Jenkins v. State

75 S.W.3d 180, 348 Ark. 686, 2002 Ark. LEXIS 292
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedMay 16, 2002
DocketCR 01-081
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 75 S.W.3d 180 (Jenkins 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
Jenkins v. State, 75 S.W.3d 180, 348 Ark. 686, 2002 Ark. LEXIS 292 (Ark. 2002).

Opinion

Annabelle Clinton Imber, Justice.

Appellant Mervin Jenkins appeals his conviction for the capital murder of twenty-year-old Brian Young. A jury convicted Mr. Jenkins of capital murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Mr. Jenkins raises four points on appeal: (1) there was not sufficient evidence to support his conviction; (2) he was denied effective assistance of counsel in violation of his Sixth Amendment rights; (3) the trial court erred in refusing to suppress his custodial statement; and (4) the trial court erred in denying his request for a mistrial. Our jurisdiction of this appeal is pursuant to Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 1-2(a)(2). We find no error and affirm.

The record reveals that Brian Young was murdered on September 24, 1997. Trial testimony from Brian Young’s girlfriend, Iris Northrop, indicated that, on the evening of the murder, Mr. Young was talking with her on a payphone outside a Delta convenience store located on Asher Avenue. In the middle of their conversation, the victim stated, “That looks like the guys that tried to jump on me earlier.” Ms. Northrop then heard seven shots and heard the victim yell. An autopsy revealed that the cause of Mr. Young’s death was seven gunshot wounds “from the back to the front.”

Tanisha Franklin testified that she came into contact with Mr. Jenkins on September 24 at the home of Lisa Bowman, Mr. Jenkins’ girlfriend at the time. According to Ms. Franklin, she heard Mr. Jenkins bragging about shooting Brian Young at the Delta station and swearing Ms. Bowman to secrecy. Ms. Franklin also heard Mr. Jenkins say that he shot Mr. Young six times in the back and that it was “a Crip putting it on a Blood.”

On December 26, 1997, Mr. Jenkins was brought into the Little Rock police station in connection with an aggravated robbery and battery. At the time of his arrest, Mr. Jenkins was in the tenth grade at Central High School. While in custody, he was questioned regarding the September 24, 1997 murder of Brian Young, and he gave a taped statement to police in which he admitted to shooting at Brian Young with a .38 caliber revolver. In his statement, Mr. Jenkins said that he had some problems with Brian Young that began when he started dating Lisa Bowman. He told police about an occasion on which he was riding his bicycle and saw Mr. Young pointing his finger “like . . . I’m gonna mess you up or I’m gonna shoot you or something like that.” About one week after that incident, on September 22 or 23, Mr. Jenkins was riding his bicycle near 17th and Schiller when a car pulled up near him and someone started shooting. Mr. Jenkins told police that, on the following night, he rode his bicycle to the Delta store by Asher where he saw “[Mr. Young] up there at the pay phone.” Mr. Jenkins stated: “[He] gave me a real you know what I’m saying, nasty look like — I fixing to get out and shoot you or something like that — a real you know crazy look so I just started shooting at him.” After firing three or four shots, Mr. Jenkins ran away and threw the revolver into the river.

In his statement, Mr. Jenkins indicated that he did not go to Lisa Bowman’s home on the night of the shooting; but, in a statement given on September 25, Lisa Bowman told police that Mr. Jenkins did come to her house that night around 10:00 p.m. Ms. Bowman stated that she was asleep when he arrived and that he woke her up. She then went back to sleep. Mr. Jenkins was at her home when she awoke the next morning; however, she admitted that she did not know if Mr. Jenkins left during the night.

A felony information charging Mr. Jenkins with capital murder was filed on April 13, 1998. 1 Subsequently, the defense requested a mental evaluation of Mr. Jenkins. A forensic psychiatric evaluation conducted by Dr. Alan Newman at the Arkansas State Hospital showed that Mr. Jenkins had a severe conduct disorder and “borderline intellectual functioning” due to his IQ of 75. Dr. Newman nonetheless concluded that Mr. Jenkins was aware of the charges against him and capable of cooperating effectively with his attorney. Dr. Newman further concluded that, at the time of the commission of the alleged offense, Mr. Jenkins did not lack the capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the law.

Initially, Mr. Jenkins filed a motion for transfer to juvenile court. After the trial court denied his motion, Mr. Jenkins filed an interlocutory appeal. The trial court’s ruling was affirmed by the Arkansas Court of Appeals. Jenkins v. State, CA CR 99-693 (Ark. App. Dec. 15, 1999). Mr. Jenkins also filed a motion to suppress his custodial statement. That motion was likewise denied. He proceeded to trial on May 9, 2000, when a jury found him guilty of capital murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

On June 7, 2000, the trial court granted Mr. Jenkins’s request that the public defender be relieved as counsel and that Tona DeMers be substituted as retained counsel for Mr. Jenkins. His new attorney then filed a motion for new trial based upon ineffective assistance of counsel. Attached to the motion for new trial was a statement given to the police by Johnny Williams on September 26, 1997. According to this statement, Mr. Williams told police he had information that his vehicle was involved in the September 24 shooting on Asher Avenue. He stated that, on Sunday morning, September 21, he loaned his vehicle to an individual he knew only as “B.A.” Mr. Williams advised police that “B.A.” was in possession of a weapon with a clip at that time. The next day, Mr. Williams filed a report claiming that his vehicle, a white GMC Jimmy with blue, factory pin-stripes, was being driven without his consent. Mr. Williams would not tell police what information led him to believe that his vehicle was involved in Mr. Young’s murder.

Also attached to Mr. Jenkins’s motion for new trial was the signed statement of Chris Johnson. This statement was given to the police on September 25, 1997. According to Mr. Johnson, he was in his home near the area of the shooting on September 24. He heard shots around 11:40 p.m., and looked out his window to see a blue short-bed pick-up truck with tinted windows leaving the area from which he heard the shots.

Following a hearing on Mr. Jenkins’s motion for a new trial, the trial court entered an order denying his request for a new trial. On appeal, Mr. Jenkins challenges both his capital murder conviction and the trial court’s denial of his motion for new trial.

I. Sufficiency of the Evidence

This court treats a motion for directed verdict as a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. McGehee v. State, 338 Ark. 152, 992 S.W.2d 110 (1999). When reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, we determine whether there is substantial evidence to support the verdict, viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the State. Id. The evidence to support a conviction, whether direct or circumstantial, must be of sufficient force and character that it will, with reasonable and material certainty and precision, compel a conclusion one way or the other. Smith v. State, 308 Ark. 390, 824 S.W.2d 838 (1992).

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Bluebook (online)
75 S.W.3d 180, 348 Ark. 686, 2002 Ark. LEXIS 292, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jenkins-v-state-ark-2002.