Indy man loses witness ‘reliability’ argument against attempted murder conviction

An Indianapolis man’s attempted murder conviction was upheld Tuesday after the Indiana Court of Appeals found that the testimony of one of his shooting victims was not incredibly dubious.

After a night of drinking, smoking marijuana and snorting cocaine at Tyrone Toles’ home, at least two people left the home with gunshot wounds. One of the victims, Channel Tyler, alleged Toles attacked her, beat her and shot her multiple times. The other victim, Terrence Toles, fled the house through the back door.

Tyrone Toles was ultimately charged with two counts of Level 1 felony attempted murder, Level 4 felony unlawful possession of a firearm and Level 6 felony escape. He was convicted on the firearm and escape charges, but the jury hung on the two attempted-murder charges.

At a second trial on the attempted-murder charges, the jury found Toles guilty of attempting to murder Tyler but not guilty of attempting to murder Terrence. The trial court then sentenced Toles to an aggregate of 35 years in the Department of Correction.

Toles argued on appeal that there was insufficient evidence to support his attempted murder conviction and that Tyler’s testimony was not “reliable”. But the Indiana Court of Appeals disagreed, affirming in Tyrone Jeffrey Toles v. State of Indiana, 19A-CR-3017.

Treating Toles’ argument as an incredible-dubiosity argument, the appellate court declined to adopt a separate “reliability” or “unreliability” test in addition to the incredible-dubiosity doctrine. It then found that nothing about Tyler’s testimony was inherently contradictory, equivocal or coerced.

“On the contrary, she was very unequivocal. Channel testified that she did ‘not have any doubt in [her] mind that Tyrone Toles was the one that shot me,’” Judge Nancy Vaidik wrote. “Tyrone argues that Channel’s intoxication ‘certainly impacted her perceptions, her experiences, and her ability to recall.’ He also argues that Channel had an ‘enmity towards him,’ ‘did not view him favorably,’ and ‘imagined that he did not want her in the house.’

:However, Channel’s intoxication and alleged ‘enmity’ do not necessarily render her testimony incredibly dubious,” Vaidik continued. “The jury was made well aware of these facts and weighed Channel’s testimony.”

Additionally, the panel pointed to physical evidence corroborating Tyler’s testimony that Toles was the shooter.

Thus, because Tyler testified that Toles was the shooter and because that testimony was not incredibly dubious, the appellate court affirmed his conviction for attempted murder.