Banks v. State

51 So. 3d 386, 2010 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 3, 2010 WL 415242
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Alabama
DecidedFebruary 5, 2010
DocketCR-08-0769
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 51 So. 3d 386 (Banks v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Banks v. State, 51 So. 3d 386, 2010 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 3, 2010 WL 415242 (Ala. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

MAIN, Judge.

Fredrick Darnell Banks was convicted of first-degree robbery, a violation of § 13A-8^11(a)(l), Ala.Code 1975. The trial court sentenced Banks to life imprisonment. This appeal followed.

Patty Thompkins, an employee of a Winn-Dixie grocery store in Mobile County, testified that on January 23, 2008, she was working at the store and noticed a black male, later identified as Banks, wearing dark clothing enter the store at approximately 11:30 p.m. Thompkins stated that she felt uneasy about the male. He walked around the store with one item, a bag of dog food, in his buggy and continuously talked on his cellular telephone. When he approached Thompkins’s checkout register, he no longer had the dog food in his buggy. Instead, he held a soft drink and continued to talk on his telephone. Thompkins asked him for his Winn-Dixie reward card. He provided Thompkins with a phone number instead, which Thompkins used to access his card. While she was ringing up his soda purchase, Thompkins noticed his earrings which were “praying hands.” After the sale, he remained in the store, standing between the register and the front door.

Meanwhile, another customer, later identified as Dustin Alston, entered the store and stood in line at Thompkins’s register. Alston asked for cigarettes, and Thompkins walked toward the customer-service counter to get them. As she returned from the customer-service counter, she saw two masked black men carrying guns entering the store.

Thompkins attempted to flee the store, but the two masked men grabbed her at gunpoint, asking for the manager. Meanwhile, Banks held a gun to Alston’s head. The store manager, Michael Bjorensen, who was on the ground by the self-checkout lanes, stood up, and the masked men took Thompkins and him at gunpoint to the store office. The men threatened the office manager, Denise Bourg, to open the office door or they would shoot Thompkins and Bjorensen.

Thereafter, the men forced Thompkins, Bjorensen, and Bourg, along with Alston, to lie on the ground. The men took cash from the store safe, and then brought another employee, Ronald Sutton, who had been working in the rear of the store, into the office. After the men left the store, the office manager telephoned emergency 911. The men took over $16,000 from the store during the robbery.

Detective David Marston of the City of Mobile Police Department investigated the robbery. Based upon the Winn Dixie reward account used by Banks on the evening of the robbery, Detective Marston searched for Banks as a potential suspect. [388]*388Several days after the robbery, on January 30, 2008, officers detained Banks when they came upon his vehicle, a white Cadillac, broken down and in the middle of a road. After waiving his Miranda1 rights, Banks told Detective Marston that he had never been inside the Winn-Dixie grocery store. He later admitted that he was at the store on the evening of January 28, 2008, “but did not see anything.” (R. 337.) During the interview, Banks wore the “praying hands” earrings that Thompkins had noticed on the evening of the robbery.

Detective Marston obtained a search warrant for Banks’s vehicle. The search resulted in the seizure of two photographs of Banks, a black jacket, and pants, where a money wrapper marked with the address and number of the Winn-Dixie grocery store where the robbery took place was found inside one of the pockets. The officers found no money or guns in the vehicle.

Sheri Banks, Banks’s mother, testified that a few days before his arrest, Banks telephoned her and told her that a man had pulled a gun on him. She instructed him to call the police. After receiving the telephone call from her son, she went to her sister’s house and telephoned the police. When the police arrived at Sheri Banks’s sister’s house, the officer prepared an incident report. She testified that Banks also reported the incident to the police.

I.

Banks first argues that the trial court erred in prohibiting him from introducing into evidence an incident report for menacing he filed after the robbery; the evidence, he said, related to the issue of flight. Banks moved to admit the incident report, which he argued showed that someone had threatened him with a gun on January 28, 2008, several days after the January 23, 2008, robbery at the Winn Dixie store, but before he was arrested on January 30, 2008, because he claimed that it was admissible to rebut the State’s evidence that he was eluding the police following the robbery at the Winn Dixie grocery store. We conclude that the trial court did not exceed its discretion in refusing to admit the January 28, 2008, incident report.

“ ‘ “The admission or exclusion of evidence is a matter within the sound discretion of the trial court.” Taylor v. State, 808 So.2d 1148, 1191 (Ala.Crim.App.2000), aff'd, 808 So.2d 1215 (Ala.2001). “The question of admissibility of evidence is generally left to the discretion of the trial court, and the trial court’s determination on that question will not be reversed except upon a clear showing of abuse of discretion.” Ex parte Loggins, 771 So.2d 1093, 1103 (Ala.2000). In addition, “[tjrial courts are vested with considerable discretion in determining whether evidence is relevant, and such a determination will not be reversed absent plain error or an abuse of discretion.” Hayes v. State, 717 So.2d 30, 36 (Ala.Crim.App.1997).’
“Gavin v. State, 891 So.2d 907, 963 (Ala.Crim.App.2003).”

Woods v. State, 13 So.3d 1, 23 (Ala.Crim.App.2007).

Rule 401, Ala.R.Evid., defines relevant evidence as “evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.” Although relevant evidence is admissible, Rule 402, Ala.R.Evid., it “may be excluded [389]*389if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence.” Rule 403, Ala. R.Evid.

Banks’s mother testified that on January 28, 2008, five days after the robbery at the Winn-Dixie grocery store, she initiated the filing of an incident report because her son told her that someone had pulled a gun on him and threatened to shoot him. Sheri Banks further testified that her son, Banks, gave his rendition of the events for the report. After Sheri Banks testified and was cross-examined, Banks moved to admit the incident report into evidence. Defense counsel argued that the incident report was relevant to negate that Banks was on the run after the Winn-Dixie robbery. Defense counsel also argued that the incident report showed that law-enforcement officers had spoken to Banks prior to his arrest for the Winn-Dixie robbery. Before Sheri Banks testified, the State argued that the incident report was not relevant. The trial court found that the incident report was inadmissible and only bolstered Sheri Banks’s testimony. (R. 381, 384.)

In this case, the incident report was cumulative of Sheri Banks’s testimony. See Smith v. State, 745 So.2d 922, 936 (Ala.Crim.App.1999) (stating that the exclusion of admissible evidence does not constitute reversible error when the evidence would have been merely cumulative of other evidence of the same nature that was admitted).

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Related

R.V.D. v. State
268 So. 3d 96 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama, 2018)
Green v. State
200 So. 3d 677 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama, 2015)
Derrick Lashawn Thompson v. State of Alabama.
92 So. 3d 801 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama, 2011)

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Bluebook (online)
51 So. 3d 386, 2010 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 3, 2010 WL 415242, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/banks-v-state-alacrimapp-2010.