State of Iowa v. Quarzone Erikey Martin ( 2020 )

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 18-0268
Filed July 1, 2020
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
QUARZONE ERIKEY MARTIN,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Linn County, Patrick R. Grady,
Judge.
Quarzone Erikdey Martin appeals from convictions for second-degree
murder, willful injury causing serious injury, and going armed with intent.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
John W. Pilkington of Nidey Erdahl Fisher Pilkington & Meier, PLC,
Marengo, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Bridget A. Chambers, Assistant
Attorney General, for appellee.
Considered by Bower, C.J., and Doyle and Schumacher, JJ.
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BOWER, Chief Judge.
Quarzone Erikdey Martin appeals from convictions for second-degree
murder, willful injury causing serious injury, and going armed with intent. He
contends the trial court erred in instructing the jury with respect to Iowa Code
section 704.2B (2017) and abused its discretion in excluding evidence of the
decedent’s violent character and denying his motion for mistrial. Finding the first
issue dispositive, we reverse and remand for new trial.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings.
Martin admitted that on July 2, 2017, he shot Johnny Moore Jr. and Andrew
Meeks in the course of what started out as an arranged sale of a controlled
substance; Martin was to sell and Meeks was to purchase 300 tablets of Xanax.
Meeks died of his gunshot, but Moore survived his injuries. Martin was charged
with first-degree murder, willful injury causing serious injury, and going armed with
intent. Martin claimed that he acted in self-defense.
At trial, evidence was presented that on July 1, 2017, Meeks contacted
Martin to purchase thirty to forty Xanax1 pills for $5.00 per pill. Martin and Meeks
had not met before. Martin and Meeks arranged to meet in the Walmart parking
lot on the southwest side of Cedar Rapids to complete this transaction. Upon
meeting at the Walmart parking lot, Meeks had Martin get into the front passenger
1 The generic name is alprazolam—a medication used to treat panic and anxiety
disorders—and it “belongs to a class of medications called benzodiazepines which
act on the brain and nerves . . . to produce a calming effect.” Xanax, WebMD,
https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-9824/xanax-oral/details (last visited June
24, 2020).
3
seat of his vehicle to complete the sale. The transaction was completed without
incident.
On July 2, Meeks and Moore were together at Meeks’s apartment he shared
with his girlfriend, Carryne Olds. Meeks was drinking a mixture of juice and Xanax.
He was looking for more Xanax and became angry with Olds when he found out
she had taken some of the pills. Olds said she had money to buy some more, and
Meeks contacted Martin to purchase 300 Xanax pills for $4.00 per pill. Meeks took
about $600 from Olds, and he and Moore then drove to the Walmart in Olds’s black
Ford Fusion.
Moore testified that before he and Meeks left the apartment, he asked
Meeks if he was “going to actually spend the money or was he just going to go,
you know, do something. And he told me no, that we wasn’t doing that, we was
just going to get the pills and then we was going to have a good time and hang
out.” When Moore was asked why he had that conversation with Meeks, Moore
responded, “if that’s the plan, then if I need to protect myself or protect him” and
would have taken a gun. Moore stated they did not take guns with them.
When Meeks and Moore arrived at Walmart, they parked for a time. Martin
arrived with four others in a tan Buick Rendezvous, and Martin came to Meeks’s
vehicle. Meeks told Moore to get into the back seat and told Martin to get in the
front seat.
Meeks, Moore, and Martin drove to another, less traveled, part of the
parking lot and backed into a parking space. Store surveillance video shows
Martin getting out of the vehicle very briefly and then getting back in and Meeks’s
vehicle moving forward. Video from another angle shows Meeks’s vehicle
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traveling across the parking lot into a barrier. Meeks falls out or bails out of the
moving vehicle before the vehicle strikes the barrier. He gets up and returns to the
car. Meanwhile, the front passenger door opens and Martin runs away. The rear
passenger door opens moments later and Moore gets out slowly, approaches the
rear of the vehicle, and leans over the trunk. Meeks died of gunshot injuries, and
Moore suffered a gunshot to the chest that travelled through the front seat before
striking him.
Moore testified that while he, Meeks, and Martin were parked, Martin
presented Meeks with a bag of pills, and Meeks asked Moore to count them to
make sure they were all there. While Moore was counting the pills, Meeks
removed the money from the center console and started to count the money.
Moore stated the pills were “short” and handed them back to Meeks. Meeks told
Martin he wasn’t interested, gave the pills back to Martin, and placed the money
on the center console. Moore testified Martin tried to get Meeks to buy the pills
and “the next time that he come back that he would give him extra.” Martin stepped
out of the vehicle briefly, Meeks put the car in gear and had his foot on the brake,
and then Martin “hopped back in the car.” When Martin got back in the car, Moore
testified he was pointing a handgun at Meeks. Meeks tried to drive, and Meeks
and Martin were “tussling.” Moore stated he “froze up” and just sat in the rear seat.
Martin then fired a shot at Meeks, the car hit the rail, and Martin turned around and
shot Moore. Moore did not remember what happened next until he opened his
eyes and Meeks was in the front seat telling him they had to get out of the car.
Moore was able to get out of the car but realized he had been shot and could not
breath. He called 911 after seeing Meeks fall over and not get back up.
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Moore was cross-examined about other statements he had given to police.
On July 3, while in the hospital, Moore first told police he and Meeks were shot
because they would not give Martin a ride. He then said Meeks needed more
Xanax and had come up with a plan to rob Martin of the pills by pulling a “drug rip,”
i.e., taking drugs or money from the seller rather than purchasing drugs at an
arranged buy. While they were at Walmart, they stopped at a fireworks stand and
Olds called Meeks, telling him not to spend the $600 in Olds’s car console because
it was rent money. Moore told the officer on July 3 that he got shot because he
was trying to push Martin out of the car.
On October 2, Moore went to the police and gave another statement more
in line with his trial testimony.
Defense counsel questioned Moore extensively about his earliest
statements to police about Meeks’s plan to take the pills from Martin by tricking
him into getting out of the car and driving off and how the surveillance video
supported that version of events rather than Moore’s trial testimony. For example:
Q. But that backing in makes it easier to do a robbery, doesn’t
it? A. No.
Q. It doesn’t? A. No.
Q. Because if you back into the spot and you trick a guy out
of a car, then you can just pull off? A. That wasn’t the case.
Q. That’s exactly what happened. A. No.
Q. On the video, the guy gets out and then his head goes
down and then the car takes off with the door open? A. With the
person hopping back in the car with a gun, yes.
Q. It didn’t work, but that’s what you were trying to do? A. No,
it wasn’t.
....
Q. That Andrew, who was willing to put hands on Carryne over
Xans, who was searching high and low in his house for Xans and
now he has Xans in his life and cash in the console and he’s not
going to buy some Xans? A. No, because they was short.
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Q. Because there were only [seventy]? A. Yeah. It wasn’t all
there.
Q. There was 200 in those other bags? A. I don’t know what
was in the other bag. Like I said, I only counted the one bag. . . .
....
Q. So you had cash in the car? A. Yes.
Q. And Andrew had Xans in his lap, right? Right? A. Yes.
Q. And he gives the Xans back, says I don’t want these?
A. Yes.
Q. And then for some unknown reason that you can’t even
explain today, the guy gets upset and pulls out a gun? A. I guess.
Q. Well, that’s your story, isn’t it? A. Yes.
Q. Because he could just sell these Xans to somebody else if
he wanted to, right? A. He could.
Jacob Steinberg testified he was driving north through the Walmart parking
lot on July 2 when he noticed a car going south.
And I noticed the back door was open kind of swinging around, it
looked like, and it then shut and they were just driving away. It looked
like there was a slight struggle between the people in the passenger
seat back and front.
Q. And could you tell how many people were in this vehicle?
A. Three.
Q. Three. And as you came close to the vehicle, you said that
you observed a struggle between the three individuals in the vehicle?
A. It was more of a struggle between the front passenger and the
rear passenger.
Q. Could you see what type of struggle, or can you describe
it a little bit more detail to— A. It just looked like they were having
more of a physical altercation in the vehicle.
Steinberg also testified he heard gunshots coming from the direction of the car.
The defense sought to question witnesses about Olds’s statements whether
Meeks had been involved in a drug rip before the altercation with Martin. Martin
argued Meeks’s character for violence was relevant to his justification defense
whether or not Martin was aware of the earlier event. The district court excluded
the evidence.
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Investigator Matthew Denlinger testified he had interviewed Olds on July 3.
Olds told him she overheard Meeks and Moore talking about purchasing Xanax
pills and the plan was they would go buy pills, Meeks would drive, Moore would sit
in the back seat and count the money, and they would say something or do
something to trick the seller out of the car and then drive away. On cross-
examination, Investigator Denlinger testified that the video recordings of the events
of July 3 “really looked like a drug rip. But I’m kind of open to the possibility that it
was and I’m open to the possibility that maybe it wasn’t.”
Martin testified in his own defense. He stated that after he got into Meeks’s
vehicle and they parked, he pulled out three bags of Xanax pills, each containing
approximately 100 pills. He tried to hand the pills to Meeks but Meeks said “they
wasn’t for him, they was for the guy in the back seat.” Martin testified, “When I
gave them to the guy in the back seat, he said no offense, I just want to make sure
they all here. And I said no problem and everything. That’s what I—I asked him
where the money is so I can count that also.” Martin testified Moore then started
looking around and said he had dropped his wallet and asked Martin to look around
the front passenger seat because that is where he had been sitting. Martin then
got out of the car to search under the seat. While he was leaning over, he felt the
car move and “knew something was up.” He tried to get back in the car “[b]ecause
my pills was in the car” and he was afraid of falling out of the now moving vehicle.
Martin testified, “[A]s soon as I get back in the car, [Meeks] is reaching over trying
to shove me out of the car and Mr. Moore is coming over the middle console to
help him.”
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Martin acknowledged he was armed with a nine millimeter Luger for
protection. However, he testified he did not have the gun in his hand when he got
back in the car, “I was just holding onto whatever I could to not fall out of the car.”
Martin testified:
But as soon as the door closed, that’s when [Meeks] immediately
started to punch me. He abandoned the wheel. He stopped driving.
Q. When you got your gun out then, what was your intent while
they were beating on you? When you got your gun out, what was
your intent at that time? A. To just get them off to get control of the
situation.
Q. Did it concern you at all that the car wasn’t being driven?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you afraid? A. Yes, because anything could have
happened. We—He wasn’t paying attention to the road, I couldn’t
pay attention to the road and Mr. Moore definitely wasn’t paying
attention to the road. They was too—They were just beating me.
Q. So you went and got your gun? A. Yes.
Q. And what were you going to do with that gun when you got
ahold of it? A. I was—I just brought it out to—at least I thought they
was going to stop, and I shot.
Q. Did they stop? A. No.
Q. And what did you do? A. I shot Mr. Meeks.
Q. Where did you shoot Mr. Meeks? A. I’m not sure exactly.
Q. Were you aiming or were you just shooting? A. I was just
shooting.
Q. What happened when you fired that first shot? A. When I
shot Mr. Meeks, he fell back in the seat and grabbed at I guess where
I shot him at.
Q. All right. And how long between that shot and your second
shot? A. I turned immediately around and shot Mr. Moore also.
Q. And he was behind you? A. Yes. He was still over the
middle console.
Moore yelled, “don’t kill me” and tried to throw the pills toward Martin. The car then
hit the guardrail.
Martin did not fire any more shots. He got out and ran away, grabbing his
cellphone from his lap and “whatever pills was in my area.”
Q. If you had wanted to shoot these guys any more, would
you have done that? A. Yes.
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Q. Did you want to kill them? A. No.
Q. What was your purpose in shooting Mr. Meeks? A. My
purpose in shooting Mr. Meeks was because I feared for my life. I
was trapped in a car that was—they was just beating me.
Q. Did it concern you that the car was not being driven?
A. Yes. That also concerned me, but like I didn’t know—I didn’t know
what was going on. It just happened so fast.
Q. And what was your purpose in shooting Mr. Moore?
A. Because he was also beating me. He was also over beating me
and everything. And it just happened so fast, I just was trying to
protect myself.
Q. So this wasn’t a shooting because you got mad when they
didn’t want to buy your pills? A. No. They never said they wanted to
not buy any pills, no.
On cross-examination, the State asked Martin about his drug use:
Q. . . . Do you take pills yourself? A. I used to.
Q. Did you take Xanax? A. No.
Q. What pills did you take? A. I used to pop Ecstasy.
Q. Pop what? A. Ecstasy.
Q. Did you do any other drugs?
The defense then sought a sidebar. Outside the presence of the jury, the defense
moved for a mistrial. The district court ruled:
Arguably given the context but his familiarity with Xanax would be
within the scope of what was—his testimony was, and that was not
objected to and I think that’s—that was fair game. I do think it was a
bit over the edge to ask him about other drugs. However, we have
a case here where the defendant has already admitted to selling
drugs, which is what I believe separates itself from [cases cited by
defense counsel], as I don’t remember there being an issue of drug
dealing in either one of those.
Nonetheless, the court concluded, “[I]n this instance I don’t think it’s harmful to the
point where a mistrial is necessary.”
Over Martin’s objection, with regard to Martin’s justification defense, the
district court instructed the jury:
Effective July 1, 2017, Iowa law provides the following:
(1) If a person uses deadly force, the person shall notify or
cause another to notify a law enforcement agency about the person’s
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use of deadly force within a reasonable time period after the person’s
use of the deadly force, if the person or another person is capable of
providing such notification.
(2) The person using deadly force shall not intentionally
destroy, alter, conceal, or disguise physical evidence relating to the
person’s use of deadly force, and the person shall not intentionally
intimidate witnesses into refusing to cooperate with any investigation
relating to the use of such deadly force or induce another person to
alter testimony about the use of such deadly force.
The failure to comply with these requirements does not, by
itself, mean a person was not justified. However, you may consider
the Defendant’s compliance or lack of compliance with these
requirements to determine if he acted reasonably when he shot
Andrew Meeks and Johnny Moore.
On count 1, the jury found Martin guilty of the lesser-included offense of
second-degree murder, and guilty as charged on count 2, willful injury causing
serious injury, and count 3, going armed with intent.
Martin appeals, asserting the court erred in instructing the jury, abused its
discretion in rejecting the evidence as to Meeks’s violent character, and in denying
his motion for mistrial.
II. Scope and Standards of Review.
“We review rulings on questions of statutory interpretation for correction of
errors at law.” State v. Williams, 929 N.W.2d 621, 629 (Iowa 2019) (citation
omitted). We review constitutional claims de novo. Id. at 628.
III. Discussion.
Iowa Code section 704.3 provides, “A person is justified in the use of
reasonable force when the person reasonably believes that such force is
necessary to defend oneself or another from any actual or imminent use of
unlawful force.” The term “reasonable force” is defined in section 704.1(1) as
that force and no more which a reasonable person, in like
circumstances, would judge to be necessary to prevent an injury or
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loss and can include deadly force if it is reasonable to believe that
such force is necessary to avoid injury or risk to one’s life or safety
or the life or safety of another, or it is reasonable to believe that such
force is necessary to resist a like force or threat.
Subsection 2 states, “A person may be wrong in the estimation of the danger or
the force necessary to repel the danger as long as there is a reasonable basis for
the belief of the person and the person acts reasonably in the response to that
belief.” Iowa Code § 704.1(2). “Deadly force” is defined in section 704.2.
Iowa’s new “Stand Your Ground” law—which took effect the day before
Martin’s shooting of Meeks and Moore—creates a presumption that a person
reasonably believes deadly force is necessary under certain circumstances:
(1) For purposes of this chapter, a person is presumed to reasonably
believe that deadly force is necessary to avoid injury or risk to one’s
life or safety or the life or safety of another in either of the following
circumstances:
(a) The person against whom force is used, at the time the
force is used, is doing any of the following:
(1) Unlawfully entering by force or stealth the
dwelling, place of business or employment, or
occupied vehicle of the person using force, or has
unlawfully entered by force or stealth and remains
within the dwelling, place of business or employment,
or occupied vehicle of the person using force.
(2) Unlawfully removing or is attempting to
unlawfully remove another person against the other
person’s will from the dwelling, place of business or
employment, or occupied vehicle of the person using
force.
(b) The person using force knows or has reason to believe
that any of the conditions set forth in paragraph “a” are occurring.
(2) The presumption set forth in subsection 1 does not apply
if, at the time force is used, any of the following circumstances are
present:
(a) The person using defensive force is engaged in a criminal
offense, is attempting to escape from the scene of a criminal offense
that the person has committed, or is using the dwelling, place of
business or employment, or occupied vehicle to further a criminal
offense.
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(b) The person sought to be removed is a child or grandchild
or is otherwise in the lawful custody or under the lawful guardianship
of the person against whom force is used.
(c) The person against whom force is used is a peace officer
who has entered or is attempting to enter a dwelling, place of
business or employment, or occupied vehicle in the lawful
performance of the peace officer’s official duties.
(d) The person against whom the force is used has the right
to be in, or is a lawful resident of, the dwelling, place of business or
employment, or occupied vehicle of the person using force, and a
protective or no-contact order is not in effect against the person
against whom the force is used.
Iowa Code § 704.2A.
Martin elected not to assert a defense using Iowa Code section 704.2A, but
he argued he acted in self-defense after the alleged victims began beating him
with their fists and driving the car in an uncontrolled manner. Nonetheless, over
Martin’s objection, the district court submitted jury instruction 57, which contained
verbatim the provisions of Iowa Code section 704.2B:
(1) If a person uses deadly force, the person shall notify or
cause another to notify a law enforcement agency about the person’s
use of deadly force within a reasonable time period after the person’s
use of the deadly force, if the person or another person is capable of
providing such notification.
(2) The person using deadly force shall not intentionally
destroy, alter, conceal, or disguise physical evidence relating to the
person’s use of deadly force, and the person shall not intentionally
intimidate witnesses into refusing to cooperate with any investigation
relating to the use of such deadly force or induce another person to
alter testimony about the use of such deadly force.
The instruction also contained an additional paragraph:
The failure to comply with these requirements does not, by itself,
mean a person was not justified. However, you may consider the
Defendant’s compliance or lack of compliance with these
requirements to determine if he believed he acted reasonably when
he shot Andrew Meeks and Johnny Moore.
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Martin contends the trial court erred in submitting this instruction and he
was prejudiced by it because he did not report the shooting incident to authorities
and tossed the gun in a river after the shooting. He asserts the legislature did not
intend section 704.2B to apply to all instances of deadly force. Rather, he argues
an instruction concerning the duties set forth in section 704.2B would only be
appropriate where a defendant is asserting justification under the new presumption
of reasonableness in one of the circumstances set forth in section 704.2A(1). He
observes the statutes were enacted together as part of the new “stand your
ground” legislation. He asserts the legislature, in broadening the acceptable use
of deadly force through section 704.2A, enacted section 704.2B to limit those new
provisions rather than limit the pre-existing law on self-defense. He also contends
applying it under the circumstances of his case would violate his Fifth Amendment
rights against self-incrimination. We need only address Martin’s Fifth Amendment
claim as it is dispositive.
Our supreme court has recently held a jury instruction implementing section
704.2B and authorizing an inference of guilt in a murder case because the
defendant breached a legal duty to make a report “unconstitutionally penalizes the
defendant’s silence and is therefore improper to use in all cases.” State v. Gibbs,
941 N.W.2d 888, 901 (Iowa 2020). Here, the trial court submitted an improper jury
instruction not having the benefit of the Gibbs case. Consequently, reversal is
required unless error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See id. at 900.
In Gibbs, the court found error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt
because “[t]he evidence of guilt was overwhelming”:
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This was the rare murder case where the murder was captured on
[law enforcement] video. The video shows Gibbs entering the scene
and shooting at Wessels as Wessels is backing up, withdrawing, and
disengaging. Other eyewitnesses corroborated the video. Even
when Gibbs was confronted with the video’s existence, Gibbs
repeatedly lied, denying he was the shooter. Gibbs also dissembled
about his clothing and tried to lead the police astray by giving them
a cell phone he had not been using for months.
Id. We cannot say the same here because there is not overwhelming evidence of
Martin’s guilt or that he did not act in self-defense. Consequently, we reverse and
remand for a new trial.2
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
2We also observe the supreme court has recently held, “[A] defendant asserting
self-defense or justification may not prove the victim’s aggressive or violent
character by specific conduct of the victim unless the conduct was previously
known to the defendant.” Williams, 929 N.W.2d at 636.