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A man convicted in a roadside shooting could not convince the Court of Appeals of Indiana to overturn his murder conviction.
In October 2021, Shane Clark, Adrian Clark and Zachary Hileman were driving around Anderson together.
Hileman sold marijuana at two separate residences, and while he was arranging other sales, Shane nearly collided with a motorcycle.
The driver of the motorcycle, Raymond Waymire, caught up with Shane’s vehicle at a stop sign, parked the motorcycle and confronted Shane through the driver’s side window. He then approached the back window, where Hileman was seated.
Hileman then grabbed his gun, which was lying next to him on the backseat, and shot Waymire in the chest. Waymire walked back to the motorcycle and fell down.
He was later declared dead at the scene.
Immediately after the shooting, Shane drove away from the scene and took Hileman home.
Before turning himself in, Hileman messaged Adrian, urging him to say it was self-defense. Also, from jail, Hileman called Adrian and told him not to mention that Waymire had stepped back, but instead to say that Waymire had tried to reach for something in his pocket.
Hileman was charged with felony murder and Class A misdemeanor carrying a handgun without a license.
At trial, Hileman’s defense attempted to argue that he had a gun because he had been beaten and bullied recently on one occasion needing stiches. The state argued that he had the gun as part of his drug dealing.
The jury found Hileman guilty as charged, and he was sentenced to concurrent sentences of 50 years for murder and one year for carrying a handgun without a license.
On appeal, Hileman first argued that the Madison Circuit Court abused its discretion by denying his proffered jury instructions on lesser-included offenses when the proposed instructions were supported by the evidence presented.
But “(b)ased on the facts before us, Hileman’s conduct point towards a knowing or intentional killing, and the trial court properly refused to instruct the jury on the lesser-included offenses of reckless homicide and criminal recklessness,” Judge Patricia Riley wrote.
The second issue was whether the trial court abused its discretion by admitting certain evidence indicating that Hileman was selling marijuana on the night of the murder.
“Besides the generalized statements of the perceived existence of evidentiary harpoons, Hileman fails to direct this court to any specific instances of alleged improper admission of the evidence by the trial court and he fails to develop his argument with specific citations to the record,” Riley wrote. “… Accordingly, as Hileman fails to present us with a cogent argument pursuant to Indiana Appellate Rule 46(A)(8), he has waived the issue for our appellate review.”
Judges Terry Crone and Paul Mathias concurred in Zachary W. Hileman v. State of Indiana, 23A-CR-518.
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