United States v. Lykes

71 F. App'x 543
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedAugust 7, 2003
DocketNo. 02-5119
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 71 F. App'x 543 (United States v. Lykes) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Lykes, 71 F. App'x 543 (6th Cir. 2003).

Opinion

KRUPANSKY, Circuit Judge.

Defendant-Appellant, Lawrence Lykes (“Lykes”) has appealed from a final judgment in which a jury convicted him on one count of carjacking and on the use of a firearm during the commission of a crime. Lykes contended that: the district court erroneously concluded his two carjacking offenses could be joined; the district court erroneously concluded his guarantee of a speedy trial was not violated; the district court abused its discretion when it submitted jury instructions on flight and stolen property; and, the court committed clear error in applying sentencing enhancements for abduction and reckless endangerment. The defendant’s arguments are not persuasive and the decision of the district court is affirmed.

I. Background

A. Count One-Evidence in the Raymond Bowling Carjacking

During the morning hours of October 30, 1998, Lykes went to the apartment of David Chance in Knoxville, Tennessee. Lykes and Chance had known each other for a number of years, but on this occasion appellant forced Chance from his apartment at gunpoint and, several hours later, left him at a shopping mall. Prior to forcing Chance from the apartment, Lykes stole Chance’s wallet, containing his driver’s license, and Chance’s barbering scissors.

Later that evening, taxi driver Raymond Bowling was called to pick up Lykes in Knoxville. Bowling was driving a 1991 Cadillac DeVille and took Lykes to the same location he had taken him “two or three times” previously, namely, the corner of Vermont and Testerman streets in Knoxville. While Bowling testified that he recognized his “fare” as the person he had previously carried, he could not positively identify that person in court as the appellant. Bowling described the person as wearing a tan, two-piece suit. When Bowling arrived at Vermont and Tester-man, Lykes brandished Chance’s barber shears and thrust them into Bowling’s side while he pushed the driver out of the car. As Bowling rolled onto the road, Lykes climbed into the driver’s seat and sped away with the taxicab.

Nearly a month later, on November 25, 1998, the taxicab was recovered in Columbia, South Carolina, after a high-speed chase. The driver of the vehicle, a black male, abandoned the vehicle in a median [546]*546strip after blowing a tire and was not apprehended or identified. Several items found in the vehicle, however, indicated that Lykes had, at least, been in possession of the vehicle at some point. Officers discovered David Chance’s driver’s license and barbering shears, a tan two-piece suit, a check made payable to the Lykes, a photograph of appellant’s daughter, ammunition, a handgun, and several pieces of clothing. Bowling later testified that none of those items belonged to him.

B. Count Two — Evidence in the June Arnold Carjacking

In the evening hours of December 31, 1998, the appellant again took a taxi to the intersection of Vermont and Testerman streets in Knoxville, visiting the nearby apartment of Lisa Jones. Lykes then accompanied Jones and her roommate June Arnold to the Star Dust Lounge to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Arnold drove the three to the nightclub in her rented 1997 gold-colored Pontiac Sunfire, which Lykes refused to exit upon the trio’s arrival at the club’s parking lot.

Arnold and Jones left the appellant in the car while they joined others in the Star Dust. A short time later, when Arnold returned to the car, Lykes asked for her keys so that he might listen to the radio; Arnold refused appellant’s request and returned to the club. Some ninety minutes later, Arnold again exited the club for some “fresh air” and Lykes again asked for the car keys. Arnold continued to refuse, and the appellant became adamant, brandishing a gun that he discharged next to Arnold’s ear. Fearing for her safety, Arnold then threw the keys at the appellant and ran inside the club to call the police.

In the meantime, Lisa Jones entered the parking lot intending to tell Lykes that she and Arnold would take him wherever he needed if he would return the keys to Arnold. When Jones reached the vehicle, however, appellant grabbed her and forced her into the vehicle and pushed her over to the passenger’s position of the seat. Appellant climbed into the car, cutting off Jones’s exit and telling Jones he was going to South Carolina as he drove off. Jones protested her abduction and, when Lykes slowed to enter the freeway, she opened the door and jumped out, sustaining minor injuries. Jones then made her way back to the Star Dust Lounge on foot.

Nearly three weeks later, in the early morning hours of January 20, 1999, South Carolina Highway Patrol officers received a radio dispatch regarding an armed robbery call at an interstate highway rest-stop. Two officers responded in separate vehicles and, upon arrival, began checking the cars and their occupants. Approaching a Pontiac Sunfire, one officer observed a gun between the car’s two front seats, which the occupant, appellant Lykes, reached for as he then immediately sped off toward the interstate.

As the officers gave chase, averaging speeds of 100 miles per hour, Lykes crossed the interstate median and began traveling north in the southbound lanes, turning his lights on in the early morning darkness only as oncoming vehicles approached. In the course of the pursuit, Lykes faced two southbound tractor-trailers driving side-by-side. Appellant responded by veering off into the median where he lost control of the vehicle which crossed back into the northbound lanes of the interstate and became airborne. As the vehicle crashed on the embankment below the interstate, Lykes was thrown from the car, and the Sunfire burst into flames. Reaching the scene, the officers dragged the appellant to safety as the heat of the burning vehicle ignited rounds of ammunition left in the car. One of the [547]*547officers’ in-car cameras captured these events on videotape, and the vehicle, driven by Lykes, was later identified as the same Pontiac Sunfire taken from June Arnold on January 1,1999.

C. Evidence of appellant’s state custody status

South Carolina authorities arrested Lykes at the scene of the accident on January 20, 1999, and detained him pending trial on several outstanding warrants. Lykes pled guilty to one of the state charges stemming from the high-speed chase and was sentenced in November 1999 to three years incarceration. However, the appellant remained in state custody pending the resolution of drug charges from 1998. After numerous delays stemming from Lykes’ requests to change attorneys, the appellant pled guilty to the drug charges and remained in the custody of the state of South Carolina pending sentencing, which occurred on January 2, 2001. Lykes received a term of imprisonment of forty-two months.

Once the government learned of appellant’s sentencing on state drug charges, it filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum on February 28, 2001, to bring the appellant to the Eastern District of Tennessee to face federal charges. In March 2001, Lykes entered a plea of not guilty to the three-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in May 1999. Counts One and Two charged Lykes with separate carjacking offenses in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2119.

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Bluebook (online)
71 F. App'x 543, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-lykes-ca6-2003.