Dixon v. State

2011 Ark. 450, 385 S.W.3d 164, 2011 Ark. LEXIS 537
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedOctober 27, 2011
DocketNo. CR 10-1223
StatusPublished
Cited by38 cases

This text of 2011 Ark. 450 (Dixon v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dixon v. State, 2011 Ark. 450, 385 S.W.3d 164, 2011 Ark. LEXIS 537 (Ark. 2011).

Opinion

KAREN R. BAKER, Justice.

Ii Appellant Kevin Dixon was convicted by a Miller County jury of capital-felony murder, with aggravated robbery as the underlying felony, of Jose Vargas in Tex-arkana, Arkansas, and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. On appeal, he argues that the circuit court abused its discretion by (1) admitting evidence of his drug activity, (2) admitting hearsay, (3) admitting autopsy photographs, and (4) refusing to grant a mistrial. He also asserts that there was insufficient evidence to convict him of capital-felony murder.1 Because this is a criminal appeal in which life imprisonment has been imposed, this court has jurisdiction pursuant to Arkansas Supreme Court Rule 1-2(a)(2) (2011). We affirm.

On June 15, 2009, at approximately 5:00 a.m., Roland Hayes was walking on Prince Street in Texarkana, Arkansas, and discovered a body, later identified as Jose Vargas, lying|2on the street. Although he did not touch the person, he observed that Vargas had a $20 bill clutched in one hand. Hayes contacted the police, and the Texar-kana, Arkansas Police Department (“department”), including Officer Lloyd Douglas, Detective Bobby ■ Jordan, Detective Les Moody, and Detective Paul Nall, responded to the scene. Unable to rouse Vargas, the officers contacted Lifenet who determined that Vargas was dead.

Douglas noticed that Vargas had scratches on his arms, legs, and head, and that he had a patch of hair missing. Douglas also observed that the pockets to Vargas’s shorts were turned inside out, a condition commonly referred to as “rabbit ears” or “bunny ears,” that one of his shoes was in the middle of the street approximately two houses from the body, and that he had cash clutched in one hand. To exclude Hayes as a suspect, Douglas patted him for weapons and found none, nor did he find anything to suggest that Hayes had been involved in a struggle. He noticed that Hayes’s wallet did not contain a large amount of cash.

Supervising Detective Bobby Jordan determined that the extent of Vargas’s injuries to his head, chin, arm, and leg was inconsistent with the officers’ initial theory that Vargas was run over by a vehicle. Jordan’s belief was confirmed when he saw that Vargas’s t-shirt was “wet and soaked” and that a .22 shell casing was found under his right arm when his body was rolled over. A cellular phone was recovered from Vargas’s pocket, and a review of the call history reflected that four calls had been made to phone number 490-8035, including the last call made from the phone.

At the scene, Detective Moody dialed 490-8035 using Vargas’s cellular phone but did not get an answer. Moody then dialed the previous number reflected in the call history and |sa woman, later identified as Rosalie Vargas, answered. During the conversation, she stated that her husband did not come home the night before. Detective Moody then went to the home of Rosalie Vargas and showed her the phone found on the body of the victim, and she identified it as belonging to her husband, Jose Vargas. She showed him Vargas’s Texas driver’s license, permitting the police to officially identify the body.

That same day, the police investigation revealed that the phone number 490-8035 was registered to Dixon, and Detectives Moody and Nall went to the home where Dixon was living, which was approximately nine blocks from where Vargas’s body was found. Dixon and his girlfriend, Kizzie Cox, were there and the officers explained that they were investigating a death. Dixon agreed to go to the police department for questioning. He admitted that he had been involved in the selling of marijuana on June 14 and 15, 2009. Dixon said that he once had a cellular phone that had the number 490-8035; however, he said that it had been lost two months previously. Dixon stated that he had another cellular phone that had a different number. When questioned about an alibi for the evening of Vargas’s murder, Dixon told the officers that he was at a friend’s house until Cox picked him up, and they drove home after midnight on Sunday morning.

The police subpoenaed the records for phone number 490-8035. The records showed that the phone number for Dixon’s new phone had been contacted from the phone number for the phone he claimed to have lost two months earlier. When Nall asked for an explanation, Dixon stated that whoever had his old phone had been harassing him by calling him at his new phone number, but he could not explain how that person would know his |4new phone number. Dixon denied knowing the victim and had no explanation why Vargas had called his old cellular number in the hours preceding his death. Another number reflected in the records belonged to Felicia Robertson,2 who told police that Dixon was a friend and co-worker and that she had talked with him several times on June 14 and 15, 2009, and on all of those occasions, Dixon had been using the cellular phone that he claimed to have lost. When Nall confronted Dixon with this information, Dixon offered no explanation.

At trial, Robertson testified and verified what she had told the police during their investigation. She stated that Dixon called her on June 15 and admitted that he had lied to her previously when he stated that he had spent the prior night at his sister’s house. She said that Dixon also admitted to her that he had lied to the police when he told them that he did not know Vargas.

Kizzie Cox testified and reiterated that she told the police that she talked on the phone to Dixon on June 14, and her cellular phone display reflected that the telephone number he was calling from was the phone he later claimed to have lost. Cox testified that she picked up Dixon on the night of June 14, and they went home around midnight and she played dominoes with her father for about twenty minutes. Afterward, she and Dixon talked and watched television for a while before she fell asleep, and she did not awaken until 7:00 a.m. the next morning. Cox also testified that Dixon drove her red Tahoe whenever he | ¿needed it.

Rosalie Vargas testified that she informed the detectives from the department that a few weeks before the shooting she saw someone in a red Suburban place something in their mailbox, but she did not see her husband retrieve it. She said that her husband admitted only a week before the shooting that he was buying marijuana; however, she was unaware that he was using cocaine. She testified that her husband kept a lot of money at their home because they were saving money to purchase a home. By her estimation, they had $15,000 the week before Vargas’s death. Rosalie testified that after Vargas’s death, she went to get money for the funeral and noticed that there was less money, although she could not state exactly how much was missing. Department Detective Angel Guzman testified that on June 16, Rosalie told him that Vargas’s wallet was at their home and that approximately $3000 was missing.

William Newton was employed at Orr Auto Group, where Vargas worked. He testified that Vargas was paid approximately $2500 by his employer near the time of his death. Uriel Cortes testified that he also knew Vargas from work and was aware that he used drugs. Cortes stated that on June 14, he and Vargas were together with some other people at a house approximately two blocks from Vargas’s home. They were drinking, and Cortes departed around 10:30 p.m. and never saw Vargas again.

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Bluebook (online)
2011 Ark. 450, 385 S.W.3d 164, 2011 Ark. LEXIS 537, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dixon-v-state-ark-2011.