Case Title: Sharp v. State

Citation: 

Docket Number: 20S04-1509-CR-549

State: indiana

Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Date: 2015-09-18T00:00:00Z

Document:
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT  
 
 
 
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE 
Donald R. Shuler  
 
 
 
 
 
Gregory F. Zoeller 
Barkes, Kolbus, Rife & Shuler, LLP 
 
 
 
Attorney General of Indiana 
Goshen, Indiana  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ian McLean 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Deputy Attorney General 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
 
______________________________________________________________________________ 
 
 
In the 
Indiana Supreme Court  
_________________________________ 
 
No. 20S04-1509-CR-549 
 
ANTHONY P. SHARP, JR., 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appellant (Defendant below), 
 
v. 
 
STATE OF INDIANA 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appellee (Plaintiff below). 
_________________________________ 
 
Appeal from the Elkhart Circuit Court  
No.20C01-1210-MR-4 
The Honorable Terry C. Shewmaker, Judge 
_________________________________ 
 
On Petition To Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 20A04-1310-CR-501 
_________________________________ 
 
 
September 18, 2015 
 
 
Rucker, Justice. 
 
 
Sep 18 2015, 10:27 am
 
 
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In a companion case today we remanded to the trial court for further proceedings the 
sentences imposed on felony murder convictions of two teenage co-defendants—sixteen-year-
old Blake Layman and seventeen-year-old Levi Sparks.  See Layman v. State, No. 20S04-1509-
CR-548, ___ N.E.3d ___ (Ind. 2015).  For the same reasons explored in that consolidated appeal 
we also remand for further proceedings the sentence imposed on a third co-defendant—eighteen-
year-old Anthony Sharp.   
 
Facts and Procedural History 
 
On the morning of October 3, 2012 sixteen-year-old Blake Layman and seventeen-year-
old Levi Sparks were present at the home of sixteen-year-old Jose Quiroz.  At some point, the 
trio discussed committing burglary in the neighborhood.  They decided to search for a house 
where the residents were away because they were aware that the presence of a homeowner 
during a burglary could result in injuries and more severe legal consequences.  Sparks knocked 
on the door of the first house targeted.  When the juveniles heard dogs barking they ran away.  
Someone was home at the second house they targeted.  
 
Believing no one was home at the time, the juveniles finally settled on the house across 
the street from where Quiroz lived, which belonged to Rodney Scott.  They then contacted their 
friends eighteen-year-old Anthony P. Sharp, Jr., and twenty-one-year-old Danzele Johnson to 
“help to get into the house.”  Tr. at 934.  Unbeknownst to them, however, Scott was actually 
asleep in an upstairs bedroom.  Unarmed, the group proceeded to break into Scott’s house.  
While Sparks stayed at Quiroz’s house serving as a lookout, Layman, Johnson, Sharp, and 
Quiroz entered Scott’s home by kicking in the rear door to the kitchen.  Scott was awakened 
when he heard a “boom, and [his] whole house just shook.”  Tr. at 1067.  After hearing a second 
loud boom, Scott immediately grabbed his handgun and cell phone and ran loudly downstairs to 
scare away any intruders.  When Scott reached the bottom of the stairs he saw Sharp run out the 
back door.  He then saw three of the intruders standing near a downstairs bedroom door.  Scott 
began firing his weapon and Layman, Johnson, and Quiroz ran into the bedroom closet.  Scott 
then held the young men at bay in the closet and called 911.  While Scott was on the phone the 
closet door opened and Scott saw Johnson fall to the floor.  Quiroz, whom Scott recognized as a 
 
 
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neighbor, told Scott that Johnson had been shot.  Shortly thereafter Layman yelled that he also 
had been shot.  
 
When the police arrived, Quiroz attempted to flee.  He ran out of the closet and crashed 
through a glass window.  One of the officers pursued Quiroz on foot and he was soon after taken 
into custody.  In the meantime other officers entered the house and arrested Layman who was 
treated for a gunshot wound to his leg.  Johnson’s body was found on the bedroom floor just 
outside the closet.  He died at the scene from a gunshot wound.  Scott’s wallet and watch, which 
were previously located on the kitchen counter, were retrieved from the closet in which Layman, 
Johnson, and Quiroz had been hiding.     
 
The State charged Sharp, Layman, Sparks, and Quiroz with felony murder in the 
perpetration of a burglary.  Over defense objections, Sharp, Layman, and Sparks were tried 
jointly.  Quiroz pleaded guilty as charged and at his plea hearing identified all three men as well 
as Johnson as participants in the burglary.  He received a fifty-five-year sentence with ten years 
suspended to probation.  Quiroz testified at the co-defendants’ jury trial but recanted his plea 
hearing testimony declaring that only he, Layman, and Johnson were involved in the burglary.  
Over defendants’ objections a transcript of the plea hearing was introduced into evidence.  The 
jury found each defendant guilty as charged.  Thereafter the trial court sentenced Layman and 
Sharp to fifty-five years and sentenced Sparks to fifty years.     
 
Sharp appealed raising two claims of error.  First, he asserted the evidence was 
insufficient to establish his participation in the burglary because it “rests solely on the testimony 
of a single witness,” Br. of Appellant at 15, namely Jose Quiroz.  Next, Sharp contended the 
felony murder statute was incorrectly applied in this case, citing in support this Court’s opinion 
in Palmer v. State, 704 N.E.2d 124 (Ind. 1999), and arguing the facts here are distinguishable.  
Finally, Sharp requested revision of his sentence based on Appellate Rule 7(B).  The Court of 
Appeals rejected the first claim noting, “Sharp’s conviction rests on more than the testimony of a 
sole witness whose testimony is uncorroborated.  To the extent Sharp points to testimony in the 
record to support his assertion that Quiroz’s identification of Sharp was unreliable, this argument 
invites this Court to reweigh the evidence and reassess the credibility of the witnesses, a task we 
 
 
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are forbidden to undertake.”  Sharp v. State, 16 N.E.3d 470, 477 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014) (citing 
Treadway v. State, 924 N.E.2d 621, 639 (Ind. 2010)).  The Court of Appeals also rejected 
Sharp’s attempt to distinguish the facts in this case from those in Palmer and citing additional 
authority declared, “[f]ollowing established precedent as we must, we find no error in the 
application of the felony-murder statute to the facts of this case.”  Id. at 479.  As for the third 
claim the court revised Sharp’s sentence to an executed term of fifty-five years with ten years 
suspended to probation—the same sentence imposed on co-defendant Quiroz.  We now grant 
transfer thereby vacating the Court of Appeals’ opinion.  See Ind. Appellate Rule 58(A). 
 
Discussion 
I. 
 
On transfer Sharp advances a single claim: “Whether the precedent of Palmer and the 
application of the felony murder statute is in need of reconsideration.”  Pet. to Trans. at i.  The 
State counters this claim “is without merit,” Opp’n to Trans. at 6, and that “Sharp’s invitation to 
abandon prior Indiana law and redefine felony-murder is waived.”  Id. at 4.  First, we fail to see 
how requesting this Court to reevaluate its existing precedent can ever be meritless.  Indeed, 
“Precedent in Need of Reconsideration” is one of the express “principal considerations” 
governing this Court’s decision on whether to grant transfer.  See Ind. App. R. 57(H)(5).  
Second, the State’s waiver argument apparently rests on the fact that the Court of Appeals 
determined Sharp’s claim that the felony murder statute was incorrectly applied in this case, 
“roughly equates to a claim ‘that the facts stated do not constitute an offense.’”  Sharp, 16 
N.E.3d at 477 (quoting Ind. Code § 35-34-1-4(a)(5) (1983)).  And, according to the court, 
because Sharp failed to file a motion to dismiss the charging information against him prior to 
trial, “his argument here appears to have been waived, because claims may not be made for the 
first time on appeal.”  Id. at 478.  Even though finding waiver, the court addressed the merits of 
Sharp’s claim.  The State complains, “the Court of Appeals erred when it continued to review 
Sharps’ [sic] claim that felony-murder liability should be reinterpreted to exempt him from the 
statute.”  Opp’n to Trans. at 4 (citing Sharp, 16 N.E.3d at 478-79).  
 
 
 
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We find no error in the Court of Appeals addressing the merits of a claim 
notwithstanding waiver.  This is a common practice not only with our Court of Appeals 
colleagues but with this Court as well.  Plank v. Cmty. Hospitals of Indiana, Inc., 981 N.E.2d 49, 
53 (Ind. 2013) (declaring that “[e]ven though the general rule is that failure to challenge the 
constitutionality of a statute at trial results in waiver of review on appeal, this Court as well as 
the Court of Appeals has long exercised its discretion to address the merits of a party’s 
constitutional claim notwithstanding waiver”);  Albrecht v. State, 737 N.E.2d 719, 726 (Ind. 
2000) (declining to following the general rule that “failure to present [the Court] with a cogent 
argument supporting his allegation of trial court error results in waiver of the issue” and instead 
deciding defendant’s challenge to the trial court’s exclusion of certain evidence on the merits); 
Jackson v. State, 735 N.E.2d 1146, 1152 (Ind. 2000) (addressing defendant’s claim that the trial 
court erred in admitting certain exhibits disclosing information of a polygraph examination and 
its result even though defendant’s claim had been waived by failing to mount a contemporaneous 
objection at trial); Ingram v. State, 547 N.E.2d 823, 829 (Ind. 1989) (deciding defendant’s claim 
of error to a jury instruction on the merits in spite of the general proposition that “grounds for 
objection must be specific and any grounds not raised in the trial court are not available on 
appeal”).   
 
In any event under our Rules of Appellate Procedure, when this Court grants transfer, as 
we have done here, “the case stands before us in the same procedural posture as it did when 
initially filed in the Court of Appeals: this Court has ‘jurisdiction over the appeal and all issues 
as if originally filed in the Supreme Court.’”  600 Land, Inc. v. Metro. Bd. of Zoning Appeals, 
889 N.E.2d 305, 307 (Ind. 2000) (quoting Ind. App. R. 58(A)).  Thus, we decline to reconsider 
Palmer as Sharp requests on transfer.  Rather, we address the claim Sharp made in his direct 
appeal to the Court of Appeals, namely, whether the felony murder statute was incorrectly 
applied in this case.  And rather than equating Sharp’s contention as “a claim ‘that the facts 
stated do not constitute an offense’” we view Sharp’s claim, which is essentially the same as 
those advanced by co-defendants Layman and Sparks, as a challenge to the sufficiency of the 
evidence.  “In reviewing a sufficiency of the evidence claim, we do not reweigh the evidence or 
assess the credibility of the witnesses.”  Treadway, 924 N.E.2d at 639.  “Rather, we look to the 
evidence and reasonable inferences drawn therefrom that support the verdict, and we will affirm 
 
 
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the convictions if there is probative evidence from which a reasonable jury could have found the 
defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”  Id.   
 
The evidence is clear that Sharp and four co-perpetrators participated in a home invasion.  
Intending to commit theft—a felony—four of the perpetrators broke down the homeowner’s 
back door and entered the house.  In consequence, one of the co-perpetrators was fatally 
wounded.  There is no question that the evidence is sufficient to sustain a burglary conviction.1   
 
In any event, although today we affirmed the continued validity of Palmer and its 
progeny, see Layman, No. 20S04-1509-CR-548, slip op. at 6-8, the facts in those cases are 
significantly different from the facts here.  We elaborated: 
 
In Palmer, for example, although the defendant engaged in 
kidnapping—one of the felonies designated in the felony murder 
statute—he did so while pointing “a loaded and cocked handgun at 
the head of [an officer] and thereafter fired it, injuring the officer.”  
Palmer, 704 N.E.2d at 126.  We explained that “[s]uch conduct 
clearly raised the foreseeable possibility that the intended victim 
might resist or that law enforcement would respond, and thereby 
created a risk of death to persons present.  This felonious conduct 
was clearly ‘the mediate or immediate cause’ of [his accomplice’s] 
death.”  Id. (emphasis added).   
 
In like fashion we affirmed the felony murder conviction for the 
death of a co-perpetrator during the course of a robbery in Jenkins 
[v. State, 726 N.E.2d 268 (Ind. 2000)].  The evidence in that case 
showed that “the defendant held a gun to [robbery victim’s] 
stomach, . . . defendant and [co-perpetrator] then taped [victim’s] 
ankles together and his hands behind his back, . . . defendant 
retrieved [victim’s] girlfriend[] from the second level of the 
apartment, . . . defendant handed the gun to [co-perpetrator], and 
the defendant taped [victim’s girlfriend’s] eyes, mouth, and hands 
and instructed her to sit in a chair [after which] defendant then took 
a spoon from a kitchen drawer and heated it, threatening to torture 
the two victims.”  Jenkins, 726 N.E.2d at 270.  Accordingly, we 
concluded “the defendant and his co-perpetrator engaged in 
dangerously violent and threatening conduct and that their 
                                                 
1 See Indiana Code section 35-43-2-1 (2012), providing in relevant part: “A person who breaks and enters 
the building or structure of another person, with intent to commit a felony in it, commits burglary, a Class 
C felony.” 
 
 
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conduct created a situation that exposed persons present to the 
danger of death at the hands of a non-participant who might resist 
or respond to the conduct . . . and that the defendant’s role in 
creating this dangerous situation, which included the use of at least 
two guns during the episode, was an intermediary, secondary, or 
medium in effecting or bringing about the death.”  Id. at 271 
(emphasis added) (internal quotation omitted).   
 
Similarly, in Forney [v. State, 742 N.E.2d 934, 938 (Ind. 2001)], 
we affirmed the defendant’s felony murder conviction based on 
accomplice liability where, in the perpetration of a robbery, the 
defendant instructed his co-perpetrator to “get the money by 
saying, ‘get the scrill get the scrill.’”  Forney, 742 N.E.2d at 936.  
Upon which, the co-perpetrator pulled out a gun, pointed it at the 
stomach of the intended robbery victim and said, “Shut up, empty 
your pockets.”  Id.  A struggle over the gun ensued.  The co-
perpetrator fired the weapon, striking another co-perpetrator in the 
chest who died as a result.   
 
Aside from the fact that in each case a co-perpetrator was fatally 
injured by someone other than the defendant, the common thread 
uniting Palmer, Jenkins, and Forney was that an armed defendant 
engaged in violent and threatening conduct, either as a principle or 
an accessory, that resulted in the “mediate or immediate cause” of 
a co-perpetrator’s death.  By contrast the record here shows that 
when the group broke and entered the residence of the homeowner 
intending to commit a theft—a burglary—not only were they 
unarmed, but also neither the Appellants nor their cohorts engaged 
in any “dangerously violent and threatening conduct.”  Jenkins, 
726 N.E.2d at 271.  There was simply nothing about the 
Appellants’ conduct or the conduct of their cohorts that was 
“clearly the mediate or immediate cause” of their friend’s death.  
Palmer, 704 N.E.2d at 126.  Thus, while the evidence is sufficient 
to sustain a conviction for the underlying burglary, it is not 
sufficient to sustain a conviction for felony murder in the 
perpetration of a burglary. 
 
Id. at 9-11.  Accordingly, we reversed the felony murder convictions of both Blake Layman and 
Levi Sparks.  Because Anthony Sharp is identically situated we reverse his felony murder 
conviction as well and remand this cause for further proceedings.  For reasons we explained in 
Layman, Id. at 11-13, on remand the trial court is instructed to enter a verdict of guilty against 
Sharp for burglary as a class B felony and resentence him accordingly.  
 
 
 
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Conclusion 
 
We reverse the judgment of the trial court and remand this cause for further proceedings 
consistent with this opinion. 
 
 
Rush, C.J., and Dickson, David and Massa, JJ., concur.