William S. Smith v. State of Indiana (mem. dec.) ( 2016 )

MEMORANDUM DECISION
Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), FILED
this Memorandum Decision shall not be
Dec 07 2016, 9:50 am
regarded as precedent or cited before any
court except for the purpose of establishing CLERK
Indiana Supreme Court
Court of Appeals
the defense of res judicata, collateral and Tax Court
estoppel, or the law of the case.
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE
Victoria L. Bailey Gregory F. Zoeller
Marion County Public Defender Agency Attorney General
Indianapolis, Indiana Caryn N. Szyper
Deputy Attorney General
Indianapolis, Indiana
IN THE
COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA
William S. Smith, December 7, 2016
Appellant-Defendant, Court of Appeals Case No.
49A02-1603-CR-656
v. Appeal from the Marion Superior
Court
State of Indiana, The Honorable Mark D. Stoner,
Appellee-Plaintiff Judge
Trial Court Cause No.
49G06-1502-MR-643
Crone, Judge.
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Case Summary
[1] A jury found William S. Smith guilty of murder, carrying a handgun without a
license, and marijuana possession. Smith now appeals, claiming that the State
failed to present sufficient evidence that he committed murder. We conclude
that a reasonable finder of fact could have found Smith guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt, and therefore we affirm his murder conviction.
Facts and Procedural History
[2] The relevant facts most favorable to the jury’s verdict follow. Smith started
dating Azya Knowles in the summer of 2014. They lived approximately one
block apart in Indianapolis, and Knowles would occasionally stay at Smith’s
house. At some point during the relationship, Knowles told her friend,
Uniquewa Rogers, that Smith had pulled a gun on her. In February 2015,
Rogers noticed that Knowles “wasn’t herself” and was acting like “something
was wrong.” Tr. at 362, 363. Knowles stayed inside Smith’s house for three
days and refused Rogers’s requests to come outside, which Rogers found
“unusual.” Id. at 369.
[3] On February 10, Rogers and Knowles’s brother, Logan, went to Smith’s house
and talked to Knowles through an open window. Knowles asked Logan to
bring her food, clothes, and a gun. Logan went to Knowles’s house and put
food, clothes, and Knowles’s .22-caliber handgun in a duffel bag. He returned
to Smith’s house and handed Knowles the bag through the open window.
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[4] At approximately 11:30 a.m. on February 11, Pastor Marvin Churchwell saw
Smith driving a pickup truck past his church in Indianapolis’s Haughville
neighborhood. The truck’s windshield was damaged and appeared to have been
“shot at,” and there was a hole in the bottom of the passenger’s window, which
was shattered. Id. at 170. Shortly afterward, the pastor saw Smith drive by the
church a second time. As the pastor was leaving the church between 12:00 and
12:30 p.m., he saw Smith drive by a third time. Pastor Churchwell did not see
anyone in the passenger’s seat.
[5] At approximately 1:30 p.m., Smith drove up to the City-County Building in
downtown Indianapolis, which is approximately a ten- to fifteen-minute drive
from Haughville. He had a .380-caliber semiautomatic handgun in his hand
and yelled, “Man they was shooting at me.” Id. at 87. Officer Christopher
Wilburn drew his gun and told Smith to drop his weapon and stop the truck.
Smith replied, “I’m just trying to show you my gun. They shot at me.” Id. at
89. 1 Smith also said that he had $30,000 in cash in the truck. Sheriff’s deputies
put the truck in park and removed Smith from the vehicle. Smith dropped his
handgun on the driver’s seat.
[6] Officer Wilburn approached the truck and saw Knowles lying on the passenger
floorboard. She had been shot three times: once in the forehead, once in the
left temple, and once behind the left ear. Officer Wilburn saw “a lot of blood”
1
Smith asserts that “[t]here were bullet holes in the truck’s sides.” Appellant’s Br. at 7 (citing Tr. at 87-88).
The cited transcript pages do not support this assertion. Detective Charles Benner testified that he inspected
the truck’s body and found no “bullet strikes” outside the windows. Tr. at 496.
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on the passenger seat and inside the truck cab. Id. at 95. As Knowles was
being removed from the truck, a .22-caliber shell casing fell to the ground.
Another .22-caliber casing was found between the passenger’s seat and the
center console. Both casings had been fired from the same weapon. Police did
not find a .22-caliber firearm.
[7] Smith told a deputy, “I didn’t do this, uh, the niggas in the hood shot her, they
were coming after me, but they shot her.” Id. at 146. He told another deputy
that he had been chased “by people from Haughville” who “were shooting at
him” and that he “didn’t know what to do so he came to the cops for help.” Id.
at 158. He repeatedly asked, “[I]f I shot her, why would I bring her here? Why
would I bring her here?” Id. at 148. Police had received no reports of shots
being fired in Haughville and found no evidence to support Smith’s claim that
he had been chased and shot at. A forensic expert tested five impact sites on the
truck’s windshield, three of which were consistent with bullets being fired from
inside the truck and two of which were inconclusive. 2 Police searched Smith’s
truck and found $30,000 in cash, marijuana, an unfired .380-caliber cartridge, a
.380-caliber shell casing that had been fired from Smith’s handgun, and
Knowles’s cell phone.
[8] Knowles later died as a result of the shooting. Three .22-caliber bullets were
recovered from her skull, all of which had been fired from the same weapon.
2
The shattered passenger’s window broke apart when the truck was towed to be searched pursuant to a
warrant.
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The small circular entry wounds were consistent with the bullets not
penetrating a hard surface before they pierced her skull. The State’s firearms
expert was unable to match the bullets to the .22-caliber shell casings because
they “don’t do that at [her] laboratory.” Id. at 279.
[9] The State charged Smith with murder, carrying a handgun without a license,
and marijuana possession. Smith represented himself at trial. A jury found
him guilty as charged. This appeal followed.
Discussion and Decision
[10] The State alleged that Smith committed murder by knowingly killing Knowles.
Appellant’s App. at 24; Ind. Code § 35-42-1-1. Smith claims that the State
failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was the person who killed
Knowles. Our standard of reviewing challenges to the sufficiency of the
evidence is well settled. “When reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, we
consider only the probative evidence and reasonable inferences supporting the
verdict. We do not reweigh the evidence or assess witness credibility.” Wilson
v. State, 39 N.E.3d 705, 716 (Ind. Ct. App. 2015) (citation omitted), trans. denied.
“We will affirm the conviction unless no reasonable fact-finder could find the
elements of the crime proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. “A conviction
may be based upon circumstantial evidence alone.” Id. “It is not necessary that
the evidence overcome every reasonable hypothesis of innocence. The evidence
is sufficient if an inference may reasonably be drawn from it to support the
verdict.” Id. (citation omitted). Testimony tending to show a defendant’s
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attempt to conceal incriminating evidence or to manufacture exculpatory
evidence may be considered by the jury as evidence of consciousness of guilt.
Hughes v. State, 546 N.E.2d 1203, 1208 (Ind. 1989).
[11] Smith essentially claims that his conviction is based on speculation: “while
[the] State did present evidence that Ms. Knowles was killed by .22 caliber
bullets, it presented no evidence that Smith ever touched or had access to any
.22, let alone the .22 that killed Ms. Knowles – a gun the State failed to produce
at trial.” Appellant’s Br. at 14. Based on the circumstantial evidence and
reasonable inferences most favorable to the jury’s verdict, a reasonable finder of
fact could conclude as follows: Smith, who had pulled a gun on Knowles
before, shot her in the head three times with her .22-caliber handgun, which her
brother had brought her the day before. Smith also fired at least three shots
through the truck’s windshield to make it look like she had been shot by
someone outside the vehicle, but the forensic evidence indicates otherwise.
Smith discarded Knowles’s handgun and at least one .22-caliber shell casing but
overlooked the two that were later found in the truck. 3 Pastor Churchwell saw
Smith’s truck with a damaged windshield and passenger’s window two hours
before Smith arrived at the City-County Building, and no evidence was found
to support Smith’s claim that he had been chased and shot at while driving in
Haughville. Based on the foregoing, we conclude that there is ample
circumstantial evidence from which a reasonable inference could be drawn to
3
The State points out that “[i]t is highly improbable if not impossible for two shell casings shot from another
moving vehicle to land inside Smith’s truck.” Appellee’s Br. at 17.
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support the jury’s guilty verdict. Therefore, we affirm Smith’s murder
conviction.
[12] Affirmed.
Riley, J., and Altice, J., concur.
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