Rice v. State

199 N.E.3d 815

Briana Desha RICE, Appellant-Defendant,

v.STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.

Court of Appeals Case No. 22A-CR-964

Court of Appeals of Indiana.

Filed November 28, 2022

Attorney for Appellant: Sean C. Mullins, Merrillville, Indiana

Attorneys for Appellee: Theodore E. Rokita, Attorney General of Indiana, Ellen H. Meilaender, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, Indiana

Riley, Judge.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

[1] Appellant-Defendant, Briana Rice (Rice), appeals her convictions and sentences for voluntary manslaughter, a Level 2 felony, Ind. Code § 35-42-1-3(a)(1) ; domestic battery by means of a deadly weapon, a Level 5 felony, I.C. § 35-42-2-1.3(c)(2) (2016) ; and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, a Level 5 felony, I.C. §§ 9-26-1-1.1(a)(1)-(3), (b)(3) (2017).

[2] We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand with instructions.

ISSUES

[3] Rice presents this court with three issues, which we restate as:

(1) Whether her convictions for voluntary manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death violate double jeopardy principles;

(2) Whether remand is necessary to vacate her conviction for domestic battery by means of a deadly weapon; and

(3) Whether her sentence is inappropriate given the nature of her offenses and her character.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

[4] As of April 2019, Rice and Terrondy Jones (Jones) had been dating for between eight and nine months. On the morning of April 24, 2019, Rice picked up Jones in her car, and by 11:00 a.m., Rice was driving Jones to his home in East Chicago, Indiana. The two had a heated argument. Jones eventually got out of Rice's car near the intersection of Hemlock Street and 135^th Street. Jones told Rice to "go about [her] business" and walked down the sidewalk, away from her car. (Transcript Vol. III, p. 39). Rice drove alongside Jones for a half a block but then accelerated her car in Jones’ direction. Jones jumped out of the way. Rice put her car in reverse, put it back in drive, and accelerated in Jones’ direction a second time. Rice struck Jones with her car. Jones rolled onto the hood and then onto the ground. Rice drove over the entire length of Jones’ body, paused long enough to look back in her rear-view mirror to see him lying on the ground, and then drove off. Rice did not stop to render Jones aid, did not call for assistance for Jones, and did not alert the authorities. Two neighborhood residents, neither of whom knew Rice or Jones but who had seen Rice run over Jones, telephoned 911. Jones had sustained massive blunt force injuries to his head, chest wall, pancreas, and liver. Jones’ body was marked by tire tread from his left shoulder to his abdomen. Jones was treated at St. Catherine's Hospital before being airlifted to the University of Chicago Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries later in the day of April 24, 2019.

[5] After conducting a preliminary investigation, Detective Isaac Washington (Detective Washington) of the East Chicago Police Department telephoned Rice to determine if she could provide any information about Jones’ injuries. Rice calmly told Detective Washington that she and Jones had been arguing, Jones had gotten out of her car and had thrown a brick at her window, and that she had attempted to drive away. According to Rice, Jones then jumped on her car but rolled off, whereupon she accidentally drove over him. Rice told the police that she had panicked and had driven to her brother's house, where she left her car because she was concerned that it might be impounded. Detective Washington requested that Rice come to the police station and that she bring her car with her. Rice came to the police station around 5:00 p.m. on April 24, 2019, but she did not bring her car. Rice reported that she had an image on her cell phone of the damage done to her car window where Jones purportedly had thrown a brick, but she did not share the image with investigators. Rice told the authorities that she had not reported the incident because it looked like she had hit Jones intentionally.

[6] On April 26, 2019, the State filed an Information, which it amended on July 25, 2021, charging Rice with murder, Level 2 felony voluntary manslaughter, Level 5 felony domestic battery by means of a deadly weapon, and Level 5 felony leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death. On July 29, 2021, the trial court convened Rice's four-day jury trial. The two eyewitnesses to the offenses testified at trial, but neither testified to seeing Jones throw a brick at Rice's car or jump onto her car. Elisha Chandler (Chandler), the mother of Jones’ young son, also testified at trial. Chandler knew Rice and contacted her once she found out that Jones had been injured. Chandler described Rice's demeanor during the call as though Rice "was in a bubble bath with a glass of wine." (Tr. Vol. IV, p. 63). Rice had also told Chandler that Jones had jumped onto her car, leading to her running him over accidentally. The jury found Rice not-guilty of murder but guilty of the remaining charges. The trial court entered judgment of conviction for voluntary manslaughter, domestic battery by means of a deadly weapon, and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death.

[7] On August 1, 2021, Rice's presentence investigation report was filed. Twenty-five-year-old Rice had been arrested in 2017 for Class B misdemeanor marijuana possession, and the charge was resolved through a diversion program. Rice's nine-year-old daughter had been living with the child's father in Arizona since Rice's arrest in this matter. Rice was able to maintain contact with her daughter through video calls. Rice admitted smoking marijuana almost every day since the age of eighteen. Rice reported that she had not smoked marijuana before committing the instant offenses but admitted that she had consumed marijuana after the offenses.

[8] On February 17, 2022, the trial court held Rice's sentencing hearing. Due to double jeopardy concerns and with the agreement of the parties, the trial court merged, but did not vacate, Rice's domestic battery conviction with her voluntary manslaughter conviction. The trial court found the nature and circumstances of the offenses, which it characterized as "gruesome in the execution," "heinous overall," and shocking to "the conscience of any reasonable person[,]" to be a significant aggravating factor. (Tr. Vol. V, p. 13). The trial court found as an additional aggravating circumstance that Rice attempted to conceal her crimes. The trial court found Rice's lack of criminal history and undue hardship to Rice's daughter to be mitigating circumstances. The trial court found the mitigators and aggravators to be in equipoise and imposed advisory sentences, namely seventeen and one-half years for her voluntary manslaughter conviction and three years for her leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death conviction. The trial court ordered Rice to serve her sentences consecutively because she had committed two distinct offenses.

[9] Rice now appeals. Additional facts will be provided as necessary.

DISCUSSION AND DECISION

I. Voluntary Manslaughter and Leaving the Scene Convictions

[10] Rice contends that her convictions for voluntary manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death constitute double jeopardy. We review double jeopardy claims de novo. Woodcock v. State , 163 N.E.3d 863, 872 (Ind. Ct. App. 2021), trans. denied.

A. Common Law Claim

[11] Rice first argues that her dual convictions cannot stand because Jones’ death was a common element of the two offenses and because "[t]he Indiana Supreme Court has long accepted as precedent the common law double jeopardy principle that an action or consequence forming the basis for one conviction cannot then be used to enhance a second offense." (Appellant's Br. p. 10). On August 18, 2020, our supreme court handed down Wadle v. State , 151 N.E.3d 227, 244 (Ind. 2020), announcing a sea change in double jeopardy jurisprudence in that the court expressly overruled the longstanding constitutional double jeopardy tests set forth in Richardson v. State , 717 N.E.2d 32 (Ind. 1999), and provided a new analytical framework for substantive double jeopardy analysis as set forth more fully below. In its historical analysis of the application of Richardson , the Wadle court observed that after handing down Richardson , our supreme had increasingly turned to the rules of statutory construction and to common law principles to address scenarios that did not fit easily within Richardson ’s framework. Id. at 243. After observing that the application of Richardson had "proved largely untenable" and had resulted in "a patchwork of conflicting precedent" and "a jurisprudence of double jeopardy double talk[,]" the Wadle court expressly overruled Richardson itself but did not expressly and directly state that it was overruling the body of common law jurisprudence that had developed to address various problems posed by Richardson ’s application. Id. at 235, 244 (quotation omitted). Indeed, in explaining that the Indiana Constitution only protects against successive prosecutions for the same offense and, thus, that the new analytical framework for addressing substantive double jeopardy claims would focus on protections flowing from other sources, the Wadle court alluded to "statutory, common law , and constitutional" sources for additional double jeopardy protections. Id. at 246 (emphasis added).

[12] The first published opinion handed down by this court applying Wadle was Rowland v. State , 155 N.E.3d 637 (Ind. Ct. App. 2020), trans. not sought. Authored by former Indiana Supreme Court justice Senior Judge Rucker, Rowland observed that

[a]lthough overruling the Richardson [c]onstitutional tests in resolving claims of substantive double jeopardy, the Wadle Court appears to have left undisturbed the long adhered to series of rules of statutory construction and common law that are often described as double

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