Buchanan v. State

363 So.3d 902

Sedrick BUCHANAN and Armand Jones a/k/a Armond Jones a/k/a A.J. Jones, Appellants v. STATE of Mississippi, Appellee

NO. 2017-KA-01082-COA

Court of Appeals of Mississippi.

December 3, 2019

Rehearing Denied April 28, 2020

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANTS: DANIEL HINCHCLIFF, KEVIN HORAN, BRADLEY D. DAIGNEAULT, GRENADA

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL BY: BARBARA WAKELAND BYRD, JACKSON

BEFORE BARNES, C.J., CARLTON, P.J., AND C. WILSON, J.

CARLTON, P.J., FOR THE COURT:

¶1. A shooting occurred on Highway 82 West outside of Itta Bena, Mississippi, late on a Saturday evening in August 2015. A group of men in a light-colored Tahoe pulled up next to a red Pontiac and one or more of the men began shooting as both vehicles were traveling west on Highway 82. Shortly after the shooting, Jacarius Keys, accompanied by counsel, gave a statement to the chief investigator on the case. In his statement, Keys said that he was driving the Tahoe, and he also implicated four other men, namely Armand Jones, Sedrick Buchanan, Michael Holland, and James Earl McClung Jr. In July 2016, all five men, Keys, Jones, Buchanan, Holland, and McClung, were co-indicted for the murder of one man in the red Pontiac and for the attempted murders of the three other men in the Pontiac.

¶2. Keys was killed on December 28, 2016—a year and a half after the shooting and from when Keys gave his statement, and approximately five months after the joint indictment was returned. The remaining four co-indictees were subsequently tried together in the Leflore County Circuit Court in May 2017. Keys's videotaped statement was admitted into evidence and played at the defendants' trial.

¶3. This appeal concerns only Jones and Buchanan. After a four-day trial, the jury found Jones guilty of first-degree murder with respect to the victim who was killed, and guilty of three counts of attempted first-degree murder with respect to the other three surviving victims. Jones was sentenced to serve life in prison for his first-degree murder conviction, and three terms of thirty years for his other convictions, all to run consecutively. Buchanan was found guilty of three counts of the lesser-included offense of aggravated assault. He was sentenced to serve three consecutive terms of twenty years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. ¹ Jones and Buchanan appeal. Finding no error, we affirm Buchanan's and Jones's convictions and sentences.

STATEMENT OF FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶4. The record reflects that D'Alandis Love, Perez Love, Kelsey Jennings, and Ken-Norris Stigler were traveling west on Highway 82 about 11:00 pm on August 15, 2015. ² They were in "Munchie" Brown's red Pontiac and were going to a club in Itta Bena called the Moroccan Lounge. As they were driving, a light-colored Tahoe sped past them, spraying bullets as it went by. D'Alandis Love was killed, and Perez Love, Jennings, and Stigler were seriously injured.

¶5. Shortly after the shooting, Keys, accompanied by his lawyer, went to the Leflore County Sheriff's office to give a statement. He was interviewed by the chief investigator on the case, Bill Staten, on September 2, 2015. When Investigator Staten learned the video equipment had failed during that interview, he re-interviewed Keys, with his lawyer present, on September 3.

¶6. In his interview, Keys said that he was driving the Tahoe, and he also provided information that implicated Jones, Buchanan, McClung, and Holland. After Keys gave his incriminating statement to law enforcement, he went to Attorney Kevin Horan, who represented Jones at trial, and told him that he had done so. To avoid repetition, the details of Keys's statement are addressed below.

¶7. In July 2016, the Grand Jury of Leflore County indicted Jones, Buchanan, Keys, Holland, and McClung for "acting alone or in concert with each other or others" on one count of deliberate-design murder of D'Alandis Love in violation of Mississippi Code Annotated section 97-3-19(1)(a) (Rev. 2014); and three separate counts of attempted murder of Perez Love, Jennings, and Stigler in violation of Mississippi Code Annotated section 97-1-7 (Rev. 2014) and section 97-3-19(1)(a).

¶8. On December 28, 2016, a year and a half after the shooting and when Keys gave his statement, and approximately five months after Jones, Keys, Holland, Buchanan, and McClung were indicted, Keys was killed. To avoid repetition, the details of Keys's murder will be addressed during the Court's discussion of Buchanan's and Jones's Confrontation Clause assignment of error, below.

¶9. Jones, Buchanan, McClung, and Holland were tried together before a jury in Leflore County Circuit Court in May 2017. Each were represented by their own counsel.

¶10. Pretrial the defendants moved to exclude Keys's videotaped statement. The trial court denied the defendants' motions. The trial court's ruling will be discussed below when the Court addresses Jones and Buchanan's Confrontation Clause assignment of error. After the trial court denied defendants' motions to exclude Keys's videotaped statement, each defendant moved pretrial to sever their case from the others. The trial court also denied those motions. The trial court's ruling on the severance issue will also be discussed below.

¶11. Buchanan also moved pre-trial to exclude testimony and evidence related to his post-shooting arrest that occurred in Carroll County six months after the shooting when Buchanan was out on bond. Buchanan was a passenger in the vehicle that was stopped. In the course of the arrest, the Carroll County deputies recovered a .40-caliber pistol from the console between the driver's seat and front-passenger seat of the vehicle. Buchanan argued that the gun should be excluded at trial on relevancy grounds and that such evidence was prejudicial because Buchanan did not own the gun, nor was it tied to the Love shooting. The trial court ruled that Buchanan's motion was premature and that the issue should be raised at trial outside the presence of the jury if the State sought to introduce the recovered gun.

¶12. The gun was admitted into evidence at trial, and the trial court allowed limited testimony about the gun's recovery. Jones and Buchanan both assert on appeal that the trial court erred in doing so. The Court will discuss this issue in further detail below.

¶13. Trial began on May 16, 2017. The State's witness, Matthew Brown, a deputy with the Leflore County Sheriff's Office, testified that he was on regular patrol on the night of August 15, 2015, and spotted a fire in a field off of Highway 82. Deputy Brown pulled over and approached the scene. He testified that he could see that one person was already out of the vehicle, but others were still inside, with one person trying to climb out of the driver's-side window. Deputy Brown testified that there were no bystanders or other officers at the scene. Jennings was identified as the person outside the vehicle. Deputy Brown helped Perez Love get out of the car through the window and pulled two other unconscious men out of the backseat, Stigler and D'Alandis Love. D'Alandis Love was later pronounced dead at the scene. Deputy Brown testified that he radioed for medical help and the fire department. He also testified that once he realized that it was "not just a car wreck," he called in for the sheriff and the investigator.

¶14. Bill Staten, an investigator with the Leflore County Sheriff's Office, testified that he responded to the scene at approximately 12:20 a.m. He testified that after he parked his vehicle, he walked to the scene and approached a smoldering vehicle, which he identified as a red Pontiac resting nose up in a deep drainage ditch. Investigator Staten testified that he looked at D'Alandis's body and observed what he believed were gunshot wounds. The other three victims had already been transported to the hospital. Investigator Staten also testified that he examined the red Pontiac and found that the rear-passenger window had been shot out and that there were bullet holes along that side of the vehicle. He took photographs and collected evidence, including a number of 7.62 mm shell casings and one .40-caliber shell casing. These items were recovered within the immediate area of where the vehicle had traveled on (and left) the highway.

¶15. When Investigator Staten was re-called as a witness later in the trial, he testified that he retrieved a pistol from the red Pontiac the next morning after they had the vehicle towed to a secure location to let it cool off. Mark Steed, an investigator with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation (MBI) also testified for the State, explaining that he assisted with the investigation and helped collect evidence. Investigator Steed also identified the handgun at trial that Investigator Staten recovered from the red Pontiac.

¶16. Investigator Staten further testified that Jasmine Cage was at the scene and told one of the deputies that she knew the people in the car and had witnessed the shooting. One of the deputies placed Cage in a patrol car to isolate her while Investigator Staten finished processing the scene. Investigator Staten testified that he then had her transported to the Sheriff's Office so that he could take her statement.

¶17. After Investigator Staten processed the scene, he testified that he had the Loves' vehicle sent to a secure location to be processed as well. The State's witness, Amber Conn, a crime scene analyst with the MBI, was accepted as an expert in crime-scene investigation. She testified that she had examined the red Pontiac, and she opined that the car was shot from the back toward the front. During her investigation of the victims' vehicle, Conn recovered another handgun. This weapon was recovered from the front passenger floorboard that was identified as a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol. Conn testified that it was fully loaded (one bullet was in the chamber) and its safety was locked when she...