Minor Child v. State

680 S.W.3d 787

2023 Ark. App. 592

MINOR CHILD, Appellant

v.STATE of Arkansas, Appellee

No. CR-23-185

Court of Appeals of Arkansas, DIVISION III.

Opinion Delivered December 13, 2023

APPEAL FROM THE POPE COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT [NO. 58JV-22-15], HONORABLE KEN D. COKER, JR., JUDGE

Lassiter & Cassinelli, by: Michael Kiel Kaiser, for appellant.

Tim Griffin, Att’y Gen., by: David L. Eanes, Jr., Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee.

WENDY SCHOLTENS WOOD, Judge

₁Minor Child (MC) appeals the Pope County Circuit Court’s order adjudicating her delinquent and committing her to the Division of Youth Services following a jury trial at which she was found guilty of manslaughter. On appeal, MC argues that the circuit court abused its discretion by (1) admitting testimony about her prior bad acts; (2) excluding evidence of the victim’s abusive conduct that MC sought to introduce in support of her justification defense; and (3) denying two motions for mistrial. We affirm.

On July 18, 2019, MC shot her father, Edward Arnold, in the chest with a 12-gauge shotgun as he slept on a couch in the family’s living room. The shot went through Edward’s heart, and he died within seconds. MC was fifteen years old at the time and was under juvenile-court supervision in a Family in Need of Services (FINS) case that had been filed ₂by Edward and MC’s mother, Melinda. Less than three hours before the shooting, Edward discovered MC in her parents’ bedroom smoking a cigarette and using a cell phone in violation of house rules and the FINS order. By all accounts, Edward became angry, was yelling at MC, and told her she was going back to juvenile detention or to another treatment facility. MC was made to sleep on a pallet on the living room floor with her parents sleeping nearby on couches. After both parents fell asleep, she went to her parents’ bedroom, got her father’s shotgun, and shot him as he slept.

Following the shooting, MC fled in Edward’s truck. Melinda called 911, and police located MC a short time later in a school parking lot with her school friend and Mark McQuade, an adult male whom MC was not supposed to contact. MC was arrested and later gave a custodial statement to a Pope County deputy sheriff.

On August 19, the State charged MC as an adult¹ with murder in the first degree² and a firearm enhancement. MC’s attorney filed a juvenile-transfer motion, and the circuit court held a hearing on November 18–19, 2021. Following the hearing, the court transferred jurisdiction of the case to the juvenile division of circuit court for an extended-juvenile-jurisdiction₃ adjudication pursuant to Arkansas Code Annotated section 9-27-505 (Repl. 2020). The case was scheduled for a jury trial, and MC gave notice that she intended to present justification as a defense pursuant to Arkansas Code Annotated section 5-2-607.³

A jury trial was held on September 20-22, 2022. The 911 operator, law enforcement officers, MC’s probation officer, her school friend, a forensic pathologist, MC, Melinda, a family friend, and MC’s pastor testified. At the conclusion of the evidence, the jury was instructed on first-degree murder, statutory justification for the use of deadly force, and the lesser offense of extreme-emotional-disturbance manslaughter.⁴ Following deliberations, the jury returned a verdict finding MC guilty of manslaughter, and on October 6, the circuit court entered an order adjudicating her delinquent and committed her to the Division of Youth Services. It further ordered supervised probation for twenty-four months after her release or until her twenty-first birthday and suspended imposition of an adult sentence. This appeal followed.

₄I. Evidence of Prior Bad Acts

[1, 2] For her first point on appeal, MC argues that the circuit court abused its discretion by admitting evidence of her prior bad acts in violation of Rules 404(b) and 403 of the Arkansas Rules of Evidence. Proof of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible merely to prove the character of the defendant to show that he acted in conformity with it. Ark. R. Evid. 404(a) (2022). Rule 404(b) provides that proof of other crimes, wrongs, or acts may, however, be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident. Ark. R. Evid. 404(b). The test for admissibility under Rule 404(b) is whether the evidence involving the defendant’s character is independently relevant, meaning it tends to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable than it would be without the evidence. Atwood v. State, 2020 Ark. 283, at 16, 2020 WL 5681403; Swanigan v. State, 2019 Ark. App. 296, at 16, 577 S.W.3d 737, 748. Evidence may be relevant in connection with other facts or if it forms a link in the chain of evidence necessary to support a party’s contention. Swanigan, 2019 Ark. App. 296, at 16, 577 S.W.3d at 748.

[3–5] The admission or rejection of evidence under Rule 404(b) of the Arkansas Rules of Evidence is a matter left to the sound discretion of the circuit court and will not be disturbed absent a manifest abuse of discretion. Huggins v. State, 2021 Ark. App. 218, at 4, 624 S.W.3d 342, 345. Further, although relevant evidence may be excluded under Rule 403 if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, ₅confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, the balancing mandated by Rule 403 is also a matter left to a circuit court’s sound discretion. Weir v. State, 2023 Ark. App. 368, at 10, 675 S.W.3d 430, 437–38. This court will not reverse the circuit court’s ruling absent a showing of manifest abuse. Id., 675 S.W.3d at 438. In addition, this court will not reverse a ruling on the admission of evidence absent a showing of prejudice. Riggins v. State, 2021 Ark. App. 116, at 4, 619 S.W.3d 64, 66; Sipe v. State, 2012 Ark. App. 261, at 10, 404 S.W.3d 164, 170.

MC argues that the following evidence violates Rule 404(b): (1) the testimony of Jaime Davis, MC’s probation officer in the FINS case, that MC’s family sought the court’s assistance in the FINS case in part because she had been caught "sneaking a boy into the home and having a sexual relationship with him" and had inappropriately used her cell phone; (2) the testimony of two deputy sheriffs that there had been an ongoing problem with MC contacting McQuade and allowing him into her home and that MC had run away; and (3) the testimony of MC and her mother that MC had a sexual encounter with McQuade and that her parents discovered him hiding in her bedroom closet one night, that MC had used her phone to take pictures of herself nude and to send them to people, that her parents were concerned and upset about her conduct, and that she had been disciplined for it.

₆The foregoing testimony concerns facts that led Edward and Melinda to file the FINS case seeking the court’s help in addressing MC’s misconduct.⁵ The FINS order was entered just three weeks before MC killed Edward, and as previously noted, MC’s smoking and cell-phone use in violation of the order is what prompted the confrontation that preceded the shooting. MC acknowledges that in a pretrial order, the circuit court ruled that the State would be permitted to introduce evidence about her FINS case and her relationship with McQuade as proof of her motive for killing her father. She does not challenge this ruling and, in fact, conceded below that her conduct involving the use of her phone and her involvement with McQuade was relevant to her motive. Further, MC stipulated to the admissibility of the FINS order at trial.

On appeal, MC nevertheless contends that pursuant to Rule 404(b), the circuit court should have excluded testimony that she had run away from home, used her cell phone inappropriately, allowed an adult male—McQuade—into the home, and had a sexual relationship with McQuade. She argues that this testimony was not independently relevant to any issue in the case; instead, it portrayed "[MC] as a bad kid who killed the decedent in conformity with her poor character as a homewrecker and sexually active teenager"—not one who was justified in killing her father in his sleep because she feared imminent death ₇or victimization from a continued pattern of domestic abuse. She further asserts that, to the extent the challenged testimony had any relevance, its probative value was grossly outweighed by the dangers of unfair prejudice and confusion of the issues.

The State responds that the testimony in question was independently relevant to the contested issues of MC’s motive and intent for the murder and to negate MC’s defense of justification. More specifically, the State argues that the testimony supports its theory that MC did not fear imminent physical danger from her father because he lay sleeping when she shot him, but rather, she shot him because she was angry about his efforts to correct her pattern of disobedient conduct and about the consequence of going back to juvenile detention or a treatment facility for violating the FINS order.

[6, 7] Our courts have said that intent or state of mind is seldom capable of proof by direct evidence and must usually be inferred from the circumstances surrounding the killing. Gaines v. State, 340 Ark. 99, 111, 8 S.W.3d 547, 555 (2000). Where the purpose of evidence is to disclose a motive for a killing, anything that might have influenced the commission of the act may be shown. Id. at 108, 8 S.W.3d at 555. Evidence of circumstances that explain the act, show a motive, or illustrate the accused’s state of mind may be independently relevant and admissible. Id., 8 S.W.3d at 555.

[8] Here, testimony about the serious nature and extent of MC’s high-risk misconduct as an adolescent, which was not reflected in the FINS order itself, was relevant because it tended to show—as a counterpoint to MC’s evidence of abuse— that Edward was a concerned parent who sought the FINS order to...