Marcus Lee McCain v. State of Indiana

CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedJune 30, 2020
Docket20S-CR-281
StatusPublished

This text of Marcus Lee McCain v. State of Indiana (Marcus Lee McCain v. State of Indiana) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Marcus Lee McCain v. State of Indiana, (Ind. 2020).

Opinion

FILED IN THE Jun 30 2020, 12:56 pm

Indiana Supreme Court CLERK Indiana Supreme Court Court of Appeals and Tax Court

Supreme Court Case No. 20S-CR-281

Marcus Lee McCain Appellant (Defendant below)

–v–

State of Indiana Appellee (Plaintiff below)

Argued: June 11, 2020 | Decided: June 30, 2020

Appeal from the Lake County Superior Court, No. 45G04-1708-MR-6 The Honorable Samuel L. Cappas, Judge

On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals No. 19A-CR-1113

Opinion by Justice Massa Chief Justice Rush and Justices David, Slaughter, and Goff concur. Massa, Justice.

Marcus Lee McCain was sentenced to forty-five years in prison for killing Marcel Harris in a crowded Gary, Indiana fast-food restaurant. McCain contends that the trial judge—who stated that the jury’s voluntary manslaughter verdict was “a gift”—impermissibly increased McCain’s sentence based on his beliefs about the case. We disagree. First, we find that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in imposing the sentence. Second, because we determine under Indiana Appellate Rule 7(B) that the sentence is not inappropriate in light of the nature of the offense and McCain’s character, we uphold the sentence in its entirety.

Facts and Procedural History Around midnight, Marcus Lee McCain, his cousin, and his girlfriend went to Philly Steaks and Fresh Lemonade in Gary, Indiana. McCain lived in Wisconsin and was visiting family in Indiana. Over a dozen people, including two young children, were in the restaurant at the time. While McCain sat awaiting his order, the victim Marcel Harris entered the fast- food restaurant with a group of friends. McCain testified that he noticed Harris was “mean-mugging” him. Tr. Vol. 7, p.29.

When Harris went outside, McCain followed him, even though he had “never met [him] a day in [his] life,” and the two exchanged words. Tr. Vol. 6, p.224. Harris returned to the restaurant. McCain then got his cousin, who was waiting in the car, and went back inside. When McCain reentered the restaurant, a fight between McCain and Harris ensued that was recorded in graphic detail by a high-definition surveillance system. According to McCain, when Harris directed one of his friends to “[s]hoot that shit,” McCain grabbed a gun from his cousin. Tr. Vol. 7, p.7. Since he figured “it was [his] life or my life” McCain shoved Harris back and placed a gun against his head. Id., pp. 7–8. When Harris tried to swat the gun away, McCain fired a single shot at Harris’s temple at close range, instantly killing him in the middle of the restaurant. The bullet lodged itself in the white tile ordering-counter near where two people had been standing only seconds earlier. Following the shooting, McCain and his

Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-CR-281 | June 30, 2020 Page 2 of 14 companions immediately fled the scene, and McCain ultimately returned to Wisconsin where he was soon identified and arrested after surveillance camera images were released to the media.

The State charged McCain with murder and later added an enhancement for knowingly or intentionally using a firearm in commission of the offense. 1 While McCain’s counsel argued at trial that he acted in self-defense, the defense also successfully petitioned the court to include a jury instruction on the lesser-included offense of voluntary manslaughter. 2 The jury found McCain guilty of voluntary manslaughter but not murder. McCain then sought a bench trial on the firearm enhancement’s applicability to his manslaughter conviction. After a bench trial, McCain was also convicted of the firearm enhancement. During the bench trial, the judge made multiple comments indicating he believed the defendant should have been convicted of murder by the jury. He called it “the clearest case of . . . cold-blooded murder I’ve seen in high definition in 32 years” and remarked that “[t]he voluntary manslaughter verdict was a gift.” Tr. Vol. 7, pp. 186–87.

At McCain’s sentencing hearing a few months later, the judge made similar comments, stating that ”[t]he words that the video spoke to me w[ere] cold blooded and callous” and reiterating “that [it] was the cleanest cut video I have ever seen of my impression of a murder.” Tr. Vol. 8, pp. 49, 51. However, the court considered numerous aggravating and mitigating circumstances on the record and in a detailed sentencing order.

The trial court found ten applicable aggravating factors existed: (1) the shooting took place in a public environment with fourteen people in close proximity; (2) there were two children present during the shooting; (3) the defendant endangered at least one other person who was within the trajectory of the bullet seconds before the shooting; (4) Harris “was shot at point-blank range with the gun placed to [his] temple”; (5) the nature of the shooting was “particularly cold-blooded and callous despite the fact

1See Ind. Code § 35-50-2-3 (murder); I.C. § 35-50-2-11(d) (firearm enhancement). 2See I.C. § 35-42-1-3.

Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-CR-281 | June 30, 2020 Page 3 of 14 that [McCain] was convicted of Voluntary Manslaughter wherein heat of passion was found to be a mitigating circumstance”; (6) McCain has a criminal history, including two felony convictions; (7) McCain has previously been incarcerated for thirty days, “which has failed to deter him from a life of crime”; (8) McCain has seven to eight contacts with the criminal-justice system, “which reflect adversely on [his] character in that he is not able to live a law-abiding life”; (9) a Facebook post from McCain adversely reflects on his character, as it shows that he invites “violence or conflict”; and (10) McCain is in need of correctional or rehabilitative treatment that can only be provided by a penal facility. See Appellant’s App. Vol. 3, pp. 142–43 (emphasis added).

The court then considered six mitigating factors proposed by McCain’s counsel and found four to be relevant: (1) McCain expressed remorse; (2) approximately thirty people submitted letters on McCain’s behalf, however, the court didn’t give them much weight because some of the letters described McCain as “peacemaking” but he didn’t use those skills on the night of the shooting; (3) McCain has a two-year-old child; however, the court didn’t give this much weight either because of his limited involvement with the child, as evidenced, in part, by the lack of any requirement he pay child support; and (4) McCain completed some courses in jail, which was “somewhat of a mitigating factor.” See id., pp. 143–44; Tr. Vol. 8, pp. 45–47.

After finding that the aggravators outweighed the mitigators, the trial court sentenced McCain to forty-five years in prison (twenty-seven years for voluntary manslaughter enhanced by eighteen years for using a firearm). McCain then appealed his sentence, arguing that (1) the firearm enhancement was improperly applied to his conviction and (2) the trial court abused its discretion in sentencing when it considered improper aggravators.

The Court of Appeals affirmed McCain’s conviction for the firearm enhancement but reduced McCain’s sentence to thirty-five years using its authority to revise a sentence under Indiana Appellate Rule 7(B). See McCain v. State, 140 N.E.3d 299, 304–05 (Ind. Ct. App. 2020) (“The judge’s finding that the killing was ‘cold-blooded’ [as an aggravator] is clearly at

Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-CR-281 | June 30, 2020 Page 4 of 14 odds with the jury’s finding that the killing was done in sudden heat.”), vacated.

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Marcus Lee McCain v. State of Indiana, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/marcus-lee-mccain-v-state-of-indiana-ind-2020.