State v. Reed

247 P.3d 1074, 45 Kan. App. 2d 372, 2011 Kan. App. LEXIS 18
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kansas
DecidedFebruary 18, 2011
Docket102,390
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 247 P.3d 1074 (State v. Reed) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals 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. Reed, 247 P.3d 1074, 45 Kan. App. 2d 372, 2011 Kan. App. LEXIS 18 (kanctapp 2011).

Opinions

Standridge, J.:

Ernest L. Reed appeals from his convictions of aggravated robbery, aggravated assault, and obstruction of official duty. Reed argues the district court erred in failing to suppress the eyewitness identification of him, in denying his request for a unanimity jury instruction, and in giving a deadlocked jury instruction prior to deliberations. For the reasons stated below, we affirm.

Facts

On October 17, 2008, Michael Orabuena went by himself to see a movie at the Central Mall in Salina, Kansas. The movie ended at about 11:30 p.m. Unable to find a ride home, Orabuena called his mother on a cell phone. As he began walking back toward the mall, two men assaulted and robbed Orabuena at gunpoint. The men got away with a Bic lighter, a $10 bill, and six $1 bills, all of which they forcibly removed from Orabuena’s pocket.

Orabuena called 911 to report the incident. As he was telling the police what happened, he observed the men walk away and eventually meet up with two other people. Orabuena continued to watch the men until he could no longer see them, after which he went to the mall as instructed by the police.

At 11:53 p.m., Officer Aaron Carswell of the Salina Police Department was dispatched to investigate a report of armed robbery at the Central Mall. He was advised to look for several people crossing Ninth Street westbound from the mall. As he approached the area, he saw four people crossing Ninth Street. He pulled his marked vehicle in front of the individuals so he could talk to them. As he stepped out of the vehicle, one of the individuals began to [374]*374run. Carswell yelled for him to stop, but the individual failed to do so. Carswell, accompanied by his police dog and two other officers who had just arrived at the scene, chased the individual on foot. Although Carswell and Officer Michael Kohman briefly lost sight of the individual during the chase, the individual eventually was apprehended by Officer Paul Forrester. The individual was identified as Reed and placed in the back of a patrol car as a suspect.

When he was arrested, Reed had in his possession one $10 bill and seven $1 bills. Reed did not have a lighter or a gun in his possession, and none of the officers who participated in the chase saw Reed drop anything as he was running. Officer Carswell conducted a brief search of the area around the mall where the robbery occurred to no avail. Officer Kohman similarly failed to discover anything in a cursory search of the route he had taken in his attempt to apprehend Reed. The officers did not conduct a search of the route used by Reed to flee the scene.

Upon meeting up with Orabuena at the mall, an officer asked him if he was willing to look at a suspect the police had taken into custody to determine whether he could identify the suspect as one of his assailants. After agreeing to do so, Orabuena was escorted to the police car to see if he recognized Reed, who was sitting in the back seat of the patrol car wearing handcuffs. Orabuena identified Reed as the person who robbed him. Two days later, a small silver gun was found in the yard of an apartment complex near where Reed had run.

Reed was charged with one count each of aggravated robbeiy, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, and obstructing official duty. Prior to trial, Reed filed a motion to suppress all testimony and evidence related to Orabuena’s identification of him. In support of this motion, Reed claimed the identification procedure employed by law enforcement — a one-person show-up — was unnecessarily suggestive and created a substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification.

At the suppression hearing, Officer Breanna Buechman testified that Reed was transported in her patrol car to the mall where Orabuena was waiting. Buechman “ ‘asked [Orabuena] if he would be willing to look at the subject [she] had in [her] car and see if he [375]*375could ID him or not.’ ” Orabuena agreed, so Officer Buechman rolled down the back window on the side of the car where Orabuena was standing and turned on .the lights inside her patrol car. Orabuena remained outside of the police car, and Reed remained seated in the police car wearing handcuffs. Officer Buechman testified that Orabuena “ positively identified [Reed] as the person that pulled the handgun on him and that had pistol-whipped him.’ ”

Orabuena testified that he was talking to his mother on a cell phone while walking toward the mall when he heard a noise from behind that prompted him to turn around and notice that two black males were running toward him. Because the men were a “good distance” away when he first noticed them, Orabuena continued to walk toward the mall but stepped off the path into the grass hoping the men would run by him. As the men drew near, he told his mom to hold on. A split second later, one of the men hit him in the back of the head with a pistol. Orabuena turned around and saw one of the men pointing a gun at him. He had never had a gun pointed at him before. Orabuena described the gun as a little silver pistol. As he looked at it, one of the men told him to turn back around. After he turned away, one of the men asked, “ “Where’s the shit’ ”? Because Orabuena understood this to be a question asking where he kept his money, he responded that it was in his pocket. Orabuena had $16 in his pocket — a $10 bill and six $1 bills. He also had a Bic lighter. After reaching into Orabuena’s pocket and taking both his money and his lighter, one of the men hit Orabuena a second time with the pistol and then hit him again in the head with a fist. The men then stepped back, and one man pointed the gun at Orabuena’s head and told him to start running or they were going to shoot him. Orabuena just stared at the men and eventually walked away. The actual robbery took about 2 to 3 minutes.

When Orabuena called 911, he described the men only as two black males. At the suppression hearing, however, Orabuena testified that both his assailants were wearing dark-colored clothing and hoodie sweatshirts. He further testified that one of the men had a “dark figure” on the cheek. It is not clear from the record whether this description was ever attributed to Reed. '

[376]*376According to Orabuena, a police officer had him look at someone in a patrol car and asked him to identify the man and determine if he was the person who robbed him. Orabuena testified that he did not feel any pressure to identify the suspect in the car as the person who robbed him. Orabuena looked at the suspect through the car window and was about an arm’s length away at the time of the identification. Orabuena was standing outside the car, and the suspect in the car was in the back seat facing forward. Orabuena did not think the car’s dome light was on at the time. Orabuena looked at the suspect for about a minute before identifying the man as the person who robbed him. Orabuena testified that he had no doubt that the man in the car was the person who robbed him. Although not realizing it until he arrived home, Orabuena also testified that the man he identified had been sitting two seats down to his left during the movie.

Orabuena testified he had not used any alcohol or drugs that evening. His only disability was that he was legally blind in his right eye, but he had perfect vision in his left eye. Orabuena did not regularly see an eye doctor, but he had been to an eye doctor sometime around the beginning of 2008. During the robbery, Orabuena turned his head left to look at the assailants.

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State v. Reed
247 P.3d 1074 (Court of Appeals of Kansas, 2011)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
247 P.3d 1074, 45 Kan. App. 2d 372, 2011 Kan. App. LEXIS 18, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-reed-kanctapp-2011.