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A trial court didn’t err in giving a lesser included aggravated battery jury instruction in the case of a man charged with attempted murder, the Court of Appeals of Indiana has ruled.
Larry Jackson Jr. was charged with attempted murder after he stabbed a man in December 2021 at an apartment complex in Indianapolis where Jackson lived.
The man, Adrian Taylor, wasn’t a tenant at the apartment, but Jackson said he was often outside asking people for money or drugs and sometimes robbing tenants. Jackson reported that Taylor robbed him a couple times.
A surveillance camera on the fifth floor of the building recorded an encounter between Jackson and Taylor on Dec. 4, 2021, in which Jackson stabbed Taylor in the chest.
Jackson then ran out of the building, discarded the knife and walked to a nearby gas station.
Taylor made his way out of the building and was in the backseat of a vehicle when emergency responders arrived.
Indianapolis police officers found no weapons on Taylor, who received emergency surgery and survived.
An officer saw Jackson near the apartment and stopped him. The officer said he was calm and cooperative. Jackson was transported to a police station.
Officers looked for a knife at the scene but didn’t find one.
In a recorded interview, Jackson said he heard a banging on his apartment door and opened it to find Taylor, who threatened to shoot Jackson if he didn’t buy him drugs.
Jackson said he agreed in order to get Taylor out of his apartment and accepted about $5.
After going outside to smoke, Jackson said he saw Taylor in an elevator and tried to give him the money back, but Taylor refused.
Jackson said Taylor had his hands “balled up,” so Jackson pulled the knife and “poked” Taylor as he was coming toward him.
Jackson said he ran out of the building and Taylor chased him. Jackson also said he dropped the knife in the alley, but a detective didn’t find it there.
Jackson was charged Dec. 8, 2021.
Before trial, Jackson sought to exclude the second portion of an officer’s body camera footage that showed Taylor bloodied in the back of the vehicle and then falling to the ground as he tried to stand.
Jackson argued the footage had no evidentiary value and was highly prejudicial.
The Marion Superior Court determined the relevance of the video outweighed any prejudice.
Also before trial, Jackson argued for the admission of statements he made about Taylor while alone in the interview room. The state intended to offer into evidence only what was included in the recorded interview.
The court found Jackson’s statements were volunteered, not within a hearsay exception and not admissible under the rule of completeness, but noted that the statements “do reflect [Jackson’s] state of mind” and that defense could present them in its case-in-chief.
At trial, the state admitted into evidence surveillance camera footage that showed the two men getting on and off the elevators in the lobby and on the fifth floor — sometimes together and sometimes not.
Jackson is seen picking up small items off of the floor and trying to hand them to Taylor, who refuses the items.
Taylor begins to turn away and has his back to Jackson, who reaches into the pocket of his sweatshirt, pulls out a knife, stabs Jackson in the chest and runs away.
A detective testified that the footage was contrary to what Jackson said happened.
The recorded interview with the detective was offered and admitted into evidence over Jackson’s objection.
The court also admitted the second part of the contested body camera footage over Jackson’s objection.
A doctor testified that Taylor was minutes away from dying when he arrived at the hospital and that he had a hole about half an inch in size in the left side of his heart.
Jackson testified that he feared Taylor because he’d seen Taylor beat up other people in the building. Jackson said he left — with a knife in his pocket — to look for someone who might have the drugs Taylor wanted.
Jackson also testified that he didn’t intend to kill Taylor.
After the parties rested, Jackson objected to two jury instructions that defined the charged offense of attempted murder and stated that aggravated battery was a lesser included offense of which the jury could find Jackson guilty.
The court determined that the evidence reflected an evidentiary dispute as to Jackson’s intent, which supported giving the aggravated battery instruction.
The court asked Jackson’s counsel if Jackson understood the risk of pursuing an “all-or-nothing strategy,” and counsel said that’s what Jackson wanted to do.
After reviewing case law off the record, the court determined “there is not an absolute right to refuse a valid lesser included offense instruction” where “there is a serious evidentiary dispute” on the element distinguishing the two offenses.
The court gave the lesser included aggravated battery instruction over Jackson’s objection.
Jackson also disagreed with how that instruction would be given.
The court determined it would give the court’s self-defense instruction, Final Instruction 3, which was consistent with pattern jury instruction 10.03.
The court declined to give Jackson’s tendered instructions 1 and 6, finding that instruction 1 was already covered by the court’s Final Instruction 3 and that instruction 6 (Defense Instruction 6) contained language that the Indiana Supreme Court had determined was unnecessary and misleading.
A jury found Jackson guilty of Level 3 felony aggravated battery. He was sentenced to eight years, with six executed and two suspended with no probation.
On appeal, Jackson argued the three-part analysis courts apply to determine if a jury instruction is appropriate — established in Wright v. State, 658 N.E.2d 563, 566-67 (Ind. 1995) — applies only when a party has requested an instruction, not when a trial court gives a jury instruction sua sponte.
The Court of Appeals disagreed, citing two previous cases that included similar challenges: Washington v. State, 685 N.E.2d 724 (Ind. Ct. App. 1997), and Ross v. State, 877 N.E.2d 829 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008).
“Washington and Ross lead us to the conclusion that, regardless of whether a party requested the lesser included instruction or it was given sua sponte, the relevant inquiry is whether the instruction was properly given pursuant to the Wright analysis,” the opinion says.
The appellate court agreed with the state’s argument that while trial courts aren’t required to give an instruction on a lesser included offense sua sponte, they aren’t precluded from doing so under the proper circumstances.
Jackson also argued the trial court erred in refusing one of his tendered self-defense instructions because the court’s Final Instruction 3 “did not address consideration of danger from the defendant’s standpoint or that the defendant is entitled to a mistake in judgment if he acted honestly.”
The Court of Appeals again disagreed.
“To the extent that Jackson’s Defense Instruction 6 asked the jury to consider otherwise, it was not a correct statement of the law,” the opinion says.
Jackson also argued the trial court erred when it admitted the disputed portion of body camera footage, as well as the recorded interrogation without statements Jackson made when he was alone in the room.
The Court of Appeals disagreed with both.
The portion of body camera footage Jackson wanted to exclude “served to connect the dots,” the Court of Appeals determined, between surveillance video and the surgeon’s testimony.
Addressing the interrogation, the appellate court noted the detective who did the interview didn’t leave and then return.
“Rather, he completed his questioning and left,” the opinion says. “The interview had concluded.”
And although the trial court declined to admit the recording of Jackson talking to himself under the doctrine of completeness, the Court of Appeals noted Jackson didn’t present that portion of the recording in his case-in-chief, even though the trial court made that offer.
Chief Judge Robert Altice wrote the opinion. Judges Melissa May and Peter Foley concurred.
The case is Larry Lee Jackson, Jr. v. State of Indiana, 22A-CR-2955.
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