State v. Thames

599 N.W.2d 122, 1999 Minn. LEXIS 442, 1999 WL 549001
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedJuly 15, 1999
DocketC0-98-1698
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 599 N.W.2d 122 (State v. Thames) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Thames, 599 N.W.2d 122, 1999 Minn. LEXIS 442, 1999 WL 549001 (Mich. 1999).

Opinion

OPINION

PAGE, Justice.

Following a jury trial in Hennepin County District Court, appellant Donnie Tomiji Thames was convicted of one count of first-degree murder in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.185(3) (1998) for the January 6, 1998 shooting death of Maurice Wells. In this direct appeal, Thames argues that the trial court erred when it allowed the state to impeach one of its key witnesses at trial with a statement she made to the police two days after the murder, and when it instructed the jury with respect to that witness’ testimony. Thames also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction. We affirm.

The facts giving rise to Thames’ conviction are as follows. Around 9:00 p.m. on January 6, 1998, homicide investigators for the Minneapolis police department were notified that patrol officers responding to a 911 call had found a body in the parking lot behind 1909 Park Avenue in south Minneapolis. The investigators went to the address and were directed to the body of an African-American male. The body was naked except for a pair of socks, a home-monitoring bracelet on the right ankle, and a pair of gold earrings. The body was identified as that of Wells. An autopsy revealed that his death was caused by multiple gunshots fired from a semi-automatic handgun.

After identifying the body as Wells, police contacted Sommer Parker, the woman who lived with Wells. According to Parker, Wells received a call on his cell phone between 8:00 and 8:20 p.m. on January 6 from a man he arranged to meet at an apartment on Park Avenue. Before leaving for the meeting, Wells retrieved a zi-plock bag containing a half-pound of marijuana. When Wells left his apartment, he was wearing a cream colored coat, a black and gray shirt, beige corduroy slacks, black boots, and black socks. He was also wearing gold earrings and a Guess watch that Parker had given him for Christmas two weeks earlier.

Parker expected Wells to return around 10:30 p.m. When Wells did not return as expected, Parker tried calling him on his cell phone between 10:30 and 11:00 p.m., and a strange male voice answered. After a short conversation in which the stranger attempted to convince Parker that he was *124 Wells, the man hung up. When Parker called Wells’ cell phone number again, there was no answer.

A review of Wells’ cell phone records revealed that a call had been placed from Wells’ cell phone to the apartment of Lucia Sorrell at 10:10 p.m. on January 6. As a result, the police interviewed Sorrell on January 8. In a statement to the police, Sorrell indicated that Thames, her boyfriend, called her from a pay phone between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. on January 6, and asked her to pick him up at a convenience store at 24th Street and Nicollet Avenue in south Minneapolis. She said that when she picked him up, Thames, who was wearing black jeans, a three-quarter length leather coat, and a blue hooded sweatshirt, said to her “I shot the guy.” In addition, she told the police that Thames had her smell his hand, told her that he forced Wells to undress before killing him, and showed her a gun, as well as $200 in cash, a cell phone, and a half-pound of marijuana in a ziplock bag. After picking him up, Sorrell drove Thames to meet Jimmy Peeler and the two men drove off together in an older burgundy-colored car. Later that evening, Thames called Sorrell from a cell phone to tell her that he was staying with Jimmy Peeler and “was going to lay low.” Sorrell also told the police about a three-way phone call she set up between Thames, Peeler, and an unidentified third person two days before Wells was killed. According to Sor-rell, the subject of that phone call was a plan to buy marijuana from “some guy” and then rob him.

After interviewing Sorrell, the police arrested Thames for Wells’ murder. 1 At the time of his arrest, Thames was driving a burgundy-colored car and wearing a Guess watch matching the description of the one Parker gave to Wells. When asked about the watch, Thames claimed that a woman he had met in Iowa named Candy gave it to him. The police never recovered Wells’ clothing or cell phone, or the murder weapon.

Three tenants of 1909 Park Avenue testified at Thames’ trial. Emmanuel Woods and Tamika Mabry lived in the building with their two children. According to their testimony, Woods was asleep on the couch and Mabry was watching television when Woods was awakened by the sound of four gunshots in rapid succession. After a couple of minutes, Woods and Mabry went to the front window of their apartment, and saw a couple of people standing across the street. They also saw a man walking quickly down the driveway to the back of the apartment building. Woods testified that the man was African-American, about 5-feefr-9-inehes tall with a slim build, and was wearing dark clothing, including a “quarter length” coat with a hat or some type of hood. Mabry described the man as African-American, about 5-feet-7-inches tall with a medium build, wearing a leather jacket with a hood.

Another tenant, Geraldine Mark, testified that she saw two young men at the front door of the apartment building around 7:45 p.m. One man stood inside the front door, was about 5-feet-7-inches tall, and wore a jacket with a hood, and the other man, who Mark described as tall and light-skinned, stood outside the door. Mark identified Roger Peeler, who was thought to be either Jimmy Peeler’s brother or nephew, as the man she saw inside the apartment building before the shots were fired. Shortly after seeing the two men, she heard four gunshots. About 20 minutes after the shots were fired, Mark looked in the hallway outside her door. She saw two black boots next to her door. By the time the police arrived and looked for the boots, they were gone.

James Patrick Quinn, Sorrell, and Parker also testified at Thames’ trial. Quinn testified that he was with Thames in jail *125 for one or two nights, and that during a conversation, Thames mentioned that he was in jail for something his girlfriend did. According to Quinn, Thames later admitted to him that he had shot Wells after luring him out of the house under the pretense of wanting to buy marijuana. Quinn also testified that Thames admitted taking a gold Guess watch, a cell phone, $200, and a half-pound of marijuana from Wells.

On the witness stand, Sorrell could no longer recall parts of the conversation she had with Thames the night of Wells’ murder. According to Sorrell, her inability to recall resulted from the fact she had been drinking and smoking marijuana in early January. Sorrell also contradicted some of what she said in her January 8 statement to the police. For example, she testified that although she told the police in her statement that Thames said, “I shot the guy,” she did not remember if Thames said “he” shot the guy, but she thought Thames said “they” did it and that “they” made Wells undress. Sorrell also testified that during the three-way phone call she set up two days before Wells’ murder, it was Jimmy Peeler who planned to commit the robbery not Thames. In her testimony, Sorrell confirmed that Thames had her smell his hand, and that he had shown her a gun, $200, a cell phone, and a bag of marijuana the night of Wells’ murder.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
599 N.W.2d 122, 1999 Minn. LEXIS 442, 1999 WL 549001, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-thames-minn-1999.