the Appellant for the first time at Big Joe's stereo shop, where the sound system was being installed. Baltazar later discovered that the stereo would not work. He was able to make contact with Appellant, and through him, tried to make arrangements for Joekele Venson to return the money paid for the stereo.

¶ 3 The State presented evidence that Appellant and Baltazar exchanged a series of text messages and phone calls to arrange a meeting near the Ashley Park apartment complex, between Sheridan and Yale Avenues on 71st Street in Tulsa. Appellant actually lived approximately two hundred yards from the site of the meeting, in the Eagle Point Apartments. Anthony Baltazar and his brother-in-law, Joe Gomez, arrived at the meeting place between 10:00 and 10:30 p.m., on April 28, 2008.

¶ 4 According to Baltazar's testimony at trial, Appellant opened the rear door of Baltazar's car and got inside. He then told Baltazar to drive to the other side of the street because it was closer to his girlfriend's apartment. As Baltazar was driving to the other side of the street, he heard a shot. Baltazar remembered falling over the center console of the car. He felt his spirit ascend from his body. He asked God for a second chance, and then regained consciousness. The car had come to a stop in the parking lot. Baltazar began honking on the horn. He had been shot in the back of the head.

¶ 5 Baltazar's honking attracted the attention of a young woman in the apartments. From her second floor apartment she could see him sitting in the car, with the door open and one leg on the ground. Baltazar told her he had been shot and asked her to call 911. Baltazar's girlfriend happened to call him on the cell phone at some point. He told her he had been shot by “Joe's little brother.” Tulsa Police Officer Jeff Oloman responded to the scene, finding Baltazar still sitting in his vehicle and conscious, but covered in blood. Joe Gomez was in the passenger seat, apparently dead from a gunshot wound to the head. Police recovered what proved to be the murder weapon, a .38 Special caliber revolver, lying on the rear floorboard near the front passenger seat.

¶ 6 Police traced Appellant's residence to the nearby Eagle Point Apartments, where he lived with his grandmother. The morning after the shooting, a police detective interviewed Appellant's grandmother. She told the detective that she had seen Appellant around 10:30 p.m. the night before. He ran into her apartment, sweating, and hid in a bedroom closet. When she asked him what was wrong, he said “Nothing.” He then washed his hands in the bathroom, made a phone call, and left the apartment. She heard a car door slam and a car speeding away. She had not seen him since.

¶ 7 Appellant's grandmother was not the only person to see him after the crimes. Appellant called one of his friends, Cheatham, for a ride on the day after the shootings. Cheatham testified he picked up Appellant at Promenade Mall. Appellant was upset and nervous. Cheatham asked him what was wrong. Appellant replied that he had “messed up.” Cheatham picked up Appellant again the following day. Appellant was still agitated. He told Cheatham he believed he had killed two Mexicans over a debt owed by him and another person. Appellant stated that he had arranged to meet the men near the Ashley Park apartments, at which point he had shot the driver and passenger from the back seat. Appellant also told Cheatham he believed he had dropped his gun. Cheatham identified the pistol recovered from Baltazar's car as Appellant's. Appellant also confessed the shooting to Cheatham's mother, Ms. Basham. She testified that Appellant told her he “shot two Mexicans,” over money that he owed them. Appellant asked Ms. Basham for money to buy a bus ticket, but she offered only to help him turn himself in to police. Cheatham and Appellant then left her house.

¶ 8 Appellant also contacted another friend after the shootings, Ms. Vanco. She testified that Appellant texted her, said he needed to talk, and asked if he could come over to her house. When she asked why, he refused to tell her. He then asked if she had watched the news. She asked Appellant if he was talking about a murder at Observation Point. Appellant told her it was not that murder. Vanco then asked if it was the murder where one Mexican had been killed and another shot. Appellant said, “Yes.” Appellant and Cheatham visited Vanco's house on May 1, 2008, three days after the shootings. Appellant brought a bag into the house. He stated to Vanco that someone had set him up, leaving his gun at the crime scene. He also stated that the victims had been looking for him over a problem with his brother. Appellant said he was leaving for Cleveland, Ohio, to live with his aunt. Police arrested Appellant at Vanco's apartment.

¶ 9 Police recovered Appellant's bag from Vanco's apartment. Inside they found a cell phone bill in Appellant's name and a spent .38 caliber cartridge. Ballistics analysis of this shell casing matched it to the pistol recovered in Baltazar's car. A search of the apartment where Appellant lived with his grandmother recovered a box of Independence brand .38 Special caliber ammunition in the same closet where Appellant had hidden the night of the shooting. These cartridges were the same brand and shared the same markings as the cartridges recovered from the pistol in Baltazar's car and the spent casing found in Appellant's bag. Investigators also recovered Appellant's fingerprints from the exterior of the left rear door of Baltazar's vehicle, the interior driver's door handle and the left rear passenger door handle. Investigators found a blood transfer stain in the rear seat, probably the result of the shooter's contact with the victims as he reached into the front of the vehicle to put the transmission in park or unlock the rear doors.

¶ 10 The medical examiner testified that Joe Gomez died from a single gunshot wound to the head. The projectile recovered from Mr. Gomez was .38 caliber in size, and traveled through the brain from left to right, slightly downward, stopping in his right cheek. The bullet severed the brain stem and caused instant death. The bullet recovered from Mr. Baltazar's head was a .22 caliber bullet.

¶ 11 The defense called witnesses who testified to inconsistent statements by Mr. Baltazar concerning the identification of the shooter. He told a nurse at St. Francis Hospital that he was shot by a stranger. He told a detective that he did not know who shot him, only that the shooter was a black male. A physician's assistant testified that Baltazar was unable, or possibly unwilling, to identify the shooter. Appellant did not testify.

ANALYSIS

¶ 12 In Proposition One, Appellant argues the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction for shooting with intent to kill. We review Appellant's claim to determine “whether, after reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime charged beyond a reasonable doubt.” Spuehler v. State, 1985 OK CR 132, ¶ 7, 709 P.2d 202, 203–04. The elements of shooting with intent to kill are (1) intentional and wrongful; (2) shooting another person; (3) with the intent to kill any person. Instruction No. 4–4, OUJI–CR(2d). Appellant concedes the evidence is sufficient to show he murdered Joe Gomez, but urges this Court to consider that “anything could have happened,” including the possibility that “a third unknown person attempted a robbery,” at the same time, shooting Anthony Baltazar with a .22 caliber weapon, while Appellant may have killed Joe Gomez accidentally with the .38 pistol when Gomez attempted to take his gun.

¶ 13 Counsel's interpretation of the evidence far exceeds the scope of our review. A reviewing court must accept all reasons, inferences, and credibility choices that tend to support the verdict. Warner v. State, 2006 OK CR 40, ¶ 35, 144 P.3d 838, 863. Appellant's argument traces a circuitous route around direct inferences that point to him as a lone assassin, ignoring the reasonable inference that Appellant the man identified as the shooter by an eyewitness and by his own confessions to at least two other people-used two firearms in this crime. The evidence supports the inference that Appellant disposed of the missing .22 caliber firearm after the shooting; and, according to his own statements, dropped his .38 Special in his haste to flee the scene of the crime. Proposition One is denied.

¶ 14 Proposition Two argues that ...