Odom v. State

383 So.3d 322

Jonathan Darrell ODOM a/k/a Johnathan Darrell Odom, Appellant

v.STATE of Mississippi, Appellee

NO. 2021-KA-00676-COA

Court of Appeals of Mississippi.

9/26/2023

Rehearing Denied February 13, 2024

SCOTT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT, HON. CALEB ELIAS MAY, JUDGE

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT: OFFICE OF STATE PUBLIC DEFEND-

ER, BY: MOLLIE MARIE McMILLIN, JONATHAN DARRELL ODOM (PRO SE)

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, BY: LAUREN GABRIELLE CANTRELL

DISTRICT ATTORNEY: STEVEN SIMEON KILGORE

BEFORE CARLTON, P.J., SMITH AND EMFINGER, JJ.

SMITH, J., FOR THE COURT:

¶1. Jonathan Odom was convicted of murdering his co-worker Salvador Flores just after they both left work, where an altercation had ensued between them earlier that day. Following his conviction, the Scott County Circuit Court sentenced Odom to serve life imprisonment in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC). Odom filed post-trial motions for a new trial or for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, which the trial court denied. Odom appeals his conviction alleging the trial court committed reversible error regarding various hearsay and authentication evidentiary rulings during the course of trial. He also alleges that his conviction is not supported by sufficient evidence. Finding no reversible error, we affirm.

STATEMENT OF THE FACTS

¶2. In February 2018, Odom and Flores were working for Onin Staffing and were both assigned to jobs at Peco Foods in Sebastapol, Mississippi. On February 8, 2018, Odom and Flores had an altercation at work.¹ The men reported the dispute to their supervisor, John Bergin, and he separated their workspaces for the rest of the day. Bergin testified that both Odom and Flores were "frustrated." Odom and Flores clocked out and left work within minutes of each other. Flores’s timecard from that day shows that he clocked out at 3:58 p.m., and Odom’s time card shows that he clocked out at 4:00 p.m.

¶3. Surveillance video from Peco of the two men leaving work was admitted at trial. The video showed Flores’s car leave through the south gate and head south on Highway 21 towards Forest, Mississippi. The video and trial testimony show Odom’s silver van leaving from the north gate approximately ten seconds later and heading south towards Forest on the same road, behind Flores. Bergin testified that he also left around the same time as Odom and Flores, and headed south on Highway 21 toward Forest. About two miles south of Peco Foods, Bergin saw a car wrecked in a ditch with smoke coming from the hood. He pulled his vehicle to the side of the road and called 911. Bergin checked on the person in the vehicle and saw that the man was bleeding from the side of his head and was unresponsive. At the time, Bergin was not aware that the unresponsive male was Flores.

¶4. A paramedic arrived on the scene and noticed that the man, later confirmed to be Flores, had a bullet hole behind his left ear. The paramedic also noted that there were bullet holes in the driver’s side door and in the passenger seat headrest. He observed that Flores did not have a pulse and that there was brain matter on the dash of the car, which he presumed was from the exit wound in Flores’s head. The paramedic did not perform any lifesaving measures, and Flores was pronounced dead.

¶5. Agent Heather Richardson of the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations testified that she was called to the scene and led the investigation. She observed Flores with a bullet wound behind his left ear, heavy damage to the front end of his car, a shattered driver’s side window, and tire marks and tire rubber on the driver’s side door. She also noticed the passenger seat headrest had bullet holes and bullet fragments. In the course of her investigation, Agent Richardson learned that Flores had been in an altercation with Odom at work that same day. She interviewed their coworkers and learned that Odom claimed Flores put his hands on Odom, and as a result, both of them were called to a meeting with their employer at the Onin Staffing office in Forest that same day. Odom was supposed to have a meeting at Onin at 4:00 p.m., and Flores was supposed to have a meeting at Onin at 4:15 p.m. Agent Richardson further learned that Odom had not shown up to his scheduled meeting. Odom also failed to show up for work the day after the murder and subsequent attempts to contact him were not successful.

¶6. After observing Peco’s surveillance video of Odom leaving work in his silver van immediately before the murder, Agent Richardson learned he purchased the van from Jason’s Auto Sales (Jason’s Auto) in Forest, Mississippi. Agent Richardson contacted Jason’s Auto and confirmed that Odom purchased a 2005 silver Buick Terraza van and the presence of a lien on Odom’s van through Jason’s Auto. Further, Jason’s Auto confirmed they had installed a global positioning system (GPS) device due to the lien. Richardson then obtained a search warrant for the GPS location data maintained by Jason’s Auto. Thereafter, she used the GPS data to locate Odom’s vehicle in Lima, Ohio. Over a month later, investigators in Lima tracked down Odom’s van, sent pictures of it to Agent Richardson, and towed it to the police station in Ohio for processing. Odom was apprehended over two months after the murder by police in Ohio during the execution of an unrelated narcotics search warrant where he happened to be present at the residence. After learning his identity, Ohio officers arrested him on the warrant for murder obtained by Agent Richardson and transported him back to Mississippi, where he was convicted of first-degree murder.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

[1–3] ¶7. "When reviewing the evidentiary rulings of a trial court, this Court employs an abuse of discretion standard." Walters v. State, 206 So. 3d 524, 534-35 (¶30) (Miss. 2016) (citing Brown v. State, 965 So. 2d 1023, 1026 (¶10) (Miss. 2007)). On appeal, we "grant[ ] a high degree of deference to the trial court’s decision to suppress or admit evidence[.]" Roberts Contracting Inc. v. Mersino Dewatering Inc., 270 So. 3d 994, 1002 (¶25) (Miss. Ct. App. 2018) (quoting Cassibry v. Schlautman, 816 So. 2d 398, 403 (¶17) (Miss. Ct. App. 2001). "For a case to be reversed on the admission or exclusion of evidence, it must result in prejudice and harm or adversely affect a substantial right of a party." Russell v. State, 364 So. 3d 688, 701 (¶48) (Miss. Ct. App. 2021) (quoting Jackson v. State, 245 So. 3d 433, 439 (¶32) (Miss. 2018)).

[4–7] ¶8. Conversely, the trial court’s "[r]ulings on the sufficiency of the evidence claims are reviewed de novo." Beasley v. State, 362 So. 3d 112, 121 (¶31) (Miss. Ct. App. 2023). "When a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence is raised on appeal, the relevant question is whether ‘any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.’ " Id. at 121-22 (¶31) (quoting McLaughlin v. State, 338 So. 3d 705, 717 (¶33) (Miss. Ct. App. 2022)). On appeal, this Court must "view all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, accept all the evidence supporting the verdict as true, and give the prosecution the benefit of all favorable inferences that reasonably may be drawn from the evidence." Melendez v. State, 354 So. 3d 944, 951-52 (¶30) (Miss. Ct. App. 2023) (quoting Garrett v. State, 344 So. 3d 849, 851 (¶12) (Miss. 2022)). "[W]e must affirm if any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." Id. at 952 (¶30) (quoting Garrett, 344 So. 3d at 851 (¶12)).

DISCUSSION

[8, 9] ¶9. Odom raises two types of issues on appeal. First, Odom argues that "the trial court made multiple erroneous evidentiary rulings that prejudiced [his] case." Second, he claims that his conviction is not supported by sufficient evidence.²

I. Evidentiary Rulings

¶10. Odom first alleges that the trial court erred by admitting into evidence computer printouts of vehicle locations; vehicle photographs from out-of-state investigators; vehicle photographs provided by the business owner; and crime laboratory ("crime lab") documents related to paint-transfer evidence. He claims that the court’s errors in the admission and exclusion of these items of evidence were an abuse of discretion warranting this Court to reverse and remand his conviction for a new trial. After a review of the record, we find that the trial court’s evidentiary rulings do not require a reversal of Odom’s conviction.

A. Computer Printouts of GPS or Location Data

¶11. The first item of contested evidence is a set of computer printouts proffered by the State and admitted into evidence from a local car dealer’s computer system, depicting time-specific geographical data and coordinates for the vehicle registered to Odom. Odom claims that the admission of the computer printouts was error on the grounds that they contained inadmissible hearsay and were not properly authenticated.

¶12. As part of her testimony, Agent Richardson identified the evidence from Jason’s Auto as a set of documents that she personally observed an employee of Jason’s Auto locate on their computer system. She personally observed the employee sign into his account on the system, conduct a search with Odom’s vehicle information, retrieve the historical location data of the van registered to Odom, and print out the information provided on the computer screen. As a matter of description, the exhibit is a fourteen-page document, with each page consisting of Google satellite images that contain digitally placed markers or tacks on the image. Below the satellite image on each page is a set of information, which contains the location, date, and speed information pertaining to the markers placed on the images. For purposes of our analysis, we are mindful that more than one type of evidence or information is found within the exhibit of the computer printouts.

¶13. As a foundational principle, we note that "[h]earsay is...