Danny Cherry v. State of Indiana

57 N.E.3d 867, 2016 Ind. App. LEXIS 265, 2016 WL 4036904
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedJuly 27, 2016
Docket49A02-1505-CR-340
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 57 N.E.3d 867 (Danny Cherry v. State of Indiana) 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
Danny Cherry v. State of Indiana, 57 N.E.3d 867, 2016 Ind. App. LEXIS 265, 2016 WL 4036904 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

*869 BROWN, Judge.

[1] Dánny Cherry appeals his convictions for attempted murder as a class A felony, two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon as class B felonies, criminal recklessness as a class C felony, three counts of child exploitation as class C felonies, stalking as a class C felony, three counts of intimidation as class D felonies, and eleven counts of dissemination of matter harmful to a minor as class D felonies. Cherry raises three issues which we consolidate and restate as:

I. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by admitting Cherry’s recorded interview with police as well as documents produced by various internet and cellular providers;
II. Whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain Cherry’s convictions.

We affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

[2] Johan Lian, who was born in 1994 and was originally from Burma, lived on Buffalo Creek in Indianapolis with his mother, father, and. younger sister. At some point, Johan received a friend request from a Facebook account with the name of Sui Lung, which was the same name as a person Johan knew as being .from Burma. Johan accepted the friend request, the person using the account labeled Sui Lung initiated a conversation with Johan about a party, and the person said that they did not remember Johan’s address, so Johan provided his address.

[3] Johan received messages to his Fa-cebook account from the account labeled Sui Lung that became concerning including a message that stated: “I will kill you.” Transcript at 367. Johan realized that the person using the account labeled Sui Lung was not the actual Sui Lung that he knew, and asked the person to stop contacting him. Johan kept receiving messages from the person and also received pictures with a persop’s hands tied up and pornography. Johan removed his Facebook account and talked to the real Sui Lung who confirmed that the person he was speaking with on Facebook was not him.

[4] On December 25, 2013, someone came to Johan’s house, knocked on the door, and spoke to Johan’s little sister when she answered the door. This person, later determined to be Isaac Starks who lived- in Indianapolis, had met a person who called himself “Danny” on a gay chat line, and had driven to the address given to him by Danny that day to meet Danny. 1 Id. at 448. Johan’s parents were scared, and someone called the police.

[5] On January 4, 2014, Johan, his parents, his sister, and his older brother’s family were at the residence on Buffalo Creek. Four people were sitting in the living room watching television, and Jo-han’s father and mother were in their bedroom. Shortly after 11:00' p.m., someone banged on the living room window at the front of the house. Johan ran to the front door to make sure it was locked, and his father went into .the living room and was close to the window- when gunfire erupted. No one was injured, and Johan’s father, who did not speak English, called his pastor for help to call the police. Johan told the police about his Facebook conversations. The police found a .25 caliber live round directly in front of the picture window at the scene which is consistent with a gun jamming.

[6] Within minutes of the shooting, a Facebook account associated with Chun-li *870 Win-Chun posted a message that read: “Mad at my gun for 'jammin.” State’s Exhibit '75. ■ Minutes later, the account posted a message that stated: “Tell johan he lucky my gun jammed.” State’s Exhibit 77.

[7] Meanwhile, David Len, who lived with his father James Len, his mother, and two siblings and was a part of the Chin community 2 in Indianapolis, created a Fa-cebook account under his Burmese name of Hlu Te and observed that “there was talk about people getting shot,” his picture had been stolen from his Facebook account, and an account existed with his Burmese name spelled differently and with his picture. Transcript at 102, 104, 107.

[8] On January 6, 2014, James Len, his wife, their three children, and a cousin of the children were at home on Rentham Lane in Indianapolis. Between midnight and 1:00 a.m. someone banged on a door, and James Len reported that he had been shot in.the mouth by a tall young black man in dark clothing. As a result of the injury, James Len suffered a stroke, underwent surgery, was in intensive care for twenty-three days, and is currently unable to speak.

[9] The police recovered a .25 caliber casing at the scene. On January 6, 2014, at 1:02 a.m. an account under the name Chun-li Win-Chun posted messages that read “Got me one” and “hlu hte mom right in head.” State’s Exhibit 76.

[10] David Len talked to Indianapolis Police Detective Timothy Fogarty and brought up his interactions on Facebook. Based upon David Len’s statements, Detective Fogarty contacted Detective Steven Schafer of the cyber-crimes unit, gave him the names of the accounts, and told him that some pages were hacked or taken over by an unknown person who had been making threats regarding the incident and the Chin community.

[11] On January 8, 2014, a message was posted from an account labeled Hlu Hte that stated: “I tried finish him but my gun James” followed by the message “Jammed.” ' State’s Exhibit 78. That same account also posted messages which stated: “Or i can find u like hlu,” “i thought it was his mom,” “But it was his dad,” “If my gun didn’t Jam i would have finished the job,” “Went inside,” and “I going to kill then hypocrites.” State’s Exhibit 79.

[12] Meanwhile, between December 2013 and February 2014, fourteen year old C.L., who was from Hakka Chin Burma and lived in Indianapolis, received messages to his Facebook account from a person' he did not recognize. 3 The first message came from Na Zang and the name kept changing. In the beginning, the person asked C.L. if he knew a girl who was one of C.L.’s Facebook friends. C.L. told the person that he did not know her because he did not know the identity of the person who was asking him. C.L. tried to block the person from messaging him and seeing his profile. He changed the name on his Facebook account, deleted all his pictures, changed his school, and created a new account. At some point, a person calling himself Chun-li Win-Chun contacted C.L. through Facebook. C.L. knew it was the same person that contacted him earlier based upon the conversation.

*871 [13] On January 1, 2014, nine messages with sexually explicit photos were sent from a Facebook account with the name of Chun-li Win-Chun to C.L.’s account. On January 5, 2014, three messages with sexually explicit photos were sent from the same Facebook account to C.L. C.L. tried to ignore the messages, send the messages back, and then blocked the person’s account. 4 The police later determined that the Facebook ID number specific to the account with the name Chun-li Win-Chun account had multiple names associated with it including Saigon Dior and Sui Lung.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
57 N.E.3d 867, 2016 Ind. App. LEXIS 265, 2016 WL 4036904, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/danny-cherry-v-state-of-indiana-indctapp-2016.