Johnson v. Commonwealth

327 S.W.3d 501, 2010 Ky. LEXIS 300, 2010 WL 5135338
CourtKentucky Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 16, 2010
Docket2009-SC-000401-MR
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 327 S.W.3d 501 (Johnson v. Commonwealth) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Kentucky Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Johnson v. Commonwealth, 327 S.W.3d 501, 2010 Ky. LEXIS 300, 2010 WL 5135338 (Ky. 2010).

Opinion

*503 Opinion of the Court by

Chief Justice MINTON.

LaShawn Johnson appeals as a matter of right 1 from a judgment convicting him of first-degree robbery, first-degree burglary, and of being a first-degree persistent felony offender (PFO). Johnson was sentenced to twenty-five years’ imprisonment. He contends on appeal that the judgment must be reversed because the trial court refused to instruct the jury on second-degree robbery and second-degree burglary and that his case must be remanded for an evidentiary hearing on his motion to suppress DNA evidence, alleging that a sample or profile of his DNA had been illegally entered into the CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) database. We disagree with all of Johnson’s contentions on appeal, and affirm the trial court’s judgment.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY.

In the light most favorable to the verdict, the relevant facts are as follows. Around midnight, the victim woke up in his apartment and discovered that an intruder was in his kitchen. The intruder pointed a gun at the victim and ordered him to lie on the floor. The intruder then ordered the victim to give him money. Once the victim remembered that he had lost his wallet, the victim offered the intruder his car keys instead. Fearing that the intruder would not be satisfied with car keys and would not leave, the victim then grabbed the intruder and the two wrestled. The intruder struck the victim with the gun, and the gun was knocked out of the intruder’s hands. The victim kicked the gun under the couch, and pulled the intruder toward the door, which the victim unlocked with a key. The victim later recalled the intruder saying “I just want my piece and then I’ll leave” and assumed that “piece” meant the gun. After opening the door, the victim fled, spraining his ankle on the stairs.

Shortly after the victim escaped the apartment, another man saw him dressed only in boxer shorts, standing on a nearby street corner, acting erratically, and waving at cars before collapsing. The man also recalled that the victim appeared to have been “pummeled by a blunt object” and that the victim’s face and feet were bleeding. After the victim told the man what happened, the man called police and offered to get some clothing for the victim to wear. The victim refused the offer of clothing until police arrived because he feared the intruder would return. The man stated that the victim looked terrified and started vomiting, possibly from fear or pain.

Police arrived and spoke briefly with the victim. One police detective later testified that the victim appeared to be “in shock,” bewildered, and obviously beaten. Although the victim was too shaken at that point to talk at length, he told police that the crime happened at his home and gave a general description of the intruder as a dark-skinned African American male with a narrow face, wearing dark clothes and an unusual hat and carrying a gun. The victim later described the gun in his trial testimony as a black gun with a square handle and square barrel and characterized it as a handgun.

After speaking briefly with police at the scene, the victim was transported to a hospital by ambulance. At the hospital, an MRI of the victim’s facial area appeared normal, but he was treated for a sprained ankle and given a pair of crutches, which he used for several weeks. He also re *504 called in his trial testimony that he had a small “break” in a bone in his leg, although not in his ankle.

When police inspected the victim’s apartment, they determined that the intruder had likely entered through a kitchen window. Outside that kitchen window they found a soft drink cup with a straw. The cup was filled with red liquid and coated with condensation, indicating that the ice had not fully melted at the time it was found. The intruder had disappeared by the time police inspected the apartment, and police did not find a gun in the apartment. A few days after the incident, the victim turned a gun clip over to police. He stated that he found the gun clip under his couch. The clip was unloaded, and the investigating detective believed that the clip came from a BB or pellet gun, although he’ recognized that people often mistook these guns to be real handguns.

Based upon the style of the cup, the investigating detective determined that the cup and straw had come from a gas station or convenience store about a mile from the victim’s home. And he found that the gas station’s surveillance tape revealed that a man whose appearance matched the description of the intruder given by the victim had bought a red soft drink there shortly before the incident at the victim’s apartment. Printing a still photo from the surveillance tape, the detective used it to prepare an attempt-to-locate flyer and showed the flyer to patrol officers at roll call a few days after the incident. One of the patrol officers recognized the man in the still photo as Johnson and gave Johnson’s name and other contact information to the investigating detective.

The detective was then able to obtain a photograph of Johnson to use in a photo pack. When he showed the photo pack to the victim, the victim ruled out the other five men pictured and said he was seventy percent sure that Johnson’s picture was the picture of the intruder. He indicated in writing that the photo of Johnson “closely resembles” the intruder. The detective then showed the victim the still photo from the surveillance tape on the flyer. The victim later testified to being more certain that this photo on the flyer was the intruder because the man in the flyer photo had the same unusual clothing, distinctive hat, and slight build he remembered the intruder having.

After he was arrested, Johnson admitted that he was the man on the gas station’s surveillance tape. He denied committing the burglary and robbery. Johnson did not testify at the trial.

The victim identified- Johnson as the intruder at trial and testified that he was certain of the identification. He also testified that the room where he had first encountered the intruder was illuminated well, and he stated that he had seen the intruder’s face for five to ten seconds.

In addition to seeking the victim’s identification of the intruder, police had also collected as potential evidence the cup, lid, and straw found outside the victim’s window. These items did not yield any fingerprints, but they were sent to the Kentucky State Police laboratory for DNA analysis. A DNA analyst tested the straw, and obtained a DNA profile from it. The DNA profile was entered on CODIS, and a database search revealed that this DNA profile matched a DNA profile from a “forensic unknown” semen sample collected from the underpants of an alleged rape victim who had accused Johnson of rape a few years earlier.

Police filed an affidavit requesting a buccal swab 2 from Johnson, citing evidence of *505 identification (but not referring to the CO-DIS match) and obtained the necessary search warrant. The DNA sample collected from Johnson via buccal swab matched the DNA profile on the straw at all loci. Johnson was indicted for first-degree burglary and first-degree robbery, and the case proceeded to trial.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
327 S.W.3d 501, 2010 Ky. LEXIS 300, 2010 WL 5135338, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/johnson-v-commonwealth-ky-2010.