People v. Robinson

1

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JAMES JASON ROBINSON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 361467

Court of Appeals of Michigan

November 9, 2023

UNPUBLISHED

Arenac Circuit Court LC No. 21-004325-FC

Before: Cavanagh, P.J., and Riordan and Patel, JJ.

PER CURIAM

Defendant was charged in a second amended information^[1] with unlawful imprisonment, MCL 750.349b; larceny less than $200, MCL 750.356(5); assault with intent to murder, MCL 750.83; assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder (AWIGBH), MCL 750.84; and assault with intent to commit great bodily harm by strangulation, MCL 750.84. A jury found defendant guilty of unlawful imprisonment, larceny less than $200, and AWIGBH. The trial court sentenced defendant as a fourth-offense habitual offender, MCL 769.12, to 228 months to 40 years in prison for the unlawful imprisonment conviction, 93 days in jail for the larceny less than $200 conviction, and 152 months to 40 years in prison for the AWIGBH conviction. Defendant appeals as of right. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND FACTS

According to the victim, she and defendant were in a dating relationship and had a child together. She was pregnant with another of defendant's children when she and defendant secured a motel room at the In Town Inn in Standish on January 13, 2021, to "get away" for a few days from the drugs in the town in which they lived. She had been "clean" from heroin for nine days. At about 6:00 p.m. on January 13, defendant began abusing the victim. Defendant hit the victim with an open hand and a closed fist and kicked her. He also put the victim in a headlock from behind with his arm around her neck, putting pressure on her throat. He put her face down on the bed so that her face was pushed into the blankets and her head was shoved into her chest. The victim had trouble breathing. She told defendant "Stop. Please stop." The victim did not remember what defendant said while assaulting her because her "adrenaline was going." She estimated that defendant assaulted her on and off for a couple of hours. The victim testified that defendant locked the door and put himself in front of the door. A couple of times he pushed her onto the bed.

According to the victim, at some point the owner of the In Town Inn, Sandeep Singh, came to the room and told her and defendant that they were being too loud, acting crazy, and disrupting others; Singh did not call 911. Defendant left the room for a short period of time and came back before leaving again.^[2] The victim called several people but was unable to secure a ride home.

Defendant returned to the room at 5:22 a.m. and begged the victim to let him into the room. He appeared to be manic. The victim did not want to let defendant back into the room and repeatedly told him to calm down. Because it was cold outside and defendant was not appropriately dressed for the weather, the victim let him in the room.

Defendant lay down on the bed closest to the door. Defendant kept asking to go through the victim's phone. Events began to escalate again when the victim would not allow defendant to go through her phone and refused to lie down with him. The victim testified that she did not try to leave at that point because she believed that defendant would block the door if she attempted to leave. She believed that if she attempted to escape, defendant would hurt her in the few seconds it would take to unlock the door.

Defendant again put the victim into a headlock, wrapping his arm around her neck and pushing her head down into the bed. The victim had difficulty breathing when defendant's arm was around her neck and she felt she was close to blacking out. Defendant was punching her. She was scared. After being released from the headlock, the victim went toward the door, and defendant stood in front of the door in a "very threatening stance" and said, "[D]on't even try it."

The victim ended up sitting in one of the two chairs that was farthest from the door. Defendant began to "pound" the victim. He was doing "uppercuts" to her face and kneeing her in the face. The victim, being pregnant, put her leg and arm up to protect herself. The victim became dizzy during the last couple of times defendant kneed her in her face. She could feel her face swelling. She thought that defendant was going to kill her. She did not remember what defendant was saying at the time because she was not paying attention to him. Defendant was in front of the door at the time and she "knew for a fact" that she could not get out the door.

At some point while defendant was punching and kneeing the victim in the face, the victim "ended up" with the lamp from the table. She pushed defendant back a bit with the lamp and then hit him with it, and while doing so she knocked out the nearby glass window with the lamp. She pulled the table between herself and defendant and climbed out the broken window. As the victim was leaving, she saw defendant leave the room. Defendant said, "please don't do this. I'm going to go to jail." The victim saw defendant flee down a back street. He took the victim's cellular phone with him when he fled. The defendant eventually gave the phone to a friend to be returned to the victim.

The victim was "bleeding really bad" and was frantic when she went about three doors down to the motel's office while saying "I need the police." Singh came to the door, gave the victim a towel, and called 911. The victim's exit out of the window was captured on the motel's surveillance video; the video was played for the jury. The victim was taken by ambulance to the emergency room at the hospital in Standish. According to the victim, she had extensive bruising to her face, and hospital staff thought her nose was possibly broken. She received stitches for cuts on her ankle and hand and was released.

The victim testified about three previous incidents of domestic violence by defendant. In December 2018, the victim was in the passenger seat of their truck and defendant was outside the truck. The victim was going to leave and "said something." Defendant backhanded her in the mouth and claimed that he threw electrical tape into the truck. In May 2020, the victim and defendant were arguing and defendant started to get violent. The victim left the house and was walking across the street to her aunt's house. Defendant followed her and punched her in the back of the head as she was going through the door. In December 2020, defendant was beating the victim at their house and so she ran across the street and knocked on her aunt's door. By the time her aunt came to the door, defendant had dragged the victim violently while "bear hugging her very tight and hitting her" as he pulled her across the street back to their house.

Katherine Geiger, an employee with Home Confinement Incorporated, a GPS and alcohol monitoring company, testified that a January 14, 2021 daily violation summary report generated by the company showed that defendant, who was wearing a GPS ankle monitor, or tether, left the motel location at 12:20 a.m. and went to a gas station. He returned to the motel at 12:40 a.m., and left again at 12:49 a.m. and went to a residence on Elm and Grove, arriving at 12:55 a.m. Defendant left the residence at 5:22 a.m., and arrived at the motel at 5:52 a.m. He left the motel at 6:30 a.m., and arrived back at the residence at 6:36 a.m. The tether was removed from defendant's ankle that morning and was later found.

Arenac Sheriff's Deputy Christopher Ochab arrived at the hospital shortly after the 6:31 a.m. dispatch. The victim was very emotional, very scared, and appeared as though she had been through a lot of trauma. Deputy Ochab took photos depicting the victim's injuries, including bruising, swelling, and red linear marks on her left neck. Deputy Ochab testified that linear marks are consistent with strangulation. After taking the victim's statement and learning that the suspect was her boyfriend and that he was wearing a tether, Ochab located the tether, which had been stuffed in the handle of a garbage dumpster. Ogemaw County sheriff's deputies took defendant into custody several weeks later.

Defendant moved for a directed verdict of all charges except the charge of AWIGBH by strangulation. The trial court denied the motion. The jury found defendant not guilty of assault with intent to murder and AWIGBH by strangulation, and guilty of unlawful imprisonment, larceny less than $200, and AWIGBH.

II. OTHER ACTS

Defendant argues that the trial court erred by allowing the prosecution to present other-acts evidence of domestic violence under MCL 768.27b. We disagree.

"[W]e review a trial court's decision to admit evidence for an abuse of discretion, but review de novo preliminary questions of law, such as whether a rule of evidence precludes admissibility." People v Chelmicki, 305 Mich.App. 58, 62; 850 N.W.2d 612 (2014). "A trial court abuses its discretion when it selects an outcome that was not in the range of reasonable and principled outcomes." People v Roberts, 292 Mich.App. 492, 503; 808 N.W.2d 290 (2011). MCL 769.26 provides:

No judgment or verdict shall be set aside or reversed or a new trial be granted by any court of this state in any criminal case, on the ground of misdirection of the jury, or the improper admission or rejection of evidence, or for error as to any matter of pleading or procedure, unless in the opinion of the court, after an examination of the entire cause, it shall affirmatively appear that the error complained of has resulted in a miscarriage of justice.

An alleged evidentiary error must be considered "in the context of the untainted evidence," and "a preserved, nonconstitutional error is not a ground for reversal unless after an examination of...