State v. McCoy

374 So.3d 1102

55,354 (La.App. 2 Cir. 11/15/23)

STATE of Louisiana, Appellee

v.Demetrious MCCOY, Sr., Appellant

No. 55,354-KA

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Second Circuit.

Judgment Rendered November 15, 2023

Rehearing Denied January 4, 2024

Appealed from the Twenty-Sixth Judicial District Court for the Parish of Bossier, Louisiana, Trial Court No. 222,303, Honorable Douglas Stinson, Judge

LOUISIANA APPELLATE PROJECT, Monroe, By: Peggy J. Sullivan, Counsel for Appellant

DEMETRIOUS MCCOY, SR., Pro Se

J. SCHUYLER MARVIN, District Attorney, CODY ALLEN BOYD, RICHARD RUSSELL RAY, JOSEPH CHANCELLOR NERREN, Assistant District Attorneys, Counsel for Appellee

Before ROBINSON, HUNTER, and ELLENDER, JJ.

ELLENDER, J.

₁Demetrious McCoy, Sr., was convicted of second degree murder, La. R.S. 14:30.1, and now appeals arguing insufficiency of the evidence, as well as alleging the trial court erred by allowing other crimes evidence, denying his motion to continue, and failing to grant his challenges for cause of potential jurors. For the reasons expressed, we affirm.

FACTS

Hannah Sheffield was shot and killed in an apparent drive-by shooting on the evening of April 10, 2021. The facts which led to McCoy’s arrest, and ultimately his conviction for this crime, included multiple incidents which took place in the weeks preceding the murder.

On the night of March 20, 2021, McCoy, a/k/a "Trill," and Quinton Pappillion were in a fight at a nightclub called the Hive in Shreveport when Pappillion struck McCoy with a bottle and knocked him out cold. In the early morning hours following this fight, around 2:00 a.m. on March 21, 2021, at Pappillion’s grandmother Annie Lynn’s home on 1417 Cynthia Lane, Shaquan Hicks, who was staying there for the night, heard several gunshots outside. Though Pappillion was not present at the time of the shooting, he was sometimes there with his grandmother, and even listed 1417 Cynthia Lane as his address on his driver’s license.

Once Hicks awoke later that morning, she discovered a tire was low on her car and, when she took it to a shop to be repaired, one of the employees handed her a bullet which he had discovered in her tire. Hicks then went back to Lynn’s house and reported this discovery to the Bossier City Police Department ("BCPD"), who sent Officer Michael Blair ₂to investigate. Ofc. Blair interviewed Hicks and examined the bullet, as well as Hicks’s car and the surrounding area, discovering an apparent bullet hole in the back taillight of Hicks’s car, leading directly to her tire. Hicks stated she had no knowledge of when or how the bullet became lodged in her tire, but that this tire frequently lost air. Ofc. Blair also observed markings on the concrete around Hicks’s car that appeared to be made by gunshots, but found no other bullet holes in the surrounding area. As for the bullet from the tire, Ofc. Blair remarked that it appeared quite old and looked as though it had skipped off the ground.

Ten days later, on March 31, 2021, Pappillion contacted the BCPD and reported that a man he knew as "Trill" drove by his girlfriend’s apartment, where he was staying at the time, and pulled a gun on him, but he ducked to avoid being shot as the car drove away. When Officer Brandon Bailey arrived, Pappillion claimed that he was outside getting ready to take his son to school when "Trill," who has a tattoo on his neck bearing this name, drove by and pointed a pistol at him. Pappillion definitively stated he has known "Trill" for years, but did not know his real name, and that "Trill" was the same person he had recently knocked out in a fight at the Hive. Pappillion was also adamant in his statement to Ofc. Bailey that it was common knowledge "Trill" had fired shots at his grandmother’s house in the early morning hours ₃following their bar fight. Pappillion’s statement to Ofc. Bailey was captured on his body camera, and clearly shows a white Toyota Camry four-door sedan, with black rims, directly in front of the apartment where Pappillion was staying. In the subsequent murder investigation, it was discovered McCoy has a tattoo on his neck which reads "Trill."

On the evening of April 10, 2021, McCoy was in the Barksdale Annex¹ neighborhood of Bossier City hanging out with Raymaad West and Detroylous Abbot. As night fell, McCoy drove away by himself in a dark blue 2020 Dodge Charger, with dark rims, which he had borrowed from his sister earlier that day. Not long thereafter, West and Abbott both heard gunshots and attempted to contact McCoy by phone, but he did not answer or respond.

At 8:23 p.m. that evening, a 911 call came in to the BCPD regarding a shooting at the intersection of McElroy St. and Evans St. in the Barksdale Annex neighborhood. When officers arrived on the scene, a white 2003 Toyota Camry four-door sedan, with dark rims, was found crashed into a nearby house. Hannah Sheffield was inside the car, already deceased, with three gunshot wounds to her upper body. Officers recovered two .45-caliber shell casings in the roadway at the corner of McElroy St. and Evans St. and, based on the location of the casings, concluded the firearm ₄that discharged the casings was likely moving at the time it was fired.

Detective Briton Hampson of the BCPD was assigned as the lead investigator. Two days after the shooting, Det. Hampson conducted a video interview with McCoy, who admitted he was in a fight with Pappillion at the Hive on March 20, and that he was in the Barksdale Annex neighborhood on the evening of April 10 driving his sister’s dark blue Dodge Charger. Det. Hampson obtained the license plate number of the Charger and ran it through the License Plate Reader System (a camera system that takes photos of every car’s license place as it passes through an intersection). At 8:23 p.m. on the day of the shooting, the License Plate Reader photographed the dark blue Charger McCoy was driving heading north through the intersection of Airline Dr. and Murphy St., two blocks from where the shooting occurred. Det. Hampson was also able to obtain video surveillance footage from a water tower located on McElroy St., less than a block away from the location of the shooting. This footage first showed a white Camry, with dark rims, going in one direction, then a dark-colored car, with dark rims, traveling in the opposite direction at approximately 8:22 p.m.² During the course of his ₅investigation, Det. Hampson also visually inspected and photographed the Charger, which he confirmed was dark blue with dark rims. The investigation also revealed Pappillion drove a 2005 white Camry four-door sedan, with dark rims, virtually identical to the vehicle driven by Sheffield.

Two bullets, one of which was found and removed from Sheffield’s body, along with two casings recovered from the scene, were sent to the North Louisiana Crime Lab for further examination. Summer Johnson, an expert in forensic firearm and ballistic examination at the crime lab, determined the casings each belonged to the same .45-caliber gun. Johnson stated she was unable to determine whether the bullets were also from this same gun given their condition when she received them, flattened from hitting a hard object. Johnson also examined the bullet found in Hicks’s tire following the March 21 incident on Cynthia Lane. Johnson determined the bullet recovered from Sheffield’s body and the bullet from the March 21 incident had similar class characteristics because their caliber and grooves were consistent with each other, and each shared matching unique markings.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Following the investigation, McCoy was arrested and charged by bill of indictment with the second degree murder of Hannah Sheffield. A Prieur hearing was held on August 1, ₆2022, after which the trial court allowed evidence of the March 20 bar fight, the shooting at Cynthia Lane in the early morning hours of March 21, and the March 31 aggravated assault. Trial began the next day but, before jury selection, McCoy orally moved for a continuance based on Pappillion’s testimony in the Prieur hearing that a now deceased person made a statement to him in a phone call possibly confessing to Sheffield’s murder. The motion to continue was denied, but Pappillion was allowed to testify about the statement. At the conclusion of trial, the jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict convicting McCoy as charged of second degree murder. McCoy then filed motions for judgment of acquittal and new trial, which were both denied by the trial court. After being sentenced to life imprisonment without benefits, he filed this appeal.

DISCUSSION

Sufficiency of the Evidence

In his first assignment of error, McCoy argues there was no direct evidence or testimony adduced at trial which connected him to the shooting of Sheffield, and that the circumstantial evidence presented was insufficient to support his conviction of second degree murder.

McCoy claims the jury had to make several assumptions, without sufficient evidence, in order to reach a guilty verdict. He also submits the state attempted to link ₇the shooting of Sheffield to the March 21 shooting at Cynthia Lane by comparing the projectiles found at both scenes, but he points out the ballistics expert could only determine the projectiles were fired from the same caliber gun, not the same actual gun. He maintains no eyewitness saw who fired any of the shots. McCoy also questions some of the testimony adduced at trial. Pappillion claimed to be frequently intoxicated for, as he put it, "the majority of 2021." Pappillion testified that because of his habitual impairment, he did not recall the altercations he had with McCoy at the Hive, his belief that McCoy was responsible for the shooting at Cynthia Lane, or the alleged aggravated assault by McCoy that occurred on March 31 at Pappillion’s girlfriend’s house. McCoy concedes the testimony of West and Abbot did confirm he was in the Barksdale Annex neighborhood the night Sheffield was shot but, he asserts, West and...