Vason v. State

• Decision Date: 14 August 2020
• Docket Number: CR-18-0797
• Citation: 323 So.3d 698
• Parties: Ronji Dejuan VASON v. STATE of Alabama
• Court: Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals

323 So.3d 698

Ronji Dejuan VASON

v.STATE of Alabama

CR-18-0797

Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama.

August 14, 2020

Rehearing Denied October 9, 2020

Michael S. Nissenbaum, Birmingham, for appellant.

Steve Marshall, atty. gen., and Marc A. Starrett, asst. atty. gen., for appellee.

McCOOL, Judge.

Ronji Dejuan Vason appeals his conviction for attempted murder, a violation of § 13A-4-2 and § 13A-6-2, Ala. Code 1975, and his sentence of life imprisonment. We affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

The evidence presented at Vason's trial tended to establish the following facts. Abbas Vazin owns a liquor store in Macon County and lives approximately 500 yards from the store. In the early morning hours of August 11, 2017, Vazin was at home when he heard the alarm at his store sound, and Vazin immediately "jumped in [his] car and drove to the store." (R. 264.) Video surveillance from a security camera at Vazin's store showed that, before Vazin arrived, a total of five men were "going back and forth across the street taking" cigarettes, bottles of liquor, and cash to two cars that were parked in a vacant lot across the street from Vazin's store. (R. 271.) When Vazin arrived, he "didn't see any cars in the parking lot," so he "figured [he was] already late." (R. 264.) However, when Vazin entered his store, he encountered "three individuals with all of [Vazin's] cigarettes and ... stuff under their arm." (R. 265.) Vazin testified that he "held the door as long as he could" in an attempt to keep the three intruders from leaving but that they "pushed [him] out of the way and took off." (R. 265.) According to Vazin, once the three intruders managed to exit the store, they ran across the street to the vacant lot, where they and the other two intruders attempted to flee in the two automobiles parked there -- one intruder in one and four intruders in the other. Vazin, who by that time had returned to his vehicle, testified that the car carrying a single intruder left the vacant lot first but that he "rammed [the car carrying four intruders] with [his] car" and then "started pursuing them." (R. 280.) According to Vazin, he continued to pursue the four intruders in the direction of Lee County, reaching speeds of 65 to 70 miles per hour and "hit[ting] them again from the back," until he "saw the police coming," and, once the police officer "turned his lights on," Vazin stopped pursuing the intruders and "let [the police officer] have it." (R. 281.)

Quentavious Morgan, a police officer with the Notasulga Police Department, was the officer who saw Vazin pursuing the car with the four intruders and took over the pursuit. According to Officer Morgan, at approximately 3:00 a.m., he was traveling on Highway 14 near Notasulga when he observed "two vehicles ... traveling at a high rate of speed" cross in front of him on Tallapoosa Street. (R. 325.) Officer Morgan testified that he observed the first car, a Nissan, "run through [a] stop sign" and that he "saw four masked men" in the Nissan. (R. 325.) Thus, Officer Morgan "activated [his] blue lights and sirens and began chase" (R. 325-26), at which point the second vehicle "immediately pulled over." (R. 329.) Officer Morgan testified that, as he was pursuing the Nissan at speeds of 80 to 90 miles per hour down a "completely dark" road (R. 332), "there were projectiles[, i.e., bottles of liquor,] being thrown out of the window, smashing on [his] windshield." (R. 329-30.) Officer Morgan could not identify which passengers were throwing the liquor bottles because "it was almost like it was raining because [of] the alcohol that was being thrown." (R. 331.) However, Officer Morgan testified that he could see that the liquor bottles "were coming from both sides of the [Nissan]" and that he "could just see bottles coming from the left and the right side, from the back of the vehicle." (R. 330.) More specifically, Officer Morgan testified that he could see two occupants of the Nissan with "half their bod[ies] ... out of the window" and their "back[s] or butt[s] on the door panels," "facing towards" him while "throwing stuff ... on each side." (R. 336.) When asked to describe what he was experiencing at the time, Officer Morgan testified:

"I was just amazed at the bottles being thrown. And at one point they were trying to run me off the road. And, you know, it was like, you throw something out of the window at eighty miles per hour in the officer's direction, and it's ... like a missile coming at you. It was -- it was that hard. The windshield was cracked and I -- at that point I started to feel that, okay; this -- I am not going to go home tonight. So I continued on, because that's what we are supposed to do, and just continued until I had nothing left to give."

(R. 333.)

According to Officer Morgan, once the occupants of the Nissan "realized that [he] wasn't going to back off[,] ... that's when [he] heard gunshots ... and that's when [he] realized [he] was being shot at." (R. 333.) However, Officer Morgan could not determine from which side of the Nissan the shots were being fired. Officer Morgan testified that he returned fire, at which point the Nissan accelerated, and, according to Officer Morgan, once he was able to "catch back up" (R. 337) to the Nissan, one of the occupants threw a case of beer at him from the right side of the Nissan. Officer Morgan testified that the case of beer landed in the road in front of his car, which caused Officer Morgan to swerve "to avoid hitting the box and [his] vehicle went off the road and ... slid maybe 50 yards before [he] regained control of the vehicle and got back in the chase." (R. 338-39.) Eventually, Auburn police officers joined Officer Morgan's pursuit of the Nissan, which ended when the Nissan "[ran a] stop sign and crashed into a fence and that's when the subjects got out of the vehicle and took off running." (R. 341.) Three of the occupants of the Nissan, including Vason, were apprehended not far from the scene of the accident "within maybe minutes" (R. 345), and the fourth occupant was apparently apprehended sometime later.

Mitch Allen, an investigator with the Lee County Sheriff's Department, interviewed Vason following Vason's apprehension and took a written statement from Vason, which was read into evidence and which states, in pertinent part:

"I, Ronji Vason, can somewhat read and write the English language. I am giving a voluntary statement to Inv. Wilson and Inv. Allen on 08/[11]/2017. Curt came and picked me up in a 4 door car that was brown in color from the Bama motel in Montgomery, AL. I left with him to go get high. We were smoking some loud weed. Curt took me out to a store where we met up with some guys that I didn't know. We broke into the store and took some liquor bottles and some other stuff from the store. While we were loading up the car with the stuff from the store some truck pulled up to the front of the store. I then jumped into a car with some guys I did not know because Curt had already left. While I was getting into the car the truck rammed the car I was getting into in the rear bumper. When I got into the car we pulled off. I was in the back driverside seat of the vehicle. The truck that rammed us at the store followed us and rammed us a couple more times while we were going down the road. The guy that was sitting in the back passenger side seat started throwing liquor bottles out of the window at the truck. The guy in the front passenger side seat then gave the guy in the back passenger side seat a gun. I saw the guy shoot at the truck and then the truck disappeared. I told the guy driving the car I was in to let me out of the car and he wouldn't. The police then tried to stop the car right after the truck disappeared. The guy driving still did not stop. The guy in the back passenger side seat then gave the gun back to the guy in the front passenger side seat. I then saw the guy in the front passenger side seat shooting at the police that was trying to stop us. The police was shooting at us too. The guy next to me in the back passenger side seat was throwing liquor bottles at the police car while the guy in the front passenger side seat was shooting at the police car. I ducked down in the seat until the car finally stopped. I then ran from the car but was arrested by the police. Inv. Allen showed me some pictures and the tall guy with the plattes in his hair was in the front seat passenger side seat. The short guy with the plattes that were in rubber bands was in the back passenger side seat next to me. The picture that was on the piece of paper that Inv. Allen showed me was the driver of the car that I was in. This statement is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge."¹

(C. 125-26.)

When police officers inventoried the Nissan, they discovered "a pistol in the front passenger floorboard" (R. 466) "laying flat down with a magazine in it." (R. 542.) A swab of the pistol was provided to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, which tested the swab for deoxyribonucleic acid ("DNA"). Although forensic testing indicated that none of the four individuals in the Nissan could be excluded as a contributor to the DNA found on the pistol, no conclusion could be reached as to which occupant or occupants of the Nissan contributed to that DNA because, "[d]ue to the complex and/or limited nature of the samples, the DNA detected from the [pistol] is not suitable for comparison purposes or for searching in the Combined DNA Index System." (C. 114.) In addition, there was no "[t]race evidence that could potentially be gunshot residue" found on Vason's hands or neck when he was tested for such evidence at the Lee County Sheriff's Department following his apprehension. (R. 496.)

Approximately two months after Vason was arrested, he gave another written statement to Inv. Allen, which was also read into evidence and which states, in pertinent part:

"I, Ronji Dejuan Vason, have requested to speak with Inv. Allen again about this situation

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