Owens v. Commonwealth

512 S.W.3d 1, 2017 WL 382410, 2017 Ky. App. LEXIS 21
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky
DecidedJanuary 27, 2017
DocketNO. 2014-CA-000779-MR
StatusPublished
Cited by38 cases

This text of 512 S.W.3d 1 (Owens v. Commonwealth) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Owens v. Commonwealth, 512 S.W.3d 1, 2017 WL 382410, 2017 Ky. App. LEXIS 21 (Ky. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

OPINION

ACREE, JUDGE:

James.Owens appeals the April 2, 2014 order of the Simpson Circuit Court denying his motion for DNA testing and his motions, amendments, and supplements [4]*4thereto for relief under RCr1 11.42 and CR2 60.02. We affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURE

In 2009, Owens was convicted by a jury of first-degree wanton' assault, tampering with physical evidence, and of being a first-degree persistent felony offender (PFO I). For these crimes, the trial court sentenced Owens to an enhanced term of thirty years’ imprisonment for the assault conviction, and an enhanced term of ten years for the tampering conviction, all to be served concurrently. Owens appealed to the Kentucky Supreme Court as a matter of right; the Court affirmed Owens’ convictions. Owens v. Commonwealth, 329 S.W.3d 307, 311 (Ky. 2011) (Owens I). The Court’s opinion succinctly summarizes the facts of the underlying criminal matter. They are that:

[the victim] was assaulted at her home in Franklin, Kentucky. ... At trial, [the victim] testified that on the night of the assault, August 25, 2007, [Owens] knocked on her door around 9:30 p.m. and asked if they could talk. [The victim] recognized [Owens] as a friend of her recently deceased husband, and she agreed. She testified that they sat outside on her patio where [Owens] offered her one of the two beers he had brought with him. She declined. [Owens] told [the victim] that he thought she was a “beautiful lady,” [The victim] replied that she was still dealing with her husband’s death and that she was not interested in him. [The victim] then said she needed to go inside the house to check on her dog. Her next memory was waking up at Vanderbilt Hospital having no idea of how or why she was there. [Owens had attacked her brutally, causing a large open skull fracture and permanent physical and mental impairment.] [The victim] remained in Vanderbilt Hospital for several days....
[The victim] likely would not have survived [the attack] if not for the fact that someone saw the altercation and called the police. Franklin Police Officer Benjamin Brown testified that he was dispatched to [the victim’s] house on August 25, 2007, around 10:30 p.m. Upon arriving he saw a white male lift a female ([the victim]) up in the air and slam her down against the ground twice. As the man lifted the woman in the air a third time, Officer Brown called out to the suspect identifying himself as a police officer. The man then dropped the woman and ran off. Officer Brown gave chase to the suspect through some heavy brush but could not catch him. Officer Brown described the suspect as a white male, with blond hair, wearing a white t-shirt and jeans.
Franklin Police Officer Justin Toth arrived at [the victim’s] house soon after Officer Brown and also began to chase the suspect. Officer Toth later saw the suspect at a nearby house, near a swimming pool, dripping wet and wearing only underwear. He arrested the suspect, who later was identified as [Owens]. Officer Toth testified that [Owens] was intoxicated when arrested. ...
Franklin Police Officer Ben Harper testified that the day after the assault he found a gray t-shirt between a driveway and a hedge at a property near [the victim’s] home. The t-shirt was turned inside out and appeared to have blood on the sleeve. Testing conducted by the Kentucky State Police Crime Laboratory linked DNA from the t-shirt to both [Owens] and [the victim]. [5]*5Franklin Police Captain Dallas Wiles processed the crime scene. There he found a wallet containing [Owens’s] social security card and driver’s license, a hat that [Owens] admitted to owning, and two beer cans.

Owens I, 329 S.W.3d at 311-12.

The victim was found by officers at the edge of a brick patio bordered by wooden landscape timbers. Corporal Harper and Captain Wiles photographed this area while processing the scene. The photographs revealed significant pooling of blood and blood spatter along the landscape timber in the area where it is believed the victim had been seated. The officers also collected as evidence a white plastic chair shown overturned in the photographs near the bloodied landscape timber.

Following his arrest, Owens was Miran-dized. He gave Captain Wiles a written statement. Owens admitted to being at the victim’s house the night of the incident, but denied assaulting her. Owens stated he left the patio to use the bathroom and, upon his return he heard someone talking to the victim, so he left and went to his cousin’s house, where he was found by police and taken into custody. Owens later gave Detective Wiles the name of an individual he believed perpetrated the assault. Detective Wiles pursued the lead, only to discover the individual had been incarcerated in another state at the time of the assault.

Owens was originally charged with first-degree intentional assault, tampering with physical evidence, and being a PFO I. He accepted a plea deal by the Commonwealth, and the trial judge specifically inquired into the knowing and voluntary nature of Owens’ plea. Prior to being sentenced, Owens moved to withdraw his plea claiming he had not seen all the discovery. The circuit court granted Owens’ motion and his case proceeded to trial, resulting in the verdict and sentence previously described.

In 2012, Owens, pro se, sought relief from his conviction under RCr 11.42, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. Owens claimed his trial counsel failed to introduce at trial: (i) evidence to establish that the victim was struck from behind by a piece of wood; (ii) medical records from Vanderbilt Hospital that would have contradicted the victim’s physician’s testimony about the severity of the victim’s injuries; and (iii) evidence of a new version of events, namely that when Officer Brown arrived on the scene Owens was holding the victim and that Owens ran from the scene because of a previous bad experience with law enforcement when he had been stopped with a Taser.

In that same motion, Owens further asserted his trial counsel erred by: (i) objecting to the introduction of a photograph of the blood-spattered chair in an upright position, which he believed supported his theory that the victim was struck from behind while seated in the chair; (ii) soliciting testimony from the victim’s physician regarding the causation of the blood spatter on the wood timbers; and (iii) failing to effectively cross-examine Officer Brown that his view of the incident was skewed as he was temporarily blinded by the light from the victim’s residence.

The circuit court denied Owens’ motion without a hearing on June 18, 2012. Owens appealed to this Court. We affirmed the denial. Owens v. Commonwealth, No. 2012-CA-001175-MR, 2014 WL 3887908, at *1 (Ky. App. Aug. 8, 2014) (Owens II).

While Owens’ appeal in Owens II was pending, he filed a pro se CR 60.02 motion seeking DNA testing of a single red brick (pictured in photographs of the crime scene offered in evidence by the Commonwealth) and the white plastic chair. The [6]*6Commonwealth responded that the brick was not identified or secured as evidence and therefore not subject to DNA testing.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
512 S.W.3d 1, 2017 WL 382410, 2017 Ky. App. LEXIS 21, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/owens-v-commonwealth-kyctapp-2017.