State v. Wilkins – Malone

CourtSupreme Court of Kansas
DecidedSeptember 9, 2016
Docket109313
StatusPublished

This text of State v. Wilkins – Malone (State v. Wilkins – Malone) 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. Wilkins – Malone, (kan 2016).

Opinion

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF KANSAS

No. 109,313

STATE OF KANSAS, Appellee,

v.

BREONNA M. WILKINS, Appellant.

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT

1. When sufficiency of the evidence is challenged in a criminal case, an appellate court's standard of review is whether, after reviewing all the evidence in a light most favorable to the prosecution, the reviewing court is convinced a rational factfinder could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Appellate courts do not reweigh evidence, resolve evidentiary conflicts, or make determinations regarding witness credibility.

2. If an appellate court holds that evidence to support a conviction is insufficient as a matter of law, the conviction must be reversed; and no retrial on the same crime is possible.

3. The proper test to determine the reaction of an alleged victim in an intimidation or aggravated intimidation charge is objective, not subjective, i.e., that of a reasonable person.

1 4. A codefendant in a homicide proceeding has a privilege against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Section 10 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights, and K.S.A. 60-423(a).

5. A codefendant who has not waived his or her privilege against self-incrimination is unable to give testimony under K.S.A. 2011 Supp. 21-5909.

6. Accepting a plea offer and waiving the privilege against self-incrimination is a separate and distinct condition that must be satisfied before a codefendant would become eligible or could be compelled to testify in proceedings. Dissuading a codefendant with these rights intact from taking a plea bargain is not synonymous with dissuading a codefendant from giving testimony at trial under K.S.A. 2011 Supp. 21-5909.

7. Under the facts of this case, a codefendant with her privilege against self- incrimination intact was unable to be dissuaded from giving testimony under K.S.A. 2011 Supp. 21-5909(a)(1) as a matter of law.

Review of the judgment of the Court of Appeals in 50 Kan. App. 2d 1120, 336 P.3d 336 (2014). Appeal from Shawnee District Court; RICHARD D. ANDERSON, judge. Opinion filed September 9, 2016. Judgment of the Court of Appeals affirming the district court is reversed. Judgment of the district court is reversed and sentence vacated.

Randall L. Hodgkinson, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, argued the cause and was on the brief for appellant.

2 Jodi E. Litfin, assistant district attorney, argued the cause, and Chadwick J. Taylor, district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, were with her on the brief for appellee.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

MALONE, J.: Breonna Wilkins was convicted of aggravated intimidation of a witness in violation of K.S.A. 2011 Supp. 21-5909. In a divided opinion, the Court of Appeals affirmed her conviction in State v. Wilkins, 50 Kan. App. 2d 1120, 336 P.3d 336 (2014). Wilkins petitioned this court for review, arguing the evidence was insufficient to support her conviction and that portion of K.S.A. 2011 Supp. 21-5909 which provides "thwart or interfere in any manner with the orderly administration of justice" is unconstitutionally vague or, alternatively, the jury should have been instructed on the definition of this phrase.

In granting her petition for review, we do not need to decide Wilkins' constitutional or instructional challenge because we hold the evidence presented at trial was insufficient as a matter of law to support her conviction of aggravated intimidation of a witness. Accordingly, we reverse the majority decision of the Court of Appeals, and we reverse Wilkins' conviction.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

During the early morning hours of July 21, 2011, Lori Allison was shot and Natalie Gibson was murdered in the carport behind their home in Topeka, Kansas. On August 2, 2011, police met with Bayate Covington who provided information about the attempted robbery and killing. Soon afterwards, nine individuals, including Covington, were arrested and charged as codefendants related to these crimes.

3 Breonna Wilkins knew most of the codefendants. They included her brothers Anceo Stovall, D.W., and Kevin Wilkins; her cousin Michael Wilkins; her boyfriend, Ronald Wakes; her boyfriend's cousin D.R.; and her friend F.W. D.W., D.R., and F.W. were juveniles.

Another juvenile, Z.A.—who was not a codefendant—was dating codefendant F.W. and was an acquaintance of Wilkins. Neither Wilkins nor Z.A. was implicated in the July 21st crimes at Allison and Gibson's home.

After Wakes and F.W. were taken into custody, Wilkins and Z.A. would often talk to their respective romantic interests over the telephone. These conversations were monitored by law enforcement. During a phone call on August 28, 2011, Wilkins told her boyfriend, Wakes, she was worried about what everybody else was saying, and Wakes responded that if everybody would "keep their mouth shut" law enforcement could not prove anything.

During a September 2, 2011, phone call, Wilkins and Wakes discussed Covington's location and how to get into contact with him. Wilkins told Wakes she would write a letter to Covington, and Wakes said, "Good. Make him feel fucking miserable for lying."

On September 21, 2011, Z.A. told F.W. that Wilkins had called her the day before:

"ZA - They told me Breonna, okay, Alexandria answered the phone, and they, she asked me if I was your girlfriend, and I said yeah, and then she was like well, uh, Daquan's sister wants to talk to you, and then she told me that she wanted to know what you were doing, and I told her that you were thinking about pleaing, and then she told me that she talked to a couple of lawyers, and that the lawyers say that they're trying, the DA's trying to get everybody to plea out because they don't have enough evidence on anybody, and 4 then after that, I told, she told me that she was gonna write you, but then she didn't think that they would be able to get it to you or whatever because of conflict of interest 'cause she goes up there and sees Daquan and Kevin and Anceo or whatever, whoever all was up there, and then she gave me your number and told me that if I ever needed to talk that I could call her because she goes through the same shit that I'm going through and then yeah, and then I was like alright, and then she asked me if I had any questions for her, and I said no, and then we hung up."

The preliminary hearing in the homicide case began on November 10, 2011. On November 11, 2011, Z.A. and F.W. had a conversation about Covington's and D.R.'s testimonies at the preliminary hearing:

"ZA - She [Wilkins], like I texted her because like I seen all this shit and then I asked her, I texted her, I was like hey, what's going on, and she was like, she told me that B [Covington] tried to run out the court room and, um, [D.R.] was saying in some parts of his statement that you were there, and then in some parts, he was saying that you weren't there.

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Related

State v. King
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State v. Moody
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State v. Scott
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State v. Woods
348 P.3d 583 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 2015)
State v. Logsdon
371 P.3d 836 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 2016)
State v. Wilkins
336 P.3d 336 (Court of Appeals of Kansas, 2014)

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State v. Wilkins – Malone, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-wilkins-malone-kan-2016.