State v. McCray

2017 Ohio 2996, 91 N.E.3d 288
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 26, 2017
DocketNO. C–160272
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 2017 Ohio 2996 (State v. McCray) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. McCray, 2017 Ohio 2996, 91 N.E.3d 288 (Ohio Ct. App. 2017).

Opinions

Myers, Judge.

*293{¶ 1} Defendant-appellant Trashon McCray appeals the judgment of the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court convicting him, after a jury trial, of murder, felonious assault, and two counts of having a weapon while under a disability. Finding no merit to his assignments of error, we affirm the trial court's judgment.

{¶ 2} On March 21, 2014, at the end of the school day, students walked from Dohn Community School on Essex Place to the bus stops on William Howard Taft Road. A large crowd gathered to watch a fight that had broken out at the intersection of Essex and Taft. McCray's younger brother, D.M., and other Dohn students were involved in the fight. Fourteen-year-old J.M. and 17-year-old D.L. were standing in the crowd when 19-year-old McCray, a Dohn student at the time, drove up and fired a gun at them. J.M. died as a result of his gunshot wounds. D.L. was shot multiple times in the legs, sustaining serious permanent injuries. Video cameras on a nearby city bus recorded the shooting.

{¶ 3} The vehicle that McCray was driving belonged to a family friend, Lakeisha Hicks. Hicks's teenaged son D.W. was the front-seat passenger. After the shooting, McCray drove around the block to McMillan Street and picked up Hicks's other son, 20-year-old Miniko, who got in the back seat. McCray drove back around the block to drop Miniko off near Essex and Taft, where J.M. and D.L. were still lying on the ground.

{¶ 4} Before Miniko got out of the car, he took the gun from McCray. And McCray told him, "I did what I had to do." Then McCray and D.W. drove off. As Miniko stood on Essex, he fired the gun into the remaining crowd, striking and injuring two people. Miniko ran away toward Taft Road, where he met up with his other brother, 18-year-old Donyell Walker. Their aunt, Carletta Hayes, was driving by when she and her teenaged daughter spotted them. Hayes stopped to pick them up, and Miniko and Walker got into the back seat. As Hayes started to drive away, she was stopped by police. Police recovered the gun that McCray and Miniko had fired, a Kel-Tec semi-automatic pistol, from the back seat of Hayes's vehicle. Miniko and Walker were arrested.

{¶ 5} Shortly after the shooting, Janet Thomas, Hicks's coworker, saw Hicks and several carloads of teenagers in the parking lot of their workplace, two blocks away from Essex and Taft. Thomas recognized Hicks's vehicle. She saw one of the young men with Hicks enter the office building and go into the men's bathroom. He had been wearing a gray hoodie before he went into the bathroom, but was no longer wearing it when he exited.

{¶ 6} Five days later, police seized Hicks's vehicle. The following day, they photographed the vehicle and took lifts from it, attempting to obtain prints and gunshot residue. Testing revealed gunshot residue on the interior surface of the driver's door and D.W.'s palm print on the exterior surface of the left rear door. Lifts taken from the steering wheel and from the interior surface of the left rear door tested negative for gunshot residue.

{¶ 7} An arrest warrant was issued for McCray. McCray did not return to attend Dohn school, and police did not find him until ten months later. McCray was arrested at his girlfriend's apartment, where police recovered a Bryco firearm from a bedroom dresser.

{¶ 8} In an interview with police detectives about the events of March 21, 2014, *294McCray said that someone had called to tell him that his younger brother, D.M., was in a fight. McCray told the police that he had been walking near the fight when he heard gunshots and then ran the other way.

{¶ 9} The detectives told McCray that they knew he was driving Hicks's vehicle and that they had him "on video." McCray asked if he could see the video, but the detectives refused. McCray then admitted that he had been in Hicks's vehicle, but denied that he had fired a gun.

{¶ 10} Later in the interview, McCray admitted that he had been driving Hicks's vehicle and that he had fired two or three shots near the crowd before driving away. McCray said that he stopped to pick up Miniko and then drove back around the block. He said Miniko took the gun and got out of the car. According to McCray, he heard four or five shots as he drove away, and he figured that Miniko had fired them.

{¶ 11} At some point, Hicks entered the car. And, according to McCray, they went with Hicks to her workplace to drop off her car. When asked if he had entered a building there to use the bathroom, McCray said he had. He said that he was so scared by firing a gun for the first time that he used the bathroom there to relieve his bowels.

{¶ 12} In recorded telephone calls from jail, McCray told his mother, "They got me." When she asked him for what, he responded, "What do you think?" He told her that the police told him that they had pictures of him at the scene and witness statements. When in one of the jail calls a friend warned McCray that police would lie to get him to incriminate himself, McCray claimed that the police had shown him pictures of him and the car at the scene, and pictures from a video recording.

{¶ 13} McCray was charged with murder and felony murder for the death of J.M., two felonious-assault offenses for the injuries to D.L., and having a weapon while under a disability. McCray was charged with a second weapon-under-disability offense for his possession of the firearm on the date of his arrest. The predicate disability for both weapons offenses was a 2012 juvenile adjudication for robbery.

{¶ 14} At trial, the parties stipulated to the predicate disability for the weapons offenses.

{¶ 15} In his defense, McCray testified at trial that on the day of the shootings, D.W. drove up in Hicks's vehicle. McCray told D.W. to scoot over, so that he could drive. As D.W. scooted over to the passenger's seat, McCray noticed a Kel-Tec handgun in the middle of the driver's seat. McCray said that D.W. grabbed the gun and set it in his lap. After receiving a call that his brother, D.M., was "getting jumped," McCray drove to the fight. McCray testified:

I had pulled up next to the fight. And then as I was trying to maneuver to pull up to Essex, I just heard gunshots from behind my head. So then I started to drive off.
* * *
I guess, like, [D.W.], maneuvered, like-I don't know how he maneuvered to get behind me to shoot out the window. I just know he maneuvered behind me and he was sitting back down as we pulled away.

{¶ 16} McCray said that he did not ask D.W. why he had fired the gun. McCray said that when he drove around the block, he stopped to pick up Miniko. Miniko jumped into the back seat and asked for the gun. According to McCray, Miniko grabbed the gun from D.W. McCray said that when they drove back around the *295block, he did not see anyone who had been shot, and he assumed that D.W. had fired the gun into the air.

{¶ 17} McCray testified that then he saw Hicks, so he pulled over. McCray got into the backseat, and Hicks drove to her workplace. McCray said that he had asked to use the bathroom there, but was told that he was not allowed to be in the building.

{¶ 18} McCray acknowledged that his trial testimony differed from what he had told the detectives.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2017 Ohio 2996, 91 N.E.3d 288, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-mccray-ohioctapp-2017.