State v. Evans

725 A.2d 283, 1999 R.I. LEXIS 47, 1999 WL 52164
CourtSupreme Court of Rhode Island
DecidedFebruary 1, 1999
Docket95-709-C.A.
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 725 A.2d 283 (State v. Evans) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Rhode Island primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Evans, 725 A.2d 283, 1999 R.I. LEXIS 47, 1999 WL 52164 (R.I. 1999).

Opinion

OPINION

GOLDBERG, Justice.

This case represents what the trial justice described as the defendant’s obvious attempt to parlay his good fortune in one robbery case, which we overturned due to the state’s negligent failure to comply with discovery obligations, into the present case “by misleading the Supreme Court into believing that both cases had the same discovery failure and defect.” Having already remanded this case twice to the trial justice for his further consideration, we now conclude that the third time is not a charm for this defendant, and affirm his conviction. Because the posture of the instant appeal is so inextricably linked to this Court’s reversal of the previous robbery case, a complete discussion of both cases is required. We do so below.

Factual and Procedural History

On August 19, 1988, a lone masked gunman entered the East Providence Hospital Trust Bank carrying a white plastic shopping bag. The gunman quickly approached the bank’s tellers and after failing on his first attempt to vault over the counter, the undeterred gunman once again attempted to leap the counter, this time successfully. The gunman immediately ordered the bank’s tellers to open “both drawers” and “not to push the *285 [alarm] buttons.” Thereafter, the gunman approached four of the bank’s tellers, made a cash withdrawal at each of their stations, and deposited the contents into his shopping bag. After completing these transactions, the gunman hurdled the tellers’ counter once again and walked out of the bank.

Throughout the bank robbery, one of the bank’s tellers, Maria Quintanilha (Quintani-lha), had been concentrating on the perpetrator’s face. Moreover, after the gunman exited the bank, Quintanilha was given an additional four to five seconds with which to view the robber’s unobstructed face when he passed by a large window and removed his mask. Quintanilha later explained that the gunman had distinctive eyes, “the kind of eyes that you can pick from a crowd,” and she explained to the police that if given the opportunity to view the perpetrator again, she could identify him.

Police transported Quintanilha to their East Providence station where she assisted in the composite drawing of the gunman, a drawing that was so accurate that the trial justice later would comment “that the trial jury must certainly have viewed [the drawing] as if they were actually watching [defendant] looking at himself into a mirror.” However, when shown a photographic array, Quintanilha was unable to identify the bank robber, and the August 19, 1988 crime remained unsolved.

Nearly six months later, on February 10, 1989, police again converged on the East Providence Hospital Trust Bank to investigate another robbery, this time by two masked men in their early twenties. Quinta-nilha informed the police that the mask of one of the perpetrators was so transparent that it did not conceal his facial features, and she subsequently described an olive-complected man with a thin mustache and black hair. In an attempt to identify the two February 10, 1989 perpetrators, Quintanilha again agreed to visit the East Providence police station, although unlike her previous attempt to identify the August 19, 1988 bank robber, this visit proved more fruitful. Quin-tanilha positively identified a photograph of Dennis Evans (Evans), defendant in this case, not as one of the February 10, 1989 bank robbers, but as the lone August 19, 1988 gunman. The following day, Quintani-lha was shown another photographic array and identified David DiLibero (DiLibero), who was the boyfriend of Evans’ daughter, Dawn Evans, as one of the February 10,1989 bank robbers.

Armed with this latest information and a warrant, police conducted a search of the apartment where DiLibero and Dawn Evans resided, and discovered incriminating evidence. In particular, the search revealed a handgun and a letter written by defendant Evans (while he was incarcerated at the Adult Correctional Institutions) to his daughter Dawn. Evans’ letter, which was written one day after the February 10, 1989 bank robbery, advised his daughter on avoiding detection 'by “[m]ak[ing] sure the wrappers are gone.” Evans also provided sound fatherly advice not to spend the stolen money too freely, and “to put some [money] aside for a lawyer [and] bail [in ease] anything ever goes wrong.”

On May 24, 1991, something did go wrong, a Providence County grand jury returned a three-eount indictment against Evans, charging him with the August 19, 1988 bank robbery, aiding and abetting the February 10, 1989 bank robbery, and conspiracy to commit robbery. 1 A six-day jury trial was held during which the evidence against Evans was, as the trial justice would later term, “overwhelming.”

Quintanilha testified regarding the accuracy of security camera photographs taken during the August 19, 1988 bank robbery. These photographs depicted the bank robber holding his left arm at a ninety-degree angle. Later, Doctor Thomas Bliss, an orthopedic surgeon, testified that one-month prior to the August 19, 1988 bank robbery, he had treat *286 ed Evans for two broken arms, and that Evans’ left arm had been placed in a nonre-movable fiberglass cast and set at a ninety-degree angle. Doctor Bliss was also shown a security camera photograph in which he stated that “a whiteness that covers the back of the [robber’s] hand and goes over the wrist” was consistent with the placement of the nonremovable fiberglass cast on Evans’ left arm during his last examination on August 17, 1988. Furthermore, the state introduced the eyewitness testimony of Quintanilha, and the testimony of Darrell Kroll (Kroll), who stated that one dáy as he and Evans drove past the East Providence Hospital Trust Bank, Evans boasted of having robbed that bank.

Evans and his defense counsel were unable to overcome the onslaught of incriminating evidence. As a result, a Providence County Superior Court jury convicted Evans of the August 19, 1988 bank robbery, although it was unable to reach a verdict on charges that he aided and abetted the February 10, 1989 bank robbery. 2 After denying defense counsel’s motion for a new trial, the trial justice sentenced Evans to serve fifty years at the Adult ' Correctional Institutions. Evans promptly appealed.

While Evans’ August 19, 1988 bank robbery conviction (hereafter East Providence bank robbery case) was pending appeal before this Court, Evans commenced trial on another unrelated bank robbery charge. In that case, an individual entered the Fleet National Bank in Warwick on August 9, 1991 (hereafter Warwick bank robbery case), armed with a gun in one hand and a shopping bag in the other. See State v. Evans, 668 A.2d 1256, 1257 (R.I.1996) (Evans I). The gunman jumped over the counter and ordered the tellers to stuff the shopping bag with money. Id. After the bag was filled, the gunman fled the bank and escaped. Id. Almost immediately, Evans and Kroll became suspects, and when Kroll was subsequently questioned, he not only admitted to participating in the Warwick bank robbery, but he also identified Evans as the gunman. Id. at 1258.

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Bluebook (online)
725 A.2d 283, 1999 R.I. LEXIS 47, 1999 WL 52164, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-evans-ri-1999.