Bennett v. State

175 N.E.3d 331

Alan Lee BENNETT, Appellant-Defendant,

v.STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.

Court of Appeals Case No. 20A-CR-2061

Court of Appeals of Indiana.

FILED August 23, 2021

Attorney for Appellant: Andrew W. Foster, The Law Office of Andrew W. Foster, LLC, Rockport, Indiana

Attorneys for Appellee: Theodore E. Rokita, Attorney General of Indiana, Ian McLean, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, Indiana

Weissmann, Judge.

[1] Alan Lee Bennett was convicted of murder after shooting and killing Linda Bowman during a domestic dispute. He appeals his conviction, claiming (1) the State violated his right to due process by destroying allegedly exculpatory evidence and (2) the trial court improperly excluded evidence of his intoxication. Finding no error, we affirm.

Facts

[2] "I have a boyfriend that lives with me and he's hittin’ me," Bowman told Spencer County 9-1-1 dispatch. Ex. Vol. I, p. 144. "He's threatenin’ me with a gun, he's gonna shoot!" Id. Then the line went dead.

[3] Minutes later, Daviess County, Kentucky 9-1-1 dispatch received a call from Bennett. "I shot Linda and I tried to kill myself," Bennett said. Ex. Vol. I, p. 147. Bennett had shot Bowman in the head with a muzzleloader¹ and shot himself with a different firearm.

[4] Responding officers found Bennett, conscious and responsive, just inside the front door of the home he and Bowman shared with a gunshot wound to his face. Bowman was lying dead in the kitchen with a gunshot wound to her head. Debris from the discharge of a muzzleloader was found near her body. The gun itself was steps away and had blood on the barrel.

[5] As the officers rendered first aid to Bennett, they heard him say "he had to kill her because she wouldn't stop bitching" and that he "wanted to shut the bitch up." Tr. Vol. III, pp. 179, 191.

[6] The State charged Bennett with murder. Before trial, Bennett moved to dismiss the charge because the State cleaned the muzzleloader in the course of performing tests on it. Bennett argued that the State's actions constituted the destruction of materially exculpatory evidence. App. Vol. V, pp. 2-7. The trial court denied Bennett's motion but provided funding for Bennett to find a ballistics expert, who testified that cleaning the weapon destroyed evidence of powder and residue that could have been analyzed. Tr. Vol. V, pp. 10-11.

[7] Bennett also contested the trial court's limitations on evidence of voluntary intoxication. In an order issued during trial, the court stated that "limited evidence of the effect of voluntary intoxication may be used by a defendant in his defense in other relevant areas besides mens rea ..." App. Vol V, p. 59. The court permitted Bennett to present two witnesses, who testified to the physiological and psychological effects of alcohol consumption.

[8] The trial court instructed the jury on self-defense and that voluntary intoxication is not a defense to a charge of murder. Tr. Vol. V, p. 123. The jury found Bennett guilty of murder, and the trial court sentenced him to 65 years in the Department of Correction. Bennett now appeals.

Discussion & Decision

[9] Bennett asks us to vacate his conviction for two reasons: (1) the State's cleaning of the muzzleloader constituted destruction of materially exculpable evidence, violating his due process rights; and (2) the trial court impermissibly limited his evidence of voluntary intoxication to disprove his claim of self-defense.

[10] We affirm Bennett's conviction, finding the State did not destroy materially exculpable evidence and that the trial court's limitation on evidence was not an abuse of discretion.

I. Due Process and Destruction of Evidence

[11] Bennett argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss, which alleged that the State destroyed materially exculpatory evidence when it cleaned corrosion and buildup from the barrel of the muzzleloader. The State's failure to preserve materially exculpatory evidence is a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Bishop v. State , 40 N.E. 3d 935, 950 (Ind. Ct. App. 2015) (citing United States v. Agurs , 427 U.S. 97, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976) ), trans. denied ; see also California v. Trombetta , 467 U.S. 479, 488, 104 S.Ct. 2528, 81 L.Ed.2d 413 (1984).

[12] But the corrosion and buildup removed from the muzzleloader in the course of cleaning was not "materially exculpatory" evidence. "To meet this standard of constitutional materiality, evidence must both possess an exculpatory value that was apparent before the evidence was destroyed, and be of such a nature that the defendant would be unable to obtain comparable evidence by other reasonably available means." Albrecht v. State , 737 N.E.2d 719, 724 (Ind. 2000) (quoting Trombetta , 467 U.S. at 488-89, 104 S.Ct. 2528 ). Evidence is "exculpatory" when it has a tendency to clear a defendant from alleged fault or guilt. Id.

[13] The corrosion and buildup evidence did not possess an exculpatory value that was apparent before it was destroyed. Bennett argues that the corrosion evidence proved that the gun was unsafe and prone to misfiring, thereby implying he did not act with the requisite intent to commit murder. But his own expert did not testify that corrosion would have caused the gun to fire without pulling the trigger.² And although the State's expert testified that corroded muzzleloaders can accidentally fire as they are loaded, Bennett testified that he had loaded the firearm sometime before the day of the murder. Tr. Vol. III, pp. 12, 14; Tr. Vol. IV, p. 228. The defense therefore failed to show that examining the gun before it was cleaned could have provided evidence that Bennett did not act knowingly or intentionally when he pulled the trigger. At most, the corrosion evidence could have shown that Bennett intentionally fired the muzzleloader without intending to hit Bowman, a theory that was not presented by the defense at trial or on appeal.

[14] Bennett also failed to establish that he could not obtain comparable evidence of the corrosion by other means. Both Bennett and the State introduced evidence of the corrosion. The State established corrosion through photographs of the inside of the barrel and expert testimony. Tr. Vol. III, pp. 23, 26. The defense's expert, who reviewed those photographs, testified generally to the effects of corrosion on muzzleloaders. Tr. Vol. V, pp. 10-11. Bennett fails to offer any basis in fact or precedent for finding direct access to the muzzleloader in its original condition would have produced more probative evidence in his defense.

[15] When the State fails to preserve "potentially useful evidence"—meaning "evidentiary material of which no more can be said than that it could have been subjected to tests, the results of which might have exonerated the defendant"—it is not a due process violation unless the defendant can show that the State acted in bad faith. Bishop , 40 N.E.3d at 950 (citing Arizona v. Youngblood , 488 U.S. 51, 58, 109 S.Ct. 333, 102 L.Ed.2d 281 (1988) ). Assuming the evidence in question was even "potentially useful," Bennett has made no such showing. The State did not violate Bennett's due process rights by cleaning the muzzleloader.

II. Intoxication Evidence is Not Admissible to Prove Self Defense

[16] Bennett argues the trial court erred in disallowing evidence of his voluntary intoxication to support his self-defense claim, which should have been admissible as "relevant to something other than lack of mens rea" pursuant to Sanchez v. State , 749 N.E.2d 509 (Ind. 2001). Alternatively, Bennett argues for a broad interpretation of Sanchez that would render all voluntary intoxication evidence relevant. Sanchez upholds the constitutionality of Indiana Code § 35-41-2-5, which prohibits consideration of intoxication evidence to negate the mens rea requirement in criminal cases. Id. at 511. Mens rea is the state of mind the prosecution must prove the defendant had while committing a crime to secure a conviction. Mens rea, Black's Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019).

[17] Bennett contends the trial court's error stopped him from explaining his version of Bowman's death as the only surviving witness to it; stopped his expert from estimating his BAC at the time of the incident, which would have contextualized his ability to form coherent statements; and stopped his psychologist from testifying to his state of mind before the killing.

[18] We review legal questions of an evidentiary rule's scope de novo and the court's application of an evidentiary rule for an abuse of discretion. Harris v. State , 165 N.E.3d 91, 94 (Ind. 2021). Errors in the admission or exclusion of evidence are considered harmless unless they affect the substantial rights of the party. Crabtree v. State , 152 N.E.3d 687, 703 (Ind. Ct. App. 2020).

[19] Bennett argues that Sanchez and Indiana Code § 35-41-2-5 do not prohibit intoxication evidence in support of a self-defense claim. Sanchez , 749 N.E.2d at 520-21. Indiana's self-defense statute provides: "A person is justified in using reasonable force against any other person to protect ... from what the person reasonably believes to be the imminent use of unlawful force." Indiana Code § 35-41-3-2. The phrase "reasonably believes" requires a defendant claiming self-defense to both subjectively believe that force was necessary to prevent serious bodily injury and that such belief was one a reasonable person would have had under the circumstances. Littler v. State , 871 N.E.2d 276 (Ind. 2007).

[20] Bennett claims evidence of his intoxication should have been permitted to support his subjective belief that force—shooting Bowman—was necessary for his own protection. We hold that to permit voluntary intoxication evidence for this purpose would impermissibly resurrect the voluntary intoxication defense, which has been lifeless since the Indiana General Assembly enacted Public Law 210 in 1997. 1997 Ind. Legis. Serv. P.L. 210-1997 ...