Murder conviction upheld for man who punched pregnant woman, fatally shot expectant father

A man who punched a pregnant woman in the belly and then fatally shot the father of her child could not convince the Court of Appeals of Indiana that his murder conviction should be overturned in favor of a lesser-included offense.

In October 2018, Perise L. Fowler walked to his neighbors’ home while they were having a party. Byron Miller, Niesha Turner and Byron’s brother lived in the home next to Fowler’s residence.

Turner, who was pregnant at the time with Miller’s child, was inside their home with another pregnant woman when the men at the party left, including Miller.

After they left, Fowler came over and asked if Miller was home. When Turner said “no” and asked Fowler to leave, he ignored her and “started hitting” both women in the stomach with “a closed fist.”

Turner could tell that Fowler was drunk and on drugs and struck him with a lampshade. Once he left, the women called 911 and Indianapolis Metropolitan Police officers went in search of Fowler.

When Miller returned, Fowler approached him and the men began arguing. When other gathered individuals tried to break up the argument, Fowler shot Miller in the chest and fled.

Miller later died from his injuries, and Fowler was charged with murder and two counts of Level 5 felony battery resulting in bodily injury to a pregnant woman. He was eventually located and arrested in Alabama in December 2018.

Fowler argued in court that he was acting in self-defense when he killed Miller, but the Marion Superior Court found him guilty of murder, Level 5 felony battery resulting in bodily injury to a pregnant woman and Class A misdemeanor battery after finding insufficient evidence to support the second Level 5 felony count.

During his sentencing hearing, Fowler orally moved for the trial court to reconsider its guilty verdict for murder and instead enter judgment of conviction on the lesser-included offense of voluntary manslaughter. But the trial court refused and sentenced him to an aggregate of 45 years behind bars.

The Court of Appeals affirmed, noting that during trial, defense counsel could have asked the trial court to find Fowler not guilty of murder based on self-defense or guilty of voluntary manslaughter based on sudden heat.

“But this is not what happened,” Judge Terry Crone wrote. “Instead, the trial court considered the sole claim raised by Fowler during the bench trial, that being self-defense, and determined that the evidence did not support his claim.

“Although voluntary manslaughter is a lesser included offense of murder, it is not a ‘typical’ lesser included offense, because instead of requiring the State to prove less than all the elements of murder, it requires the State to prove all the elements of murder and disprove the existence of sudden heat beyond a reasonable doubt when there is any appreciable evidence of such in the record,” Crone wrote.

The appellate court concluded Fowler never hinted at the existence of sudden heat or the possibility of a voluntary manslaughter conviction during trial. It also noted the state was deprived of the opportunity to submit evidence, or even any argument, to show Fowler did not act in sudden heat.

“In short, by waiting until sentencing, which occurred almost two months after trial, to inject sudden heat as a mitigating factor to his killing of Byron, Fowler not only prejudiced the State, but also deprived the trial court, as fact finder, of the ability to properly exercise its fact-finding function on that issue,” Crone concluded. “Under the circumstances, we conclude that the trial court did not err in denying Fowler’s motion to reconsider and we affirm his convictions.”

The case is Perise L. Fowler v. State of Indiana, 21A-CR-1596.