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A trial court abused its discretion by not granting a man’s request for a mistrial based on an “evidentiary harpoon,” the Court of Appeals of Indiana ruled in a Tuesday reversal.
According to court records, 18-year-old Chase Turner was driving a car when two of his passengers, including Chordae Spearman, fired several gunshots at another car that had just crashed on Interstate 65 in Indianapolis.
Turner acknowledged that his group had been following the car, trying to determine whether a particular individual was inside whom they wished to confront about a friend’s death, but Turner claimed the shooting was unplanned and surprised him.
The shooting occurred in July 2021. One month earlier, Turner and Spearman’s roommate, Joseph Simmons, was shot and killed at a party.
They soon came to believe that Malik Shaw had committed the shooting and was going around town bragging about it. There were also rumors that Jaida Sanders was involved.
After waking up around noon on July 11, 2021, Turner received word that a fight was planned at an apartment complex in Indianapolis between Sanders and another female.
He and Spearman made their way to that area in Spearman’s Ford Fusion, along with their friends, Abel Luna and Robert Holmes. They circled the area multiple times to make sure that they were not being set up by Shaw, and then they parked and watched the fight take place in the parking lot.
There was a large group present to view the fight, some armed with guns.
After the fight, Sanders, her best friend, Dayonna Slaughter, and Slaughter’s sister went inside a nearby apartment. Turner and his friends waited down the road in the Ford, which Turner was driving.
They followed Sanders in her Kia Forte when she eventually left with Slaughter in the front passenger seat and Shaw in the back seat.
Sanders stopped at a red light in the left turn lane, preparing to turn onto the interstate, and noticed a car with dark tinted windows pull alongside her on the right. She pulled away from the light, started to lose control on the ramp’s sharp curve and then struck a cement barrier shortly after entering the interstate.
Turner was still driving on the ramp when the Kia crashed. Seconds after the Kia came to rest in the middle lane facing oncoming traffic, Spearman and Luna fired several shots as Turner drove by the crash scene, which was on their left.
Neither Turner nor Holmes fired any shots. Turner kept driving and left the scene.
Although Sanders sustained minor injuries from the accident, nobody inside the Kia was struck by any of the bullets.
On July 19, 2021, the state arrested and charged both Turner and Spearman with attempted battery by means of a deadly weapon and criminal recklessness, both Level 5 felonies.
Turner raised an objection at trial and claimed that Indiana State Police Sgt. Christopher Hanson launched an evidentiary harpoon at trial by testifying that Spearman — an unavailable witness — “gave [a] complete confession of everything.” Turner argued that this placed him in grave peril and requested a mistrial, noting the defense had no opportunity to cross-examine Spearman on his statement.
The trial court denied the mistrial based on its conclusion that Hanson’s evidentiary harpoon did not rise to the level of grave peril.
The jury found Turner not guilty of attempted battery, but guilty of criminal recklessness.
The Marion Superior Court subsequently sentenced him to a fully suspended sentence of five years in prison, with four years of probation and the first year of probation to be served on home detention.
Turner appealed and contended that the only proper remedy for Hanson’s testimony was a mistrial.
The Court of Appeals agreed, and reversed and remanded the case for a new trial.
Chief Judge Robert Altice wrote the opinion for the appellate court, which agreed that the state, through Hanson, had launched an evidentiary harpoon against Turner.
According to Altice, the trial court denied a mistrial on the basis that the error did not rise to the level of grave peril because there was other, properly admitted evidence tending to prove the same facts — that Spearman fired shots toward the Kia while Turner drove past the crash scene.
But Turner argued “that Sergeant Hanson’s testimony that Spearman gave a complete confession of everything was ‘an improper shortcut to making that showing,’ one likely to influence the verdict.”
The appellate court agreed.
“The prejudicial impact of testimony that Turner’s codefendant gave a complete confession of everything cannot be denied; it placed him in grave peril to which he should not have been subjected. And the peril was not eliminated by Sergeant Hanson’s subsequent clarification that, by said testimony, he meant only to communicate that Spearman confessed to firing the shots.
The jury was still left to wonder to what extent Spearman’s confession implicated Turner, especially given that ISP stopped investigating Turner’s social media accounts after obtaining the confession.”
Judges Patricia Riley and Rudolph Pyle concurred.
The case is Chase Turner v. State of Indiana, 22A-CR-2404.
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