Robert Lee Jones v. State of Alabama

• Court: Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama
• Decided: December 16, 2022
• Docket: CR-2022-0672
• Status: Published

Opinion

REL: December 16, 2022

Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern Reporter. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0650), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is published in Southern Reporter.

Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals OCTOBER TERM, 2022-2023 _________________________

CR-2022-0672 _________________________

Robert Lee Jones

v.

State of Alabama

Appeal from Baldwin Circuit Court (CC-21-1852, CC-21-1854, and CC-21-1855)

KELLUM, Judge.

AFFIRMED BY UNPUBLISHED MEMORANDUM.

McCool, Cole, and Minor, JJ., concur. Windom, P.J., concurs in part

and dissents in part, with opinion. 2022-0543

WINDOM, Presiding Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

I concur in the majority's decision to affirm Robert Lee Jones's

conviction for first-degree sexual abuse. Where I must part with the

majority is the portion of the opinion related to the offenses that occurred

on June 7, 2020 -- shooting into an occupied building and first-degree

assault. I agree with the majority that the State proved that someone

fired a shot into A.A.'s occupied dwelling and that A.A. was the victim of

a first-degree assault based on the gunshot wound she received. I cannot

agree, however, that the State proved that Jones was the perpetrator of

these two offenses.

The majority sets forth the evidence on which the State relied to

support the charges of shooting into an occupied building and first-degree

assault as follows:

"The evidence, when viewed in a light most favorable to the State, established that Jones threatened to kill A.A. if she told police that Jones had sexually assaulted her. A.A. believed that Jones would kill her and did not report the crime; however, A.A.'s cousin contacted the police. Within days of the report to police, A.A.'s house was shot at twice. The second shooting occurred while A.A. was inside the house and resulted in a gunshot wound to A.A.'s leg. A.A.'s femoral artery was severed. A.A. initially identified Jones as the shooter to police but testified at trial that she did not see who shot her. Hours after A.A. was shot, police found wet, dark clothes in Jones's house. Testimony indicated that it was

2 2022-0543

raining when A.A. was shot inside her apartment. A.A. testified that she had no difficulties with anyone else and that Jones was the only person to threaten her life."

The majority is, of course, correct that this Court must view the

evidence in a light most favorable to the State. See Ex parte Burton, 783

So. 2d 887, 890-91 (Ala. 2000). Yet, even under that standard, I would

hold that the evidence was legally insufficient to convict Jones of those

two offenses. A.A.'s testimony was clear that she did not see the person

who shot her through her living-room window on the rainy night of June

7, 2020. (R. 142.) The circumstantial evidence connecting Jones to the

offenses was tenuous – that, several days before the shooting, Jones had

sexually assaulted A.A.; that, also several days before the shooting, Jones

had threatened to kill her if she contacted law enforcement about the

sexual assault; and that it was raining on the night of the shooting and

Inv. Arthur Odom saw wet, dark clothes lying on Jones's couch after the

shooting.

" ' "While a jury is under a duty to draw whatever permissible inferences it may from the evidence, including circumstantial evidence, mere speculation, conjecture, or surmise that the accused is guilty of the offense charged does not authorize a conviction. Smith v. State, 345 So. 2d 325 (Ala. Crim. App. 1976), cert. quashed, 345 So. 2d 329 (Ala. 1977); Colley v. State, 41 Ala. App.

3 2022-0543

273, 128 So. 2d 525 (1961). A defendant should not be convicted on mere suspicion or out of fear that he might have committed the crime. Harnage v. State, 49 Ala. App. 563, 274 So. 2d 333 (1972)." ' "

Folds v. State, 143 So. 3d 845, 848-49 (Ala. Crim. App. 2013) (quoting Ex

parte Williams, 468 So. 2d 99, 101-02 (Ala. 1985), overruled on other

grounds, Ex parte Carter, 889 So. 2d 528 (Ala. 2004)). Based on the

evidence presented at trial, I believe any finding that Jones shot A.A.

through her living-room window was altogether speculative.

Because I do not believe the State's evidence was legally sufficient

to prove that Jones fired a gun into an occupied building or that he was

responsible for the first-degree assault – A.A.’s gunshot wound – that

resulted therefrom, I believe the circuit court erred in denying Jones's

motion for a judgment of acquittal with respect to those two charges.

Therefore, I respectfully dissent from that portion of the decision that

affirms those convictions.