People of Michigan v. Brandon Bethel-Alan Ratcliff

CourtMichigan Court of Appeals
DecidedJuly 12, 2016
Docket326809
StatusUnpublished

This text of People of Michigan v. Brandon Bethel-Alan Ratcliff (People of Michigan v. Brandon Bethel-Alan Ratcliff) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People of Michigan v. Brandon Bethel-Alan Ratcliff, (Mich. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

STATE OF MICHIGAN

COURT OF APPEALS

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, UNPUBLISHED July 12, 2016 Plaintiff-Appellee,

v No. 326809 Wayne Circuit Court BRANDON BETHEL-ALAN RATCLIFF, LC No. 14-003564-FC

Defendant-Appellant.

Before: JANSEN, P.J., and FORT HOOD and BOONSTRA, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

Defendant appeals by right his convictions, following a jury trial, of carjacking, MCL 750.529a, armed robbery, MCL 750.529, and unlawfully driving away a motor vehicle, MCL 750.413. The trial court sentenced him to 20 to 40 years’ imprisonment for the carjacking conviction, 20 to 40 years’ imprisonment for the armed robbery conviction, and 10 to 20 years’ imprisonment for the unlawfully driving away a motor vehicle conviction. We affirm.

I. PERTINENT FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

This case arises out of the April 9, 2014 robbery (and related carjacking) of the victim, Erica Frady. At approximately 4:00 p.m., Frady parked her 2014 blue Chevy Cruze in the rear parking lot of the Roman Village restaurant where she worked, opened the driver’s side door, and began to gather her belongings. As she sat in the driver’s seat with one foot out of the door, a man ran up to her with a metal object1 in his hand, struck her in the head with the object, and dragged her from the vehicle by her hair. During this struggle, Frady’s glasses were ripped from her face. After the man forced her to the ground, he continued to hit her as she tried to crawl away. When Miriam Contrearas, Frady’s coworker, came to her rescue, the man got into Frady’s Cruze and drove away through a neighboring field towards Akron Street. At trial, Frady identified defendant as the man who had attacked her.

1 Throughout the transcripts, the metal object was referred to as a pipe, rod, plate, conduit, and object. For the sake of clarity, this opinion will refer to it as a “metal object.”

-1- At trial, the prosecutor offered video footage from the two surveillance cameras at Roman Village, as well as surveillance cameras from the Mobil gas station across the street. As the video played, Frady pointed out her vehicle as it pulled into the parking lot, and noted that the jury could not see where she parked because the view was blocked by a nearby garage. Moments later, a man, identified by Frady as defendant, is seen in the video holding an object in his right hand and walking in the same direction as Frady had driven, until he is also blocked from view by the garage. Because of the angle of the camera, the video does not show the actual attack on Frady, although at one point her head is visible on the ground in the corner of the screen.

Frady testified that she had several belongings in her vehicle when defendant stole it, including her purse; apron; some paperwork; and a black, zip-up, hooded sweatshirt with thumbholes in the wrists. Additionally, she later discovered that her credit card was used at a nearby Subway sandwich shop after her vehicle was stolen.

In an in-person lineup the following day, Frady identified defendant as the person who had attacked her and stolen her vehicle. Contrearas was unable at the lineup to identify the man who had attacked Frady.

During cross-examination, Frady described the attacker as a short, white man, “dressed a little preppy” or “clean cut.” She agreed that the entire incident happened in a matter of seconds and that her eyeglasses had been ripped off her face early in the encounter. However, Frady explained that she is nearsighted, so she was still able to see the attacker’s face without her eyeglasses.

Contrearas testified that she was walking into work at approximately 4:00 p.m., when she heard screaming. When she went toward the screaming, she saw a man hitting Frady with a metal object. Contrearas tried to grab Frady, but Frady was disoriented and did not immediately recognize her. By the time Frady realized who Contrearas was, her attacker had gotten into her vehicle and was driving away through an empty field next to Roman Village. Contrearas got into her own car, drove Frady to the restaurant’s front door, and tried to follow the man, but he was already gone. On cross-examination, Contrearas acknowledged that she did not get a good look at the man because she was more concerned with helping Frady.

Corporal Cyle Gizicki and his partner, Corporal Tim Clive, of the Dearborn Police Department were the first officers to respond to the scene at Roman Village. Gizicki learned from Frady that her Cruze was new and equipped with OnStar, a GPS tracking device. With Frady’s assistance, he contacted her car dealership and had the OnStar tracking service activated. Gizicki testified that Clive talked to Contrearas and located a metal object in the parking lot, which was taken into evidence.

Corporal Madou Bazzi of the Dearborn Police testified that he was conducting undercover surveillance in an unrelated matter when dispatch informed him that a 2014 blue Chevy Cruze had been stolen and requested his assistance in locating it. He was directed by dispatch to southwestern Detroit, and eventually located the Cruze approximately an hour after it was stolen from Frady. Bazzi parked his unmarked vehicle about five or six residential lots away from the Cruze. By this time, it was about 5:10 p.m. and still sunny out. When Bazzi first saw the Cruze, it appeared to be unoccupied, but then he saw a person sit up in the driver’s seat. -2- After a few minutes, the driver got out of the vehicle, looked around in all directions, and then began walking southbound on Diversey Street, toward a vacant residential lot. Bazzi identified defendant as the person he observed getting out of the Cruze and stated that he was initially wearing a dark sweatshirt and hat. Defendant ran from Bazzi, ignoring his commands to stop. Defendant was ultimately detained by other officers. He was no longer wearing the sweatshirt or hat, but Bazzi was confident that it was the same person, because he recognized defendant’s height, stature, and goatee.

Corporal Michael York of the Dearborn Police and his partner, Corporal Cerroni,2 were the officers who detained defendant. Defendant gave the false name “Justin Cole” when questioned by York. A canine unit located a discarded sweatshirt and credit card, both belonging to Frady, in a nearby backyard.

Erica Anderson, the prosecution’s DNA expert, testified that DNA found on the recovered metal object matched a known sample provided by defendant, with a probability of another Caucasian man matching the DNA profile being 1 in 6.485 quintillion. Both Frady’s DNA and another person’s DNA were found on the steering wheel of Frady’s car. Although the DNA for the second donor could not be completely analyzed due to the limited sample, Anderson testified that defendant could not be excluded as a donor.

On cross-examination, Anderson was asked if she would have expected to find Frady’s DNA on the metal object; in response, Anderson said, “From a single touch without any blood you may or may not find a second person.”

Detective Emilee Williams, the officer in charge of the investigation, testified regarding the security footage she had obtained, and testified that the jeans and t-shirt defendant was wearing when he was arrested appeared to match the ones he was wearing in the surveillance video.

Corporal James Isaacs testified that he had obtained records from AT&T that indicated the location of defendant’s cell phone on April 9, 2014. According to the AT&T records, defendant’s phone connected to the AT&T network twice that day: once at 10:45 a.m. and once at 11:45 a.m. Issacs identified those locations on a map and noted that both locations were just a few minutes’ walking distance from Roman Village and several miles from the place where defendant was later arrested.

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