Kingery v. State

659 N.E.2d 490, 1995 Ind. LEXIS 197, 1995 WL 756248
Indiana Supreme Court·Decided December 22, 1995·No. 49S00-9403-CR-226·Published·Cited by 115 cases

Opinion

ON DIRECT APPEAL

SELBY, Justice.

After a jury trial, Charles Kingery was convicted of murder and Class A robbery. The trial court sentenced Kingery to fifty-five years for murder and fifteen years for Class B robbery, to be served consecutively. He now brings this direct appeal. We affirm the murder conviction, the murder sentence, and Kingery's conviction on the lesser included offense of Class C robbery. However, because the trial court improperly sentenced Kingery for Class B robbery, we vacate the Class B robbery sentence and remand for a new sentencing on the Class C robbery conviction.

*492 On direct appeal, Kingery raises several issues, which we restate as follows:

I. Whether there was evidence sufficient to support the convictions of murder and robbery.

II. Whether Kingery was denied due process when the trial court instructed the jury that its sole duty was to determine Kingery's guilt or innocence.

III. Whether Kingery was denied due process when the prosecutor referred to King-ery's criminal history.

IV. Whether Kingery's sentence for Class B robbery must be vacated because the jury was not instructed on that offense.

V. Whether Kingery's murder sentence must be vacated because the court allegedly considered invalid aggravating cireum-stances, failed to consider relevant mitigating evidence, and failed to articulate any balane-ing process.

FACTS

Late in the afternoon of April 1, 1991, the victim, George Wildrick, arrived at Van's Tavern, an establishment which Wildrick frequently patronized. Van's Tavern was hosting a pool tournament, and about 7:00 p.m., Charles Kingery and a friend, John Smith, arrived to compete in that tournament. George Wildrick spent several hours in Van's, displaying large amounts of cash, consuming several drinks, and announcing his plan to visit later another tavern, the Gold-finger Lounge. Witnesses who spoke with George Wildrick as he left Van's Tavern at closing, between 2:30 and 3:00 a.m., testified that Wildrick again stated his plan to have another drink at the Goldfinger Lounge, and was looking for someone to join him there.

Kingery and Smith played pool at Van's Tavern until approximately 1:00 a.m. Smith then left for home. Kingery told Smith that he intended to head home shortly. However, Melissa Haynes, the woman with whom Kingery lived, testified that Kingery did not arrive home until more than two hours later, a little after 8:00 a.m.

State's witness Heidi Marter was awake that morning around 3:00 a.m. when she heard, outside her home near the Goldfinger Lounge, three gunshots. Peering out her window, she saw a person, motionless, sitting upright in a large pickup truck parked near the lounge. A man, standing outside the truck, reached inside, opened the driver's side door, lifted the person from inside the truck and placed that motionless individual on the ground. Marter then saw the man look under the truck's seats and wipe down the truck's interior, particularly the passenger area and the steering wheel. He ran his hands up and down the length of the motionless individual's body. Using a rag, the man rolled up the truck's window, left the rag in the window, shut the door and walked toward the Goldfinger Lounge.

Marter left her home and drove over to the scene. She found the victim, George Wil-drick, laying on his left side in a pool of blood. She quickly returned home to call the police. After notifying the police, she again looked out her window, and saw that the man whom she had seen earlier had returned. He pulled up next to the body in a small, light-colored pickup truck, got out of the truck, turned the lights of the victim's truck off, wiped down the inside of the victim's truck a second time, returned to his truck, and drove away.

Witness Steven Ross was driving toward the Goldfinger Lounge around 8:30 a.m. when he saw a small white truck speeding in the opposite direction. Finding police at the lounge when he arrived, and discovering that they were looking for a white truck, he told them that he had just seen a white truck speeding away from the Goldfinger.

Arriving at the crime scene at approximately 4:80 that morning, a deputy coroner recovered several items from Wildriek's body, including a pair of sunglasses. These sunglasses were later found to contain a bloody fingerprint which the State demonstrated belonged to Kingery. At the end of an extended investigation, Kingery was charged with murder, felony murder, and robbery. After a jury trial, Kingery was convicted of murder and Class A robbery, but sentenced as if he had been convicted of murder and Class B robbery.

*493 DISCUSSION

I. Sufficiency of the Evidence

Kingery first argues that the evidence presented at his trial was legally insufficient to support a guilty verdict on either the murder or the robbery charge. When, on appeal, sufficiency of the evidence is challenged, this Court will neither reweigh the evidence nor review the credibility of witnesses. We will "look to the evidence most favorable to verdict together with all reasonable inferences therefrom" and then "determine whether there is substantial evidence of probative value from which the trier of fact might reasonably have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." Landress v. State (1992), Ind., 600 N.E.2d 938, 940. As long as there exists sufficient evidence of each material element of the charge, we will sustain a judgment. Isom v. State (1992), Ind.App., 589 N.E.2d 245, trans. den.

To convict Kingery of murder, the State was required to show that he (1) knowingly or intentionally (2) killled] (8) another human being. Cireumstantial evidence alone will support a verdict of murder. Utley v. State (1992), Ind., 589 N.E.2d 232, 241, cert. denied, 506 U.S. 1058, 113 S.Ct. 991, 122 L.Ed.2d 142. It is within the province of the Jury to determine facts from evidence presented to it, and judge the credibility of those facts. Furthermore, it is the duty of the jury to draw reasonable inferences from facts established either directly or through cireum-stantial evidence. Metzler v. State (1989), Ind., 540 N.E.2d 606, 609.

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Kingery v. State, 659 N.E.2d 490, 1995 Ind. LEXIS 197, 1995 WL 756248 (Ind. 1995).

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