Gary Sistrunk v. State of Indiana

11 N.E.3d 925, 2014 Ind. App. LEXIS 293, 2014 WL 2095343
Indiana Court of Appeals·Decided May 19, 2014·No. 49A05-1211-CR-567·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinions

OPINION

BROWN, Judge.

Gary Sistrunk appeals his convictions for robbery and criminal confinement as class B felonies.1 Sistrunk raises two issues, which we revise and restate as follows:

I. Whether his convictions for robbery and criminal confinement violate Indiana’s prohibition against double jeopardy; and
II. Whether the trial court erred in denying his request for an order for public funds to pay for an expert witness.

We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

At approximately 7:00 p.m. on February 5, 2012, Sistrunk entered a gas station in Marion County, Indiana, where Christina Busch was working alone in the store. Sistrunk asked Busch for “a black [inaudible] cigar,” and Busch handed him the cigar. Transcript at 25. Sistrunk placed a one-dollar bill on the counter, Busch told him that the cigar was $1.17, and he “threw out a quarter out of his pocket.” Id. Busch opened the cash register and placed the cash in the drawer, looked up before handing the change back to Sis-trunk, and observed that “he had a gun sitting at me.” Id. Sistrunk leaned over the counter closer to Busch, pointed the gun at her, and ordered her to give him all of the money in the drawer. Busch asked “are you serious,” and Sistrunk said “I’m not playing with you.” Id. Busch handed all of the money in the cash drawer to him. He ordered her to give him the money out of the safe, and Busch told him that she was unable to open the safe, that she “had 2 safe drops sitting there that he could have,” that “[i]f he wanted to come back there he could look,” and that she “didn’t want him shooting [her].” Id. Sistrunk took the two safe drops. As Busch was giving Sistrunk the money, he “kept telling [her] not to press the button,” which she took to mean the emergency button for the store. Id. at 26. Sistrunk “told [Busch] to sit on the ground and [she] sat on the [928]*928ground, he stood there for a minute and then [] walked out the door,” and she “waited for about 2 minutes to call the police.” Id. Beech Grove Police Detective Jill Lieter responded to the robbery and spoke with Busch at the police station. Detective Lieter obtained a copy of a video surveillance recording2 of the suspect from the general manager of the gas station and, through Crime Stoppers, obtained the name of Sistrunk as the person in the recording. On February 9, 2012, Detective Lieter presented a photo array to Busch, informed her that the suspect’s photograph may or may not be included in the array and that she should not identify any photograph if she was unsure, and Busch identified Sistrunk as the person who committed the robbery.

On February 14, 2012, the State charged Sistrunk with robbery and criminal confinement as class B felonies. On March 9 and March 23, 2012, represented by private counsel, Sistrunk filed motions which requested the court to order the County Public Defender’s Office to pay for the reasonable expenses of an expert witness on the issue of eyewitness identification.3 At a pretrial conference on July 23, 2012, the Marion County Public Defender (“MCPD”) indicated to the trial court that it did not support Sistrunk’s request for public funds, and the court denied Sis-trunk’s application. On October 4, 2012, the court conducted a bench trial at which Busch and Detective Lieter testified and the State presented the video recording of the robbery.4 In closing arguments, Sis-trunk’s defense counsel argued: “I think this is kind of a classic eyewitness ID case. The person is told, I picked the right person and at that point their confidence goes to 100 percent.” Id. at 64. The court stated:

[T]here is no doubt that the identification alone and the video alone are not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. However, in conjunction [sic] when I watched the video — the reason I went back and watched it is because the second scene of Mr. Sistrunk walking into the shop is nearly the identical angle that I have right here, it’s transposed, but nearly identical. And I found it to be very good evidence that Mr. Sistrunk is in fact the person that Christina Busch pointed out. So while I agree that there are all sorts of ID issues, if it was just her or if it was just the video — together the State has proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt....

Id. at 65. The court found Sistrunk guilty of robbery and criminal confinement as charged and later sentenced Sistrunk to six years for each conviction to be served concurrently with each other and consecutive to his sentence under Cause No. 61.

DISCUSSION

I.

The first issue is whether Sis-trunk’s convictions for robbery and criminal confinement as class B felonies violate Indiana’s prohibition against double jeopardy. The Indiana Constitution provides that “[n]o person shall be put in jeopardy twice for the same offense.” Ind. Const, art. 1, § 14. The Indiana Supreme Court has held that “two or more offenses are the ‘same offense’ in violation of Article I, Section 14 of the Indiana Constitution, if, [929]*929with respect to either the statutory elements of the challenged crimes or the actual evidence used to convict, the essential elements of one challenged offense also establish the essential elements of another challenged offense.” Richardson v. State, 717 N.E.2d 32, 49 (Ind.1999).

Sistrunk argues that his convictions for robbery and criminal confinement violate Indiana’s prohibition against double jeopardy based upon the actual evidence test.5 Under the actual evidence test, the evidence presented at trial is examined to determine whether each challenged offense was established by separate and distinct facts. Lee v. State, 892 N.E.2d 1231, 1234 (Ind.2008). To show that two challenged offenses constitute the “same offense” in a claim of double jeopardy, a defendant must demonstrate a reasonable possibility that the evidentiary facts used by the fact finder to establish the essential elements of one offense may also have been used to establish the essential elements of a second challenged offense. Id. The Indiana Supreme Court has determined the possibility to be remote and speculative and therefore not reasonable when finding no sufficiently substantial likelihood that the trier of fact used the same evidentiary facts to establish the essential elements of two offenses. Hopkins v. State, 759 N.E.2d 633, 640 (Ind.2001) (citing Long v. State, 743 N.E.2d 253, 261 (Ind.2001); Redman v. State, 743 N.E.2d 263, 268 (Ind.2001)).

Application of this test requires the court to identify the essential elements of each of the challenged crimes and to evaluate the evidence from the fact-finder’s perspective. Lee, 892 N.E.2d at 1234. “[Ujnder the ... actual evidence test, the Indiana Double Jeopardy Clause is not violated when the evidentiary facts establishing the essential elements of one offense also establish only one or even several, but not all, of the essential elements of a second offense.”

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Gary Sistrunk v. State of Indiana, 11 N.E.3d 925, 2014 Ind. App. LEXIS 293, 2014 WL 2095343 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014).

11 N.E.3d 925 (Gary Sistrunk v. State of Indiana) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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