State v. Charles

372 P.3d 1109, 304 Kan. 158, 2016 Kan. LEXIS 244
CourtSupreme Court of Kansas
DecidedApril 22, 2016
Docket105148
StatusPublished
Cited by33 cases

This text of 372 P.3d 1109 (State v. Charles) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Charles, 372 P.3d 1109, 304 Kan. 158, 2016 Kan. LEXIS 244 (kan 2016).

Opinions

Per Curiam:

This is the direct appeal of defendant Leonard D. Charles, Sr., from his juiy convictions and sentence for reckless aggravated battery, felony criminal damage to property, and criminal threat based on a series of incidents that occurred on Christmas 2009. The district judge sentenced Charles to 34 months’ imprisonment and required him to register as a violent offender under the Kansas Offender Registration Act (KORA).

On appeal to our Court of Appeals, Charles raised six issues challenging his convictions and the registration requirement. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Charles raises the same six issues on petition for review to this court. For the reasons detailed in the discussion section below, we affirm his convictions and vacate his registration requirement.

Factual and Procedural Background

Late in the evening on Christmas 2009, Charles drove his 1995 Nissan Pathfinder 4x4 SUV into a Family Video parking lot in Wichita. Charles was on his way to Kansas City to see his mother because he had heard from his brother that she was scheduled to have open heart surgery soon. Charles would eventually testify that he had become lost and had mistaken the Family Video for a gas station.

Autumn McDowell had just finished returning a video at the store when her car became stuck in snow near the parking lot exit. As Charles pulled into the parking lot, he saw McDowell in her vehicle. McDowell and Charles would later provide different accounts of the nature of their subsequent interaction.

[160]*160According to McDowell, when Charles pulled up, he asked if she needed assistance. McDowell told him that she was going to try to rock her car back and forth to free it. During this brief conversation, a driver in a car that had been behind McDowell began to honk, seemingly unaware that McDowells car was stuck. Charles got out of his SUV, approached the third vehicle, and started yelling at the driver. The third vehicle then left. Charles reentered his SUV and positioned it behind McDowell’s car. At that point, McDowell was able to rock her car free, and she drove out of the parking lot. When McDowell looked into her rearview mirror, she saw that Charles was following her in his SUV. McDowell sped up to 60 miles per hour “to get away from him,” before she turned into a residential neighborhood.

Once in the neighborhood, McDowell drove evasively, “going from street to street, in and out, just trying to lose [him].” At one point, McDowell turned off her headlights to avoid Charles’ detection, but she quickly turned them back on because she could not see. Minutes after the pursuit began, Charles rear-ended McDowell’s car, sending both vehicles over a curb. McDowell was “really scared,” “felt threatened,” and “was in a panic ‘cause I didn’t know what he wanted with me, why he was following me.” After the collision, McDowell believed Charles’ SUV was stuck on the curb. She then drove home and called 911. McDowell suffered whiplash in the collision, and her car sustained nearly $4,000 in damage.

According to Charles, he entered the Family Video parking lot, saw McDowell in her car, lowered his window, and asked her if she could give him directions. McDowell agreed to do so. Charles then got out of his SUV and showed her a piece of paper that had written directions on it. McDowell apparently told Charles how he could return to his route and get to Kansas City. At that point, McDowell told Charles that her car was stuck, and he agreed to help her by pushing her car with his SUV Charles also said that the two talked about exchanging phone numbers and that McDowell directed him to follow her to her parents’ house in a nearby neighborhood.

Charles pulled up behind McDowell and used his SUV to push her car free of the snow. He then stepped out of his SUV to in[161]*161spect it for damage and watched as McDowell “mashed the gas” and sped away. Charles got back into his vehicle and drove in the direction he saw McDowell drive away, and he eventually followed her into a residential neighborhood.

Charles said that he did not see McDowell’s car when he entered the neighborhood. He did, however, see a car with its lights off, which appeared to be parking. Figuring the parking car contained McDowell, Charles sped up to see better. When his SUV’s headlights illuminated the parking car’s interior, he saw McDowell, “and she had this surprised look on her face like, [‘] Oh, my God, he found me.[’]”

According to Charles, McDowell then turned her headlights back on and “sped off again.” Charles followed. As the pursuit continued, Charles began to question whether McDowefl did in fact want him to follow her. “The wheels start[ed] clicking,” he said, and, “I began to think like is she — is she running?”

Nevertheless, Charles said he wanted to make contact with McDowell to determine whether she did not want him to follow her. Shortly thereafter, McDowell’s vehicle began “fishtailing and sliding”; Charles slammed on his brakes, causing his SUV to skid before colliding with McDowell’s vehicle. Charles characterized the accident as unavoidable.

After the collision, Charles returned to Family Video, where Rachel Northrup and Kailey Westemeir were working inside. Both Northrup and Westemeir testified at Charles’ trial.

When Charles entered Family Video, Northrup was helping customers from behind the counter while Westemeir checked inventory at the back of the store. Northrup did not see Charles enter the store, but she noticed him when he approached the counter. Charles was “pacing and raising his voice” and generally looked frustrated and upset. Charles continued to get louder, saying there was something wrong with his SUV. He then said that, if he could not get to Kansas City to see his mother before she died, he was going to come back to the store and kill someone.

Charles then came behind the counter and approached Northrup face-to-face, making similar statements about killing someone if he was unable to get to Kansas City before his mother died. At some [162]*162point, Charles “took a big swipe” and knocked over a computer monitor that had been attached to the counter. He also knocked over a gift card display and a cup of pens and pencils that were on the counter, and he knocked several videos off the store’s shelves.

Westemeir heard die commotion in the front of tire store and came toward the counter from the back. Charles approached her and began yelling about “some girl who messed up his car.” West-emeir eventually called 911. While she was on the phone with the 911 operator, Charles told her that if he could not get to Kansas City to see his dying mother, “he was gonna come back and kill us.”

When police arrived at Family Video, they arrested Charles.

As a result of all of these events, the State charged Charles with three counts: intentional aggravated battery, alleging Charles “unlawfully and intentionally cause[d] bodily harm to another person . . . with a deadly weapon, to-wit: 1995 Nissan Pathfinder”; criminal damage of McDowell’s car; and criminal threat toward Westemeir.

At trial, in addition to giving an intentional aggravated battery instruction telling tire jury it could convict if Charles caused bodily harm to McDowell with his SUV, the district judge informed the jury of the circumstances under which it could convict Charles of reckless aggravated battery as a lesser included offense.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
372 P.3d 1109, 304 Kan. 158, 2016 Kan. LEXIS 244, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-charles-kan-2016.