Stephens v. State

506 N.E.2d 12, 1987 Ind. LEXIS 876
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedApril 10, 1987
Docket1184S465
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 506 N.E.2d 12 (Stephens v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stephens v. State, 506 N.E.2d 12, 1987 Ind. LEXIS 876 (Ind. 1987).

Opinion

DeBRULER, Justice.

This is a direct appeal from conviction following a trial by jury of one count of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery. Appellant received concurrent sentences of forty (40) years and thirty (80) years respectively.

There are seven issues presented on appeal: (1) whether the trial court erred in admitting the testimony of witnesses who had previously been hypnotized; (2) whether the testimony of the witnesses who had been hypnotized was merely cumulative evidence; (8) whether the appellant was denied his right to the effective assistance of counsel; (4) whether the pre-trial identification procedure used in the photographic display was unduly suggestive; (5) whether State's witness Lisa Jones had an independent basis for her in-court identification of appellant; (6) whether the evidence was sufficient to sustain the convictions for murder and conspiracy to commit robbery; and (7) whether the trial court erred in denying appellant's motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence.

These are the facts from the record which tend to support the determination of guilt: Richard Brooks, an employee of Schweitzer Industries, was found dead on July 28, 1980, at approximately 5:00 p.m.. The cause of death was a gun shot wound to the back. Ronald Johnson had previously been employed by Schweitzer Industries and it was common knowledge among the employees that Brooks carried large amounts of cash on his person. Ronald Johnson's girlfriend, Dawn Thomson, testified on behalf of the State. She testified that she dated Johnson and knew appellant Gary Stephens and Terry King through Johnson and that on July 28, 1980, appellant and King, in a rented silver Olds Cutlass, picked up her and Johnson to go riding around. After stopping at a drugstore and switching seats so that Johnson was *14 driving, appellant and King told them to stop the car and got out. Appellant was carrying what appeared to be a chrome pipe concealed in a blue towel.

Dawn Thomson asked Johnson where appellant and King were going and he replied that "well, beings as how it looked like Gary [appellant] had a gun, I guess they're going to rob somebody". Thomson and Johnson waited about twenty minutes and then Johnson decided to drive around and look for them. He drove along Pleasant Run Parkway and spotted them coming down the hill of a railroad underpass. He stopped the car and they got in. Both men were pale and sweaty. Dawn asked appellant what happened and he said, "Dawn, he's dead." They were scared, shaking, and appellant was almost crying. King said, "Well, we went in there to rob him, and when Gary told Mr. Brooks to get down it was a hair trigger, he said, and his finger must have hit the trigger, because when he told the man to get down on the floor the gun went off. The man didn't even have the time to get down on the floor."

A local resident testified that he observed a man run from Schweitzer Industries after an explosion and another testified she saw two men run from the building. Further, Marilyn and Lisa Jones saw two men descend from either side of a railroad trestle and get into a silver four-door car. They later identified these men as appellant and Terry King.

I. & IL.

Initially, appellant contends that the trial court erred in admitting the testimony of Marilyn and Lisa Jones, who had been previously hypnotized, and that this testimony was not merely cumulative to other testimony.

Consideration of these issues on appeal has been foreclosed due to the absence of any contemporaneous objection to the identification testimony of either Marilyn or Lisa Jones. Merrifield v. State (1980), 272 Ind. 579, 400 N.E.2d 146. Further, the testimony of Marilyn Jones was admissible. Her recollection was not altered in any significant manner following hypnosis. Her testimony at trial closely paralleled her pre-hypnosis statements. It would however have been error to admit the testimony of Lisa Jones over proper objection, since she remembered more details after being hypnotized than before being hypnotized. In King v. State (1984), Ind., 460 N.E.2d 947, this court dealt with the same legal challenge to the testimony of Marilyn and Lisa Jones, in the trial of appellant's accomplice Terry King, and in an opinion penned by Justice Pivarnik concluded that if error had occurred in the admission of the testimony of both Marilyn and Lisa Jones, such error was harmless. We likewise conclude here that the assumed error in the admission of the testimony of Lisa Jones, identifying appellant as one of the two men seen near the seene of the crime entering a silver, four-door car, was harmless. This conclusion flows from a comparison of the testimony of Lisa Jones and the balance of the State's evidence of guilt, including the direct testimony of appellant's companion at the crime scene, Dawn Thomson, and that of Marilyn Jones and the other eyewitnesses near the scene. This comparison shows the testimony was cumulative in the legal sense and not prejudicial to the right of appellant to a fair appraisal of guilt upon lawful evidence.

TII

Next, appellant contends that he received ineffective assistance of counsel. The primary contention is that counsel's failure to object to either the testimony of the witnesses previously hypnotized or the testimony of the hypnotist and the failure to ask for an evidentiary hearing to determine if the hypnotism tainted the identification, constituted ineffective assistance of counsel.

In reviewing ineffective assistance claims, the following guidelines must be considered:

"'The proper standard for attorney performance is that of reasonably effective assistance. "* * * Judicial serutiny of counsel's performance must be highly deferential. * * * * * * the defendant *15 must overcome the presumption that, under the circumstances, the challenged action might be considered sound trial strategy. * * * A * * * claim * * * has two components. First the defendant must show that counsel's performance was deficient. * * * Second, the defendant must show that the deficient performance prejudiced the defense." Strickland v. Washington (1984), 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674.

Neither strand of the Strickland test has been met. Counsel's performance was not deficient. The testimony of Marilyn Jones was admissible. Further, counsel requested and was granted an emergency line up. Two of the State's three witnesses failed to identify appellant during the line up procedure. During cross examination, counsel for appellant used that inability to identify appellant to undermine the credibility of the witnesses. This strategy was in accordance with the state of the law at the time of the trial. Further, there is no showing of prejudice to the appellant. The testimony of Lisa Jones was merely cumulative to that of Dawn Thomson and Marilyn Jones, and the balance of the State's cireumstantial evidence was supportive of their direct identification testimony. Consequently, appellant received effective assistance of counsel.

IV

Appellant contends that the pre-trial identification procedure used in the photographic display was unduly suggestive.

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Bluebook (online)
506 N.E.2d 12, 1987 Ind. LEXIS 876, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stephens-v-state-ind-1987.