People v. Dodson

1

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DONTE DODSON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 360021

Court of Appeals of Michigan

May 25, 2023

UNPUBLISHED

Wayne Circuit Court LC No. 19-000475-02-FC

Before: Rick, P.J., and Shapiro and O'Brien, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

Defendant appeals as of right his jury trial convictions for first-degree murder, MCL 750.316, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony (felony-firearm), MCL 750.227b, under a theory of aiding and abetting. Defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for the first-degree murder conviction and two years' imprisonment for the felony-firearm conviction. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

This case arises from the fatal shooting of Britteny Campbell in August 2018. A few hours before the shooting, Campbell defendant, Deja Davis,^[1] and Asia Berry were together at Berry's house on Pingree Street in Detroit, Michigan. Defendant and Davis are cousins. At one point during the night, Davis began fondling Campbell's breasts and between her legs. Campbell told Davis to stop and warned him that she would "mace" him if he did not stop. Davis continued to fondle Campbell, and she pulled a can of mace out of her bra and sprayed Davis in the face with the mace. Demesio Lee, a friend of Campbell, came to pick up Campbell and take her home. Lee brought Campbell back to Berry's however, to retrieve some items that she had left behind. When Davis asked her why she sprayed mace at him, Campbell revealed a handgun while reiterating to Davis that he should not touch her.

At some point after Campbell left, defendant asked those present where Campbell lived and then left Berry's house. Defendant's brother-in-law, Calvin Chandler, testified that defendant came to his house that night for about five minutes sometime between 10:00 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. Chandler lived at the corner of Wildemere Street and Columbus Street. In his initial statement to the police, Chandler stated that he had a .45-caliber handgun in a box in his bedroom at the time in question.^[2] Additionally, on the night of the crime, defendant was wearing a GPS tether, which was able to track the location of the tether to an accuracy of 3 to 5 feet. The GPS tether records showed that defendant was at Berry's house until 10:50 p.m. and then at Linwood Street (near where Chandler lived) at 10:55 p.m. At 12:10 a.m., the GPS tether pinged at Dexter Avenue, which is near Campbell's house on Euclid Street. Defendant's GPS tether then pinged again at Chandler's house at 1:00 a.m.

Lee eventually dropped Campbell off at her house on Euclid Street around midnight. As Campbell was walking toward her front door, Lee noticed a red Dodge Durango driving up the street with its headlights off. Lee heard Campbell say, "Oh, what do you want," before hearing multiple rapid gunshots. The Durango then drove past Lee and fled the scene. Lee contacted the Detroit Police Department, and Campbell later died of her injuries at the hospital. The autopsy report concluded that the cause of death was nine gunshot wounds to the body, including two shots to the head. The autopsy concluded that the wounds came from a .45-caliber handgun.

After the incident, defendant was taken into custody and questioned by Detroit Police Department Detective Gentry Shelby. Defendant admitted he owned a red Dodge Durango and had used it to drive Davis to Campbell's house on the night of the shooting. Defendant said that he knew Davis wanted to go to Campbell's house because Davis was upset with Campbell over the mace incident. Defendant stated he believed Davis was going to "beat the victim's a**" and that he was okay with Davis beating Campbell. Defendant also was aware that Davis was armed with a handgun when defendant drove Davis to Campbell's house. When defendant dropped off Davis at Campbell's house, he heard rapid gunshots and believed that Campbell was dead. Defendant filed a motion to suppress his statements made during his interrogation with Detective Shelby, which the trial court denied.

At trial, Davina Sturgis testified that, two weeks after the shooting, she received a phone call from someone she believed to be Davis. Sturgis had been friends with Davis since childhood and recognized his voice. Davis told Sturgis that on the night of the incident, Campbell had sprayed him with mace and that he had asked around to find out where she lived. Davis said that "he took his cousin['s] truck and went and got a gun from his cousin['s] house, or took a gun from his cousin['s] house and went and waited on [Campbell]." Davis stated the gun was taken from a house on "Wildemere and Columbus." Davis told Sturgis he used a "red Durango" to get to Campbell's house and that when Campbell arrived she said, "What the **** are you doing here," and pulled out her gun. Davis believed that Campbell shot him first before he "shot her with two guns." Sturgis asked Davis what he did with the gun, and Davis replied that "he put it back at his cousin['s] house so he don't never know [sic]."

Davis's cellphone records showed that he and defendant exchanged several phone calls in the hours following the shooting. Additionally, Ryan Haugh (a data analyst) and Corporal Allen Mosley of the Wayne County Sheriff's Department testified as to data of the GPS tether defendant wore before, during, and after the crime. At the close of trial, defendant was convicted of first-degree murder and felony-firearm under an aiding and abetting theory for helping Davis with the crime.

II. INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL

Defendant argues that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to (1) Sturgis's testimony regarding Davis's statements and (2) admission of evidence relating to defendant's GPS tether.^[3] We disagree.^[4]

"Criminal defendants have a right to the effective assistance of counsel under the United States and Michigan Constitutions." People v Schrauben, 314 Mich.App. 181, 189-190; 886 N.W.2d 173 (2016). To prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, a defendant "must establish (1) the performance of his counsel was below an objective standard of reasonableness under prevailing professional norms and (2) a reasonable probability exists that, in the absence of counsel's unprofessional errors, the outcome of the proceedings would have been different." People v Sabin (On Second Remand), 242 Mich.App. 656, 659; 620 N.W.2d 19 (2000).

A. DAVIS'S STATEMENTS TO STURGIS

Defendant argues the testimony of Sturgis was inadmissible, and thus, his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to Sturgis's testimony. We disagree.

Hearsay is "a statement, other than the one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted." MRE 801(c). Unless, the rules of evidence provide otherwise, hearsay is inadmissible. See MRE 802.

Defendant argues that Davis's statements were inadmissible hearsay and did not fall within either MRE 801(d)(2)(A) (statement by a party opponent) or MRE 801(d)(2)(E) (statement by a coconspirator during the course of and in furtherance of the conspiracy). However, defendant does not address the hearsay exception in MRE 804(b)(3), which allows for admission of statements that are made against a declarant's penal interest. MRE 804(b)(3) provides:

A statement which was at the time of its making so far contrary to the declarant's pecuniary or proprietary interest, or so far tended to subject the declarant to civil or criminal liability, or to render invalid a claim by the declarant against another, that a reasonable person in the declarant's position would not have made the statement unless believing it to be true [is not excluded by the hearsay rule].

"The premise underlying this hearsay exception is the common-sense intuition that a reasonable person would be expected to lie, if at all, only in his own favor, and would not harm himself by his own words." People v Kowalski, 492 Mich. 106, 128; 821 N.W.2d 14 (2012) (quotation marks and citation omitted).

In People v Taylor, 482 Mich. 368, 378; 759 N.W.2d 361 (2008), the Supreme Court addressed whether a codefendant's hearsay statement was admissible against the defendant under MRE 804(b)(3). A witness testified at trial as to statements the codefendant made during a telephone call; during the call, the codefendant described a detailed account of the victim's murder. Id. at 379-380. Because the statements were made informally to an acquaintance and not "during a police interrogation or other formal proceeding," the Court held that they were nontestimonial and therefore did not implicate the Confrontation Clause. Id. at 378. Accordingly, the admission of the statements was governed solely by MRE 804(b)(3) under the following standard:

[W]here, as here, the declarant's inculpation of an accomplice is made in the context of a narrative of events, at the declarant's initiative without any prompting or inquiry, that as a whole is clearly against the declarant's penal interest and as such is reliable, the whole statement-including portions that inculpate another- is admissible as substantive evidence at trial pursuant to MRE 804(b)(3). [Id. at 379 (citation omitted).]

The Supreme Court concluded that the codefendant's statements "constituted a 'narrative of events,' [and] so the statements were admissible at trial in their entirety." Id. at 380.

Here Davis's statements to Sturgis were similarly admissible under MRE 804(b)(3). This Court has already upheld the trial court's finding that the identity of the person who called Sturgis was Davis. See People v Davis, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued December 16, 2021 (Docket No. 351935), pp 3-4. This Court held that "the...