Martell Jevon Flippins v. State of Indiana

CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedAugust 21, 2025
Docket24A-CR-02210
StatusPublished

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

Bluebook
Martell Jevon Flippins v. State of Indiana, (Ind. Ct. App. 2025).

Opinion

IN THE

Court of Appeals of Indiana FILED Martell Jevon Flippins, Aug 21 2025, 8:29 am Appellant-Defendant CLERK Indiana Supreme Court Court of Appeals and Tax Court v.

State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff

August 21, 2025 Court of Appeals Case No. 24A-CR-2210 Appeal from the Lake Superior Court The Honorable Salvador Vasquez, Judge Trial Court Cause No. 45G01-2304-MR-19

Opinion by Judge Foley Judges Mathias and Felix concur.

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 24A-CR-2210 | August 21, 2025 Page 1 of 17 Foley, Judge.

[1] Martell Jevon Flippins (“Flippins”) was convicted after a jury trial of murder, 1 a

felony, and was found to have used a firearm in the commission of the crime as

a sentence enhancement. 2 The trial court sentenced Flippins to sixty years for

murder, enhanced by ten years for an aggregate sentence of seventy years

executed. On appeal, Flippins raises one issue for our review, whether the trial

court abused its discretion in admitting evidence seized from Flippins’s cell

phone and Facebook account pursuant to a search warrant because he asserts

that the warrant was not supported by probable cause. We affirm.

Facts and Procedural History [2] On March 12, 2023, at approximately 3:15 a.m., 3 police were dispatched to

5060 Broadway in Gary, Indiana, which was the address for Fatso’s Nightclub,

regarding an assault with a firearm. When the officers arrived, they found a

man named Pierre Patterson (“Patterson”) lying in the center median of the

road in the front of the nightclub. Patterson was transported to the hospital

where he was pronounced deceased, and an autopsy later revealed that

Patterson had been struck by six bullets in the buttocks and leg, with one bullet

1 Ind. Code § 35-42-1-1(1). 2 I.C. § 35-50-2-11(d). 3 Daylight savings time went into effect on March 12, 2023, at 2:00 a.m. Therefore, while the shooting would have otherwise taken place just after 2:00 a.m., the shooting instead occurred just after 3:00 a.m.

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 24A-CR-2210 | August 21, 2025 Page 2 of 17 traveling through his pancreas, spleen, and lung, causing fatal damage.

Patterson’s death was ruled a homicide caused by multiple gunshot wounds.

[3] In investigating the scene, officers recovered eighteen fired bullet casings, a fired

bullet, and bullet fragments from the area where Patterson was found on

Broadway. Additional bullet fragments were found in two parked cars and

bullet holes were discovered in the windows of nearby businesses. As part of

the investigation, the officers collected surveillance footage from local

businesses. Surveillance video from the Fly Nation Bar at 5004 Broadway

showed Patterson walking onto Broadway at 3:12 a.m. 4 As Patterson crossed

the street, an SUV that had been parked on the side of the street began to pull

out without its headlights on. As the SUV approached Patterson, muzzle

flashes were visible from the SUV’s windows as it pulled alongside Patterson,

who then fell to the ground. The SUV then sped away with its headlights off.

[4] Using videos obtained from multiple locations, including the Fly Nation Bar,

three gas stations, a second bar, an insurance company, and Gary’s Flock

camera system 5, the police re-created the SUV’s path prior to the shooting. The

videos revealed the SUV to be a green Chevrolet Equinox with no license plate

but with what appeared to be a dealer’s sticker on the bottom left-hand corner

4 The timestamp on the video identified the time as 2:12 a.m. However, due to daylight savings time taking effect at 2:00 a.m. that day, the timestamp was about an hour behind. 5 Flock is a camera system consisting of approximately seventy stationary cameras in the City of Gary that operates as a license plate recognition system by taking photographs of vehicles and their license plates.

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 24A-CR-2210 | August 21, 2025 Page 3 of 17 of the liftgate. The surveillance footage showed the SUV had first been

recorded at the 3500 block of Broadway and Ridge Road, traveled

approximately fifteen blocks to 5060 Broadway, made several passes past the

Fly Nation Bar, then parked with its headlights off on the east side of

Broadway, facing northbound, for approximately an hour and a half before the

shooting. After the shooting, the SUV traveled northbound on Broadway with

its lights off before turning eastbound on East 49th Avenue.

[5] In their attempt to identify the SUV’s owner and a potential motive for the

shooting, officers investigated Patterson’s connection to a previous homicide.

At the time of his death, Patterson had been under investigation for the murder

of Lavell Hughes (“Hughes”) on March 6, 2022. Officers examined the public

portion of Hughes’s Facebook account and discovered that Flippins, using the

name “Martell Sancho Flippins,” had significant involvement on Hughes’s

page. Tr. Vol. 5 p. 55. Hughes was Flippins’s half-brother.

[6] When officers ran Flippins’s name through a police database, they discovered

he owned a green 2018 Chevrolet Equinox (“the Equinox”). Police determined

that the dealership from which Flippins purchased the Equinox placed stickers

on the bottom left-hand corner of the liftgates of their SUVs, consistent with the

sticker observed on the SUV in the surveillance footage. The police then

initiated surveillance of Flippins’s workplace, which was in Illinois, and

observed a green Equinox in the parking lot. Cell phone location data obtained

through a T-Mobile search warrant indicated that Flippins’s phone was at his

workplace when officers had observed the Equinox in the parking lot. Officers

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 24A-CR-2210 | August 21, 2025 Page 4 of 17 also observed Flippins enter and exit the green Equinox on multiple occasions

while at his workplace.

[7] On March 24, 2023, officers followed Flippins after he entered the Equinox and

left his workplace, driving away at speeds of up to eighty miles per hour.

Flippins eventually turned into an apartment complex parking lot in Lansing,

Illinois, and when officers arrived, Flippins was gone but the green Equinox

remained in the parking lot. Officers seized and searched the Equinox pursuant

to a search warrant. Inside the Equinox, police found the SUV’s registration,

temporary plates, and mail addressed to Flippins at an address on Vermont

Street in Gary, Indiana, which was discovered to be Flippins’s mother’s home.

Additionally, a fired .40-caliber bullet casing was found in the windshield wiper

cowl of the Equinox.

[8] In examining the T-Mobile records for Flippins’s phone, the police learned that,

on March 11, 2023—the day before the shooting—the phone was in the vicinity

of Flippins’s workplace in Illinois until approximately 5:30 p.m. Between 11:20

p.m. and 11:25 p.m., Flippins received an incoming call while traveling in the

Gary area, with an outgoing call twenty minutes later showing the phone’s

location in the area of Broadway and Ridge Road in Gary. The timing advance

data from Flippins’s cell phone placed him at various locations throughout the

early morning hours of March 12, 2023: at 12:37 a.m., in the area of Broadway

and Ridge Road; at 12:40 a.m., in the area of 5060 Broadway; from 1:00 to 3:14

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