Benton v. State

691 N.E.2d 459, 1998 Ind. App. LEXIS 85, 1998 WL 43263
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 5, 1998
Docket49A04-9701-CR-29
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 691 N.E.2d 459 (Benton v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Benton v. State, 691 N.E.2d 459, 1998 Ind. App. LEXIS 85, 1998 WL 43263 (Ind. Ct. App. 1998).

Opinions

OPINION

DARDEN, Judge.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

Randy E. Benton appeals his convictions by jury of robbery as a class B felony and burglary as a class A felony and his sentence thereon. We affirm.

ISSUES

1. Whether evidence was erroneously admitted.

2. Whether sufficient evidence supports the convictions.

3. Whether Benton was erroneously sentenced.

FACTS

Randy Benton lived with his girlfriend Lisa White in her apartment on the near-east side of Indianapolis. At about 10:00 p.m. on the night of October 20,1995, Benton left the apartment driving White’s brown Chevrolet sedan. Sue Nevins lived in a mobile home near the intersection of East 52nd Street and [462]*462Mitthoeffer Road. She let her dogs out into the yard about 11:00 that night, and as she exited the mobile home she heard a ear door. When the dogs started barking, she went into the backyard and from there saw a ear parked in the grass on her side of 52nd Street. She saw two men walking away from the car toward Mitthoeffer. Thinking this “didn’t look right,” (R. 173), she went back inside and informed her fiancé, Phillip Scott, about the car. Scott, a mechanic for 16 years, went out and saw that the car “didn’t appear to have any mechanical defects,” and “wasn’t overheating and it didn’t have any flats”; yet it was parked “in a very dark, unfit spot.” (R. 216-17, 217). Scott called the police. Officer Cathy Troutt of the Lawrence Police Department responded to the call at about 11:30 p.m. She found no one in the area around the vehicle. When she checked BMV records on the 1984 brown Chevrolet, she learned the car had not been reported stolen and was registered to Lisa White.

On the other side of Mitthoeffer from Nev-ins and Scott, William Crow, age 75, was alone in his double-wide trailer which angled across its lot facing away from the corner of 52nd and Mitthoeffer. Crow had gone to bed a little after 10:00 p.m. and gone to sleep. He was awakened around 11:30 by a noise and sat up on the side of his bed. Two men with guns came' into his bedroom. They wore stocking masks and dark clothing, and there were no lights on. They demanded Crow’s billfold. When Crow said he had no billfold, one of the men told him that he knew Crow did. One of the men grabbed Crow’s arm, swung him around, and threw him on the floor, breaking his arm. They then taped Crow to an armchair1 and covered his mouth with tape. The two men took Crow’s flashlight and rummaged through his home. After Crow heard the men leave, he managed to extricate himself from the tape and called the police. Stereo equipment, two phones, cans containing several hundred dollars in coins, and several wristwatches were missing.

Officer Trout responded to the call at 12:58 a.m. When she arrived, she found Crow visibly shaken, upset, and in pain, and the residence “very torn up.” (R. 333). The home’s rear door bore pry marks, appearing to have been forced open. The brown Chevrolet was no longer parked alongside 52nd Street.

Detective Greg Swingle was assigned the investigation. He went to Lisa White’s residence. The brown Chevrolet was parked in front, and he found a tire tool under its front, seat. White answered her door and let the detective in. Benton was also present. Swingle told them the car had been seen parked at 52nd and Mitthoeffer, and a robbery nearby on. that evening was being investigated. Swingle obtained permission to search the residence. Two watches were found on a shelf inside the living room closet, and they matched Crow’s descriptions of two watches stolen from him. Crow later identified the watches as his property, stolen from him during the robbery.

Crow had told the detective about an incident in August of 1995, when he had been mowing his yard and a man in a brown car stopped and asked him whether he needed any help. Crow said he did not, but he noticed the man “kept hanging around.” (R. 278). After the man finally left in his car, Crow went back into his residence and found his billfold lying on the floor, emptied of its cash. When the detective presented a photo array about two weeks after the robbery, a “shaking” and “upset” Crow picked out Benton as the man who had come to his house in August. (R. 405). Crow also identified White’s Chevrolet as “lookfingj like the same ear” Benton was driving that day. (R. 283).

A jury convicted Benton of robbery as a class B felony and burglary as a class A felony. After finding several aggravating factors, the trial court sentenced Benton to serve fifty years for the burglary conviction and twenty years for the robbery conviction. The trial court ordered the sentences to be served consecutively.

[463]*463 DECISION

1. Admission of Evidence

Benton claims that Crow’s testimony about Benton’s being at his residence in August was improperly admitted over his objection that the evidence contravened Ind.Evidence Rule 404(b), which provides as follows:

Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show action in conformity therewith. It may, however, be admissible for other purposes such as proof of motive, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident,....

Benton argues that Crow’s testimony had very little value in proving that Benton was one of his assailants because he “could only say that the person who came into his yard in August was ‘about the same size’ ” as Benton. Benton’s Brief at 14. Because admissible evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, see Hardin v. State, 611 N.E.2d 12B, 127 (Ind.1998) (citing Ind.Evidence Rule 40B), his argument continues, the trial court erred in not excluding evidence which suggested that Benton “had done something to the victim before, so he probably did it again.” Benton’s Brief at 14.

Benton filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence about the August incident. In its pretrial argument against the motion, the State contended that Crow’s testimony together with that of another witness (indicating Benton had discussed breaking into Crow’s home and robbing him) was admissible to show his identity as one of Crow’s assailants, his knowledge of the victim and the premises, and his preparation and plan for the crime. Benton discusses only the identity exception in his appellate brief. Because Benton had filed a notice of alibi stating he had driven White’s car to a friend’s home on the evening of October 20th and stayed there until returning to White’s apartment, his identity was clearly at issue.

The trial court has broad discretion to determine the admissibility of evidence, and we will not reverse the trial court’s ruling on the admissibility of evidence absent an abuse of discretion. Willoughby v. State, 660 N.E.2d 570, 580-81 (Ind.1996). If evidence about prior bad acts “is offered only to produce the ‘forbidden inference’ — that the defendant acted badly in the past, and that the defendant’s present, charged actions conform with those past bad ácts — then the evidence is inadmissible.” Hardin, 611 N.E.2d at 129 (emphasis added).

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Brent Thomas Wills v. State of Indiana
Indiana Court of Appeals, 2025
Jeremiah Edward Erickson v. State of Indiana
72 N.E.3d 965 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 2017)
Settles v. State
791 N.E.2d 812 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 2003)
McCann v. State
742 N.E.2d 998 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 2001)
Spurlock v. State
718 N.E.2d 773 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1999)
Asghar v. State
698 N.E.2d 879 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1998)
Benton v. State
691 N.E.2d 459 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1998)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
691 N.E.2d 459, 1998 Ind. App. LEXIS 85, 1998 WL 43263, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/benton-v-state-indctapp-1998.