State of Minnesota v. Jonathan Joseph Corbett

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2012).
STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A14-0290
State of Minnesota,
Respondent,
vs.
Jonathan Joseph Corbett,
Appellant.
Filed December 15, 2014
Affirmed
Stoneburner, Judge
Ramsey County District Court
File No. 62-CR-12-7811
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and
John J. Choi, Ramsey County Attorney, Thomas R. Ragatz, Assistant County Attorney,
St. Paul, Minnesota (for respondent)
Julie Loftus Nelson, Nelson Criminal Defense & Appeals, PLLC, Minneapolis,
Minnesota (for appellant)
Considered and decided by Schellhas, Presiding Judge; Johnson, Judge; and
Stoneburner, Judge.

Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to
Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
STONEBURNER, Judge
Appellant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support his convictions of
second-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault, and second-
degree assault, arguing that the testimony of the eyewitnesses was unreliable. We affirm.
FACTS
On September 21, 2012, several people who were at a residence at 597 Thomas
Avenue in Saint Paul witnessed two separate incidents involving two men with guns.
One of the men was known to the witnesses as Carl Wilks, a resident of 598 Thomas
Avenue, located across the street from 597 Thomas Avenue. Appellant Jonathan Joseph
Corbett challenges the witnesses’ identification of him as the other man involved in the
incidents.
The first incident occurred in the late afternoon when a group of people were
preparing for a party at 597 Thomas Avenue, the home of Shermicia Dancy and Michael
Henderson. In addition to Shermicia Dancy and Henderson, the group included
Christopher Redmon, Crystal Dancy, Crystal Dancy’s child A.D., and Kimberly Turnage.
Crystal Dancy and A.D. went across the street, to 598 Thomas Avenue, to see a
newborn baby. A half-hour later, A.D. ran back to 597 Thomas Avenue and said that
Crystal Dancy was in danger. Redmon, Shermicia Dancy, Henderson, and Turnage went
to 598 Thomas Avenue and knocked on the door. The door was opened, then slammed
shut, then reopened with two men pointing guns at Redmon’s face. Redmon was two feet
away from the men. He recognized one man as Carl Wilks, a resident of 598 Thomas
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Avenue. Turnage, who was about 12 feet from the door, with no one in between, looked
at the scene for about a minute before returning to 597 Thomas Avenue. Eventually
everyone from 597 Thomas Avenue returned there.
More people arrived at 597 Thomas Avenue for the party, including Sheila Cook,
Marcus Cook, Kasmira Cummings, Derrick Dumas, and Bryant Dumas. Later Wilks and
another man came to 597 Thomas Avenue uninvited. Henderson escorted Wilks out of
the house and argued with him in front of the house. Turnage, Redmon, the Cooks, and
the Dumases were on the front lawn. The man who accompanied Wilks remained nearby
and at some point began firing a gun into the crowd. Henderson was shot and later died
from his injuries; Derrick Dumas and Bryant Dumas were each shot multiple times.
Marcus Cook was injured by a bullet that grazed him. The shooter left the scene.
Police arrived at the scene. Officer Joseph Higgens was given descriptions of the
shooter by three people, all of whom described the shooter as a black male, light-skinned,
between the ages of 18 and 24, with dreadlocks. Someone gave Corbett’s name as the
suspect. The investigators created a photo lineup that included Corbett’s photograph.
Turnage, who was at the hospital with her sons Derrick and Bryant Dumas,
viewed the photo lineup at about 2:30 a.m. on September 22, 2012. Officer Paul
Dunnom, who showed Turnage the lineup, was not aware of which photograph in the
lineup was an identified suspect. Turnage picked Corbett’s photograph out of the lineup
as the shooter and as the person involved with Wilks in the earlier incident. Turnage said
that she was 50 percent certain of the identification.
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At about 2:45 a.m. on September 22, 2012, Officer Dunnom showed the lineup
to Redmon, who also picked Corbett’s photograph and identified him as the person who
had held a gun to his face earlier in the day and as the shooter. Redmon stated that he
was 100 percent certain of his identification.
Corbett was charged with second-degree murder of Henderson, attempted second-
degree murder of Derrick Dumas, Bryant Dumas, and Marcus Cook, first-degree assault
of Derrick Dumas and second-degree assault of Bryant Dumas and Marcus Cook.
Corbett moved to suppress the results of the photo lineup identifications. The district
court denied the motion, finding that the photo lineups were administered non-
suggestively and according to proper protocol.
At Corbett’s September 2012 jury trial, both Redmon and Turnage identified
Corbett as the shooter. At trial, Turnage increased her confidence in the identification to
95 percent. The jury found Corbett guilty of all charges except attempted second-degree
murder of Marcus Cook. The district court entered convictions on the guilty verdicts and
sentenced Corbett to 479 months in prison. This appeal followed.
DECISION
Corbett argues that the identification evidence is insufficient to support his
convictions. An appellate court reviews a sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge to
“determine whether the evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to the
conviction, was sufficient to allow a jury to reach a guilty verdict.” State v. Hurd, 819
N.W.2d 591, 598 (Minn. 2012). A guilty verdict will not be overturned if the jury, acting
with due regard for the presumption of innocence and the requirement of proof beyond a
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reasonable doubt, could reasonably conclude that the defendant is guilty of the charged
offense. Bernhardt v. State, 684 N.W.2d 465, 476-77 (Minn. 2004).
Identification of the perpetrator is a question of fact determined by the jury. State
v. Miles, 585 N.W.2d 368, 373 (Minn. 1998). The jury determines the weight and
credibility of each witness’s testimony, and the testimony of a single credible witness can
support a conviction. Id.The court instructed the jury to evaluate the weight and credibility of eyewitness
identification by considering:
the opportunity of the witness to see the person at the time of
the alleged offense, the length of time the person was in the
witness’ view, the circumstances of that view including light
conditions and distance involved, the stress the witness was
under at the time, . . . the lapse of time between the alleged
offense and the identification[, and] whether . . . in this trial
the witness’ memory is affected by [an] earlier identification.
10 Minnesota Practice, CRIMJIG 3.19 (2006); see State v. Lindsey, 632 N.W.2d 652,
662 (Minn. 2001) (quoting this language with approval).
On appeal, Corbett’s only argument is that identification testimony of Turnage and
Redmon is not credible, citing Justice Wahl’s concurring opinion in State v. Lee, 266
N.W.2d 181, 182 (Minn. 1978) (Wahl, J., concurring), for the proposition that “where the
only evidence connecting the defendant to the crime is the eyewitness identification
testimony, [the case] must be carefully scrutinized.” Corbett argues that social science
studies have shown that eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of
wrongful convictions in the United States, citing H. Patrick Furman, Wrongful
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Convictions and the Accuracy of the Criminal Justice System, Colo. Law., Sept. 2003, at
14.
Corbett argues that (1) neither witness had a good opportunity to view the shooter;
(2) their identifications were “likely clouded” by the incident earlier in the day; (3) their
identifications of Corbett as involved in the earlier incident are not reliable; (4) the level
of stress the witnesses were under makes the identifications unreliable; and (5) the
witnesses’ level of confidence in their identifications is irrelevant. But “[a]ny details
affecting the reliability of the testimony, such as the opportunity of the witness to observe
the defendant at the time in question, go to the weight the trier of fact should give to the
testimony, not to its admissibility.” State v. Mosley, 853 N.W.2d 789, 798 (Minn. 2014).
Here the jurors, who also heard testimony about other witnesses’ descriptions of the
shooter, found Turnage’s and Redmon’s identifications credible, and we defer to that
credibility determination. See id. (“The testimony of an eyewitness that the accused is
the person who committed the crime is a legitimate means of proving a defendant’s
guilt.”).
Affirmed.
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