Gary A. VanVleet v. State of Indiana (mem. dec.)

• Court: Indiana Court of Appeals
• Decided: December 5, 2018
• Docket: 18A-CR-784
• Status: Published

Opinion

MEMORANDUM DECISION Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), FILED this Memorandum Decision shall not be Dec 05 2018, 6:01 am regarded as precedent or cited before any CLERK court except for the purpose of establishing Indiana Supreme Court Court of Appeals and Tax Court the defense of res judicata, collateral estoppel, or the law of the case.

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE Andrew B. Arnett Curtis T. Hill, Jr. Indianapolis, Indiana Attorney General of Indiana

Marjorie Lawyer-Smith Deputy Attorney General Indianapolis, Indiana

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA

Gary A. VanVleet, December 5, 2018 Appellant-Defendant, Court of Appeals Case No. 18A-CR-784 v. Appeal from the Johnson Superior Court State of Indiana, The Honorable Peter D. Nugent, Appellee-Plaintiff Judge Trial Court Cause No. 41D02-1611-F5-94

May, Judge.

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 18A-CR-784 | December 5, 2018 Page 1 of 5 [1] Gary A. VanVleet appeals his conviction of Level 5 felony operating a motor

vehicle after forfeiture of license for life. 1 VanVleet asserts the evidence was

insufficient to prove his identity as the person who drove the vehicle in

question. We affirm.

Facts and Procedural History [2] Around 7:45 p.m. on November 20, 2016, Rosalie and Anthony Kepner went

to a bar in Franklin, Indiana, to play darts. Rosalie was not drinking alcohol

because she was the designated driver. As Rosalie waited for her turn at darts,

her attention was drawn to a man at the bar who “was loud and angry, because

the bartender wouldn’t serve him.” (Tr. Vol. 2 at 13.) That man was later

identified as VanVleet.

[3] Around 8:30 p.m., Rosalie went outside to smoke a cigarette. To avoid the

cold, she sat inside the Kepners’ truck to smoke. “About two or three puffs into

the cigarette, a truck started backing up towards [Rosalie’s truck, bumped

against her truck,] and then it made a big screech, and it kept screeching and

screeching.” (Id. at 7.) Rosalie honked her truck horn, yelled stop, and exited

her truck. The truck that had hit hers was a light-colored older Chevrolet or

GMC pickup. Rosalie confronted the truck’s driver, VanVleet, and he looked

“dumbfounded” and denied hitting her truck. (Id. at 9.) VanVleet refused to

1 Ind. Code § 9-30-10-17(a)(1).

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 18A-CR-784 | December 5, 2018 Page 2 of 5 give her his license and insurance information, so Rosalie opened the bar door

and yelled for Anthony to assist her.

[4] Anthony stepped outside, looked at the damage to the truck, and then

approached VanVleet to ask him to exchange insurance information. VanVleet

was alone, standing next to his truck. VanVleet’s speech was slurred, and he

appeared to be drunk. When VanVleet again refused to exchange information,

Rosalie returned to the bar. Anthony talked to VanVleet for about ten minutes

but returned to the bar without VanVleet’s insurance information.

[5] After investigation, the State charged VanVleet with Level 5 felony operating a

vehicle after forfeiture of license for life and Class B misdemeanor leaving the

scene of an accident. 2 Prior to his bench trial, VanVleet stipulated he knew that

his license was forfeited for life. After hearing evidence, the court found

VanVleet guilty of operating a motor vehicle after forfeiture of license. The

court imposed a four-year executed sentence.

Discussion and Decision [6] VanVleet claims the evidence is insufficient to prove he operated the truck that

struck the Kepners’ truck.

Sufficiency-of-the-evidence claims face a steep standard of review: we consider only the evidence and reasonable inferences

2 Ind. Code § 9-26-1-1.1.

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 18A-CR-784 | December 5, 2018 Page 3 of 5 most favorable to the convictions, neither reweighing evidence nor reassessing witness credibility. We affirm the judgment unless no reasonable factfinder could find the defendant guilty.

Griffith v. State, 59 N.E.3d 947, 958 (Ind. 2016) (internal citations omitted). “It

is therefore not necessary that the evidence overcome every reasonable

hypothesis of innocence; rather, the evidence is sufficient if an inference

reasonably may be drawn from it to support the verdict.” Steele v. State, 42

N.E.3d 138, 144 (Ind. Ct. App. 2015).

[7] VanVleet asserts Rosalie “was the only person who identified VanVleet as the

driver of the vehicle who struck her vehicle.” (Br. of Appellant at 9.) While

Rosalie may have been the only one outside the bar when VanVleet drove the

truck into her truck, she was not the only one who identified VanVleet at trial. 3

During trial, Anthony identified VanVleet as the man with whom he talked for

ten minutes outside the bar when he was trying to get insurance and

identification information. (See Tr. Vol. 2 at 35.) The Kepners’ identifications

of VanVleet were sufficient to prove his identity as the man who had committed

the charged crime. See, e.g., Steele, 42 N.E.3d at 144 (testimony of nurse, to

3 VanVleet also cites minor inconsistencies between Rosalie’s testimony and the report filed by the officer who responded to the bar that evening. However, none of those inconsistencies concerned the identity of the driver. They are instead requests for us to assess Rosalie’s credibility, which we will not do. See Mardis v. State, 72 N.E.3d 936, 938 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018) (affirming murder conviction despite inconsistency in eyewitness testimony).

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 18A-CR-784 | December 5, 2018 Page 4 of 5 whom domestic battery victim identified defendant as batterer, was sufficient to

support identification of defendant as person who committed crime).

Conclusion [8] The evidence was sufficient to prove VanVleet committed the crime in question,

and we therefore affirm.

[9] Affirmed.

Baker, J., and Robb, J., concur.

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 18A-CR-784 | December 5, 2018 Page 5 of 5