Opinion
24A-CR-330
10-15-2024
Jason D. Harris, Appellant-Defendant v. State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT Ronald K. Smith Muncie, Indiana ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE Theodore E. Rokita Indiana Attorney General Steven J. Hosler Deputy Attorney General Indianapolis, Indiana
Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), this Memorandum Decision is not binding precedent for any court and may be cited only for persuasive value or to establish res judicata, collateral estoppel, or law of the case.
Appeal from the Delaware Circuit Court The Honorable Thomas A. Cannon, Jr., Judge Trial Court Cause No. 18C05-2202-MR-2
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT
Ronald K. Smith Muncie, Indiana
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE
Theodore E. Rokita Indiana Attorney General
Steven J. Hosler Deputy Attorney General Indianapolis, Indiana
MEMORANDUM DECISION
ALTICE, CHIEF JUDGE
Case Summary
[¶1] Following a five-day, bifurcated jury trial, Jason D. Harris was convicted of murder, criminal confinement, unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon, obstruction of justice, and theft, and he was found to be a habitual offender and subject to an enhanced penalty for use of a firearm during commission of the murder. On appeal, Harris claims that the trial court erred in admitting two exhibits into evidence - both portions of recorded statements he made while in police custody - because he did not knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waive his Miranda rights. Harris fails to support this claim with cogent argument and thus has waived the issue.
[¶2] We affirm.
Facts & Procedural History
[¶3] In the early morning hours of February 7, 2022, Harris got into a drunken argument with his brother, Kyle Harris, at Erik Sparks's Muncie home, where the three men lived. When Harris pointed a handgun at Kyle, Sparks told Harris that he had to leave. Harris then grabbed some belongings, and Sparks, the only one with a car, agreed to drive Harris to his mom's house. They drove away around 3:20 a.m., and Kyle went to bed.
[¶4] During the drive, Harris had Sparks drive to a parking lot near the Cardinal Greenway (the Greenway), where he then forced Sparks out of the car at gunpoint. The two walked down the snow-covered trail, Harris following behind Sparks. After walking about two or three hundred yards, Harris ordered Sparks to his knees and then shot Sparks twice in the head, first in the face and then in the back of the head. Harris then walked to Amy Sweitzer's nearby home and awoke his friend to obtain gloves. He told Sweitzer, "I can't believe it. I shot him in the dome, in the head." Transcript Vol. III at 166. Harris said he "needed gloves to roll a body in the ditch." Id. Harris smelled heavily of alcohol, and Sweitzer was not sure whether to believe him, but she provided him with latex gloves. Harris then returned to the scene, where he pulled Sparks off the trail, removed personal belongings from Sparks, and partially covered his body with snow.
[¶5] Harris returned home about 5:20 a.m. in Sparks's car. Later that morning, he woke up Kyle and told him that they needed to grab their things and get out of town. Harris appeared reluctant to say why, and Kyle repeatedly demanded to know where Sparks was. Harris eventually responded by pulling his index finger across his neck and then dropping Sparks's wallet, keys, and cell phone on the bed. Kyle, not sure what to believe, got up and looked for Sparks, noticed his car was in the driveway, and observed Harris's belongings piled near the front door.
[¶6] At some point that morning, Harris contacted a friend, Brent Foy, who arrived with his (Foy's) mother to give Harris a ride to a pawn shop. Foy helped Harris load a television, which was owned by Sparks, into his mother's car, and the three left about 10:15 a.m. Foy then pawned the television for Harris before going to a gas station.
[¶7] Meanwhile, Kyle called 911 at 10:21 a.m. to report Sparks missing, and Muncie Police Officer Gabriel Wilmes responded within minutes. Kyle reported that he believed his brother had done something to Sparks and recounted the limited information that he had. Kyle also noted that Sparks's car was in the driveway and that Sparks never left home without it. The officer then returned to the Muncie Police Department to process the missing person's report.
[¶8] Upon seeing a police cruiser at the house upon their return, Harris "started freaking out" and asked to borrow a phone from Foy or Foy's mother to call family in Chicago. Transcript Vol. II at 54. He also asked if the Foys could drive him to Chicago. They refused both requests, so Harris had them drop him off at a nearby intersection away from the house.
[¶9] Around 1:10 p.m., Officer Wilmes returned to the house to follow-up with Kyle. While they were speaking in the living room, Harris emerged from his bedroom, which surprised Kyle because he did not know Harris had returned. Kyle assumed that Harris had entered through his bedroom window.
[¶10] Shortly thereafter, Detective Ryan Plummer arrived at the house to assist in the investigation. At the time, Kyle and Harris appeared "somewhat excited" and were talking over each other. Id. at 216. Detective Plummer asked Harris to step outside with Officer Wilmes and then spoke with Kyle briefly before handcuffing Harris and taking him to Muncie City Hall around 2:30 p.m.
[¶11] About an hour later, Detective Plummer began speaking with Harris in an interrogation room where Harris was still detained but no longer handcuffed. After being informed of his rights, Harris signed a waiver of rights form at 3:38 p.m., which Detective Plummer read to him and called "just a formality" before passing it to Harris to sign. Transcript Vol. III at 85. The initial discussion between Detective Plummer and Harris after the waiver was brief and congenial. Harris expressed concern for Sparks but stated that he did not know what had happened to him. State's Exhibit 11 is a video recording of this portion of the interview, which lasted less than thirty minutes.
[¶12] There was a several-hour break in the interview starting about 4:00 p.m., during which Harris was confined in an interview room as well as a holding cell for about an hour so that he could use the restroom. The second phase of the interview began at about 7:47 p.m., with Seargent Joseph Duckham joining Detective Plummer in questioning Harris. They began by telling Harris that they knew he had been with Sparks prior to his disappearance. Harris quickly indicated that he did not kill Sparks but that while Sparks was giving him a ride to his mother's, after the fight with Kyle, the two stopped along the Greenway to urinate. Harris claimed that a masked man came out from nowhere and accused Harris of a setup. After ordering Harris and Sparks to their knees, Harris claimed that the man shot Sparks twice in the head and that the gun jammed when he tried to shoot Harris, which gave Harris a chance to fight him off. Afraid that he might get blamed for Sparks's death, Harris explained that in a panic he moved the body into the woods and covered it with snow. After having difficulty using a map to show where the body could be found, Harris said it would be easier if he was driven to the location, which the investigators arranged. This portion of the interview ended about 8:42 p.m., and State's Exhibit 12 contains the redacted video recording of the interview.
[¶13] During the 9:00 hour, Harris was transported in custody to where he and Sparks had parked. He told investigators where to look for the body along the Greenway. Sparks's body was quickly located, along with prints in the snow that matched the tread of the shoes worn by Harris. There were also shoe prints in the snow leading from the area of the shooting to and from Sweitzer's nearby house. Sweitzer voluntarily spoke with police that day, and a box of latex gloves was collected from her home.
[¶14] Harris was back in an interview room just before 10:00 p.m., and the interrogation resumed within the hour and then lasted about six hours with breaks. State's Exhibit 13 is a redacted three-hour video of this portion of the interview. In the last several minutes of the lengthy interview, Harris admitted to shooting and killing Sparks on the Greenway and then going to Sweitzer's house for gloves.
[¶15] At his jury trial for murder and several other crimes, Harris challenged the admission into evidence of State's Exhibits 11, 12, and 13, as well as almost all the State's other evidence. Citing both state and federal constitutional provisions, Harris claimed that he did not knowingly and intelligently waive his rights, and he consistently renewed his objection - dozens of times - and continued to develop the record throughout trial. Harris asserted a number of bases in support of his claim that most of the State's evidence should be suppressed, including that he was subjected to a custodial interrogation at his house without being advised of his rights - which allegedly tainted his subsequent waiver, Detective Plummer questioned Harris in the interview room about his phone and passcode before advising him of his rights, Harris was not paying attention as his rights were being read to him, Detective Plummer read the form nonchalantly, did not verify that Harris understood, and told Harris that signing it was just a formality, and Harris was not re-Mirandized at any point during his lengthy, multi-part interrogation, which lasted well into the next day. The trial court consistently overruled Harris's objections in this regard.
[¶16] On December 4, 2024, the fifth day of the bifurcated trial, the jury found Harris guilty of murder, Level 3 felony criminal confinement, Level 4 felony unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felony, Level 6 felony obstruction of justice, and Class A misdemeanor theft. The jury also found him to be a habitual offender and subject to a firearm enhancement. On January 18, 2024, the trial court sentenced Harris to an aggregate term of 105 years in prison.
The jury acquitted him of felony murder.
Discussion &Decision
[¶17] On appeal, Harris asserts that he did not make a knowing and intelligent waiver of his rights at the time he gave his statement to police. After briefly setting out some basic law on the voluntariness of confessions and the requirement that waiver of rights be knowing and intelligent, he simply asserts:
Harris submits that, given the length of time during which the police officers questioned him in order to wear him down, any waiver he made cannot be made knowing and intelligent. For that reason, Harris asks this Court to find that State's Exhibits 11 and 12 should not have been admitted.Appellant's Brief at 12. This is far from the "cogent reasoning" required by our appellate rules and includes no discussion of the specific circumstances surrounding his custodial statements or citations to the record. Ind. Appellate Rule 46(8)(a) ("The argument must contain the contentions of the appellant on the issues presented, supported by cogent reasoning. Each contention must be supported by citations to the authorities, statutes, and the Appendix or parts of the Record on Appeal relied on, in accordance with Rule 22."). His statement of facts section does not even set out the facts relevant to the issue presented for review, a clear violation of App. R. 46(6), nor does it include a single citation to the trial transcript.
Harris cites only the probable cause affidavit for his one-page statement of facts.
[¶18] Harris's complete failure to develop his argument and provide any facts to support it results in waiver of the issue on appeal. See Garth v. State, 182 N.E.3d 905, 919 (Ind.Ct.App. 2022) (finding issue waived where appellant made "bald assertions" with "no development of the[] contentions and no citation to the record or case law"), trans. denied.
[¶19] Waiver notwithstanding, we observe that unlike at trial, Harris only challenges on appeal the admission into evidence of State's Exhibits 11 and 12. This would leave standing his confession in State's Exhibit 13 and a mountain of other evidence, including DNA and firearms evidence.
[¶20] Harris's trial counsel took great pains to preserve the suppression issue with respect to the bulk of the State's evidence, but then his appellate counsel dropped the ball and rendered clearly deficient performance. We express no opinion here regarding whether appellate counsel's deficient performance prejudiced Harris. If Harris so chooses, that can be fully examined in postconviction proceedings.
"Ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claims fall into three categories: (1) denial of access to an appeal; (2) waiver of issues; and (3) failure to present issues well." Hamilton v. State, 233 N.E.3d 461, 482 (Ind.Ct.App. 2024), trans. denied. An ineffective assistance of counsel claim requires not only a showing of counsel's deficient performance but also that counsel's performance prejudiced the defendant such that there is a reasonable probability that the result of the proceeding would have been different but for counsel's unprofessional errors. Coleman v. State, 196 N.E.3d 731, 740 (Ind.Ct.App. 2022), trans. denied.
Judgment affirmed.
Bailey, J. and Mathias, J., concur.