Case Title: State v. Kelley

Citation: 163 Vt 325, 664 A.2d 708

Docket Number: 93-612

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1995-02-17T00:00:00Z

Document:
STATE_V_KELLEY.93-612; 163 Vt 325; 664 A.2d 708

[Filed 17-Feb-1995]

NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P.
40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports. 
Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme
Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of any errors in
order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press. 


                                 No. 93-612


State of Vermont                                  Supreme Court

                                                  On Appeal from
    v.                                            District Court of Vermont
                                                  Unit 1, Windsor Circuit

James Kelley                                      January Term, 1995



Theodore S. Mandeville, Jr., J.

M. Patricia Zimmerman, Windsor County State's Attorney, White River Junction,
for plaintiff- appellee 

Robert Appel, Defender General, and Henry Hinton, Appellate Defender,
Montpelier, for  defendant-appellant 



PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.


     GIBSON, J.   Defendant appeals his conviction of first-degree murder
claiming that the trial court erred by refusing to instruct the jury on a
lesser-related offense and by admitting evidence of his conduct on the day of
the murder.  He also asks us to vacate his sentence of life without parole. 
We affirm. 

     At approximately 5:00 p.m. on August 13, 1992, Jeffrey Wyman was shot to
death while he sat in his parked truck in Chester, Vermont.  Witnesses who
lived near the murder scene said they had seen a red Pontiac Fiero in the
area at the time of the shooting.  Jason Shuffleburg owned a red Pontiac
Fiero in which he and defendant had been riding together on August 13. 

     Defendant arrived at Shuffleburg's apartment about 10:00 a.m. on the day
of the shooting.  They spent the morning drinking beer both at the apartment
and while riding in Shuffleburg's car.  Sometime after noon, they left the
apartment to purchase more beer, stopping 

 

first at the Springfield Shopping Plaza so defendant could borrow money from
his wife.  Upon leaving the grocery store where his wife worked, defendant
began shouting at several teenagers who were gathered near Shuffleburg's car.
 Before a more serious altercation could ensue, Shuffleburg calmed defendant,
and the two men got back into the car and left the Plaza. 

     After leaving the Plaza, defendant and Shuffleburg returned to
Shuffleburg's apartment where they discussed a plan to rob a poker game in
Windsor, Vermont.  They left the apartment with Shuffleburg's .32 automatic
pistol.  Fearing trouble at the poker game, Shuffleburg suggested that they
rob a store in Chester, Vermont instead.  Defendant agreed.  Defendant
entered the store armed with the pistol, but aborted the robbery because
there were too many customers inside the store.  He later reentered the store
but abandoned the plan because there were again too many people present.  He
got back into Shuffleburg's car and the two drove away. 

     The two men soon noticed Jeffrey Wyman's truck parked in a pull-off area
on Dean Brook Road.  After passing the truck, defendant told Shuffleburg to
turn the car around. Shuffleburg testified that defendant wanted to show him
how crazy he was.  Shuffleburg turned the car around and pulled up to Wyman's
truck.  Taking the pistol, defendant approached Wyman.  He asked Wyman, who
was alone in the truck, if he had any beer or marijuana, and then shot him in
the head.  Defendant returned to the car and the two men left. 

     Eventually, defendant and Shuffleburg were apprehended.  Shuffleburg 
confessed to the murder but later recanted and implicated defendant as the
triggerman.  Defendant was tried by jury and convicted of first-degree

 

murder.  This appeal followed. 

                                I.

       Defendant first claims error in the court's instructions to the jury. 
In his proposed instructions, during the charge conference, and after the
jury retired, defendant requested an instruction on the crime of accessory
after the fact.  See 13 V.S.A.  5 (defining accessory after the fact).  He
argued that an accessory after the fact was a lesser-included offense of
first-degree murder and that the evidence would support such a verdict.  The
court rejected the request, noting that the elements comprising the offense
of accessory after the fact are not contained in the offense of first-degree
murder.  See State v. Williams, 154 Vt. 76, 82, 574 A.2d 1264, 1267 (1990)
(lesser-included offense is composed of some but not all elements of greater
offense, and has no elements not included in greater offense). 

     On appeal, defendant claims that an instruction on accessory after the
fact was proper because it was a lesser-related offense of first-degree
murder based on the evidence in the case. We do not consider this claim on
appeal because defendant did not object to the court's instructions on this
ground below.  State v. Roberts, 154 Vt. 59, 72, 574 A.2d 1248, 1254 (1990);
V.R.Cr.P. 30. 

                                II.

     Defendant also challenges the admission of testimony relating to three
incidents involving defendant which occurred just hours before the murder. 
He contends that the testimony was improper character evidence proscribed by
V.R.E. 404(b).  We will reverse the trial court's decision to admit this
evidence only if the court withheld or abused its discretion, see State v.
Powers, No. 92-553, slip op. at 2 (Vt. Dec. 16, 1994), and a substantial
right of defendant was affected by the alleged error.  V.R.E. 103(a). 

     The evidence on which defendant bases his claim was testimony that
defendant (1) planned to rob a poker game with Shuffleburg, (2) engaged in a
verbal altercation with teenagers in the Plaza, and (3) shouted menacingly at
a person passing by his wife's apartment.  All three incidents occurred
within hours prior to the murder.  The State offered this evidence to
establish defendant's state of mind and the events leading up to the
shooting.  Defendant objected, arguing that the evidence was irrelevant and
prejudicial, and was improper propensity evidence, in contravention of Rule
404(b).  We disagree. 

     Rule 404(b) prohibits the admission of "other bad act" evidence to prove
that the defendant had a propensity to commit the act for which he is
charged.  See State v. Jones, 160 

 

Vt. 440, 444,