Case Title: Henry J. Adkins v. State of Indiana

Citation: 

Docket Number: 20S03-0709-CR-374

State: indiana

Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Date: 2008-06-04T00:00:00Z

Document:
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT 
 
 
 
 
 
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE 
Nancy A. McCaslin 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Steve Carter 
Elkhart, Indiana   
 
 
 
 
 
 
Attorney General of Indiana 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
George P. Sherman 
Deputy Attorney General  
 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
______________________________________________________________________________ 
 
In the 
Indiana Supreme Court 
_________________________________ 
 
No. 20S03-0709-CR-374 
 
HENRY J. ADKINS, 
 
Appellant (Defendant below), 
 
v. 
 
STATE OF INDIANA, 
 
Appellee (Plaintiff below). 
_________________________________ 
 
Appeal from the Elkhart Superior Court No. 5, No. 20D05-0406-FD-258 
The Honorable James W. Rieckhoff, Judge 
_________________________________ 
 
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 20A03-0608-CR-351 
_________________________________ 
 
June 4, 2008 
 
Sullivan, Justice. 
 
Henry Adkins was convicted of pointing a firearm as a Class D felony.  He contends that 
the jury was incorrectly instructed that he, rather than the State, had the burden of proving that 
the gun was unloaded.  Had there been any evidence that his gun was unloaded, he would be 
correct.  Because there was not, the instruction constituted harmless error.   
 
FILED
CLERK
of the supreme court,
court of appeals and
tax court
Jun 04 2008, 2:07 pm
Background 
 
In June 2004, Henry Adkins, along with his brother Steve, entered Jason Boze’s 
apartment in Elkhart.  Boze was watching television with Ivy Walters, Justin Leason, and 
Lynndsey Felton when Adkins pointed a gun at Boze’s neck and said, “Don’t ever mess with my 
cousin again.”  (Tr. 43.)  Adkins then proceeded to wave the gun around the apartment.  Before 
Adkins and his brother left the Boze residence, they took Boze’s phone outside and smashed it 
on the sidewalk.  While outside, Adkins fired the gun into the air and exclaimed, “Next time this 
is going to be you.”  (Id. at 47.)   
 
The State charged Adkins with Pointing a Firearm,1 a Class D felony.  At the conclusion 
of the trial, Adkins objected to one of the trial court’s jury instructions on grounds that it 
allocated the burden of proving that his gun was unloaded to him rather than to the State.  The 
trial court overruled Adkins’s objection and the jury found him guilty as charged.  The Court of 
Appeals affirmed.  Adkins v. State, 870 N.E.2d 465 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007).  Adkins sought, and 
we granted, transfer.  Adkins v. State, 878 N.E.2d 212 (Ind. 2007).2   
Discussion 
 
The Legislature has established the criminal offense of pointing a firearm as follows: “A 
person who knowingly or intentionally points a firearm at another person commits a Class D 
felony.  However, the offense is a Class A misdemeanor if the firearm was not loaded.”  I.C. § 
35-47-4-3(b).  At the conclusion of the trial, the court gave Final Instruction No. 11, which read: 
 
If the state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt any of the elements 
of pointing a firearm, then you must find the defendant not guilty of pointing a 
firearm. 
                                                 
1 Ind. Code § 35-47-4-3(b) (2004). 
 
2 The decision of the Court of Appeals addressed Adkins’s additional contentions that the trial court committed 
reversible error when it (1) did not allow Adkins’s wife to testify as a witness; and (2) did not tell the jury that the 
offense of pointing a firearm was a “class D felony” and that the offense of pointing an unloaded firearm was a 
“class A misdemeanor.”  Adkins, 870 N.E.2d at 469-71.  We summarily affirm the Court of Appeals on these points.  
Ind. Appellate Rule 58(A). 
 
2
 
If the State did prove beyond a reasonable doubt all of these elements, 
then, and only then, may you find the defendant guilty of pointing a firearm. 
 
However, if the State proved [all] of the elements of pointing a firearm, 
but the defendant proved by a preponderance of the evidence that the firearm was 
unloaded, then, and only then, may you find the defendant guilty of pointing an 
unloaded firearm.  To prove a proposition by a preponderance of the evidence, a 
party must convince you that the proposition is more likely true than not true. 
 
(Appellant’s App. 50-51.)   
 
Adkins contends that the giving of Final Instruction No. 11 constituted reversible error 
because it placed the burden of proving that his gun was unloaded on him, rather than on the 
State.  His argument is grounded in the familiar Due Process Clause mandate that “protects the 
accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary 
to constitute the crime with which he is charged.”  In Re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364 (1970).  
Sandstrom v. Montana established the corollary principle that a jury instruction that shifts to the 
defendant the burden of proof on a requisite element of mental state violates due process.  442 
U.S. 510, 524 (1979).  Here, Adkins maintains, the effect of requiring him to prove that his gun 
was unloaded was tantamount to relieving the State of its responsibility of proving all elements 
of the offense. 
 
Though not explicitly presented in this case, several cases involving convictions for Class 
D Felony Pointing a Firearm have been appealed on the basis that the State failed to prove 
beyond a reasonable doubt that the weapon in question was loaded.  Given that a defendant may 
be convicted of Class A Misdemeanor Pointing a Firearm if the firearm is unloaded, one 
intuitively thinks that it must have to be loaded for the accused to be guilty of the more serious 
felony charge.  But reading the statute as a whole yields a different conclusion.  The elements of 
Class D Felony Pointing a Firearm simply do not include a requirement that the gun be loaded.  
As the Court of Appeals pointed out in Brown v. State, “the statutory language indicates a clear 
intent that the State is not required to prove that a firearm was loaded in order to obtain a 
conviction for pointing a firearm as a class D felony.”  790 N.E.2d 1061, 1064 (Ind. Ct. App. 
2003).  Brown followed Armstrong v. State, in which the Court of Appeals correctly observed 
 
3
that the statute is intended to protect individuals from being placed in danger of death or bodily 
injury from the discharge of a firearm, and that its unambiguous language indicates that it does 
not matter if the firearm is loaded.  742 N.E.2d 972, 976 (Ind. Ct. App. 2001).  Subject to the 
following discussion, the State has no responsibility to prove that a gun is loaded in order to 
secure a conviction for Class D Felony Pointing a Firearm.3 
 
But what of the issue presented here?  What has to happen for a person accused of 
Pointing a Firearm to be convicted of a Class A misdemeanor rather than a Class D felony?  The 
plain language of the statute suggests that if the evidence is totally lacking with regard to 
whether a weapon is loaded or unloaded, a jury cannot convict of a Class A misdemeanor 
because the “unloaded” element of the offense has not been established.  See Brown, 790 N.E.2d 
at 1066 (Sullivan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).  Thus, “a defendant is entitled to 
[be convicted of] a class A misdemeanor rather than a class D felony only if the evidence 
affirmatively demonstrates that the firearm was not loaded.”  Id. at 1064 (majority opinion).   
 
Given this structure, what is the correct allocation and weight of the burden of proving 
that a firearm is not loaded?  Here, two respectable schools of thought have emerged in the 
opinions of the Court of Appeals.  The first, enunciated by Judge Sullivan in his separate opinion 
in Brown, id. at 1066 (Sullivan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), and followed by the 
trial court and the Court of Appeals in this case, Adkins, 870 N.E.2d at 472, is that the statute 
creates an “affirmative defense” with respect to which the defendant bears the burden of proof.  
This is also the approach followed by the Indiana Pattern Jury Instructions.4 
 
The second school of thought is that advanced by Judge Crone in his separate opinion in 
this case.  Judge Crone took the position that it is not an affirmative defense to demonstrate that a 
                                                 
3 In Nantz v. State, 740 N.E.2d 1276, 1279 (Ind. Ct. App. 2001), trans. denied, the court held that “[t]o convict 
Nantz of pointing a firearm as a Class D felony the State was required to prove that he knowingly or intentionally 
pointed a loaded firearm at another person.”  However, it was undisputed in Nantz that the weapon was loaded; the 
court did not reach the issue of whether the State was required to prove that the defendant’s weapon was loaded to 
obtain a Class D felony conviction. 
 
4 “If the State did prove each of these elements, and the Defendant did not prove by a preponderance of the evidence 
that the firearm was unloaded, you may find the Defendant guilty of pointing a firearm, a class D felony.”  Indiana 
Pattern Jury Instructions – Criminal § 7.61, Rel. 3-1203 (3d ed. 2006).   
 
4
firearm is unloaded.  Adkins, id. at 473 (Crone, J., concurring in result).  “‘An affirmative 
defense admits all the elements of the crime but proves circumstances which excuse the 
defendant from culpability.’”  Id. (quoting Melendez v. State, 511 N.E.2d 454, 457 (Ind. 1987)).  
Judge Crone maintained that a defendant who claims that his or her firearm was unloaded “is not 
attempting to negate an element of the crime, but rather to prove a mitigating factor that reduces, 
but not wholly excuses, his culpability.”  Id.  (As we have seen, a loaded weapon is not an 
element of Class D Felony Pointing a Firearm.) 
 
Judge Crone analogized the role that the unloaded firearm plays to that which “sudden 
heat” plays in prosecutions for murder.  Id.  “Sudden heat” is not an affirmative defense in such a 
case (because it does not negate an element of the crime of murder) but a mitigating factor that 
reduces the defendant’s culpability from murder to voluntary manslaughter.  Id. (citing Boone v. 
State, 728 N.E.2d 135, 138 (Ind. 2000)).  We agree with Judge Crone that the fact that a gun is 
unloaded is a mitigating factor that reduces a defendant’s culpability from a felony to a 
misdemeanor, not an affirmative defense. 
 
A defendant bears an initial burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence on any 
affirmative defense.  Dearman v. State, 743 N.E.2d 757, 761 (Ind. 2001); Clemens v. State, 610 
N.E.2d 236, 241 (Ind. 1993); Brown v. State, 485 N.E.2d 108, 111 (Ind. 1985).  But the 
defendant bears no burden of proof with respect to the mitigating factor of sudden heat, only the 
burden of placing the issue in question where the State’s evidence has not done so.  Dearman, 
743 N.E.2d at 761 (citing Bradford v. State, 675 N.E.2d 296, 300 (Ind. 1996), and Wolfe v. 
State, 426 N.E.2d 647, 652 (Ind. 1981)).  The State then assumes the burden of disproving the 
existence of sudden heat beyond a reasonable doubt.  Boesch v. State, 778 N.E.2d 1276, 1279 
(Ind. 2002).  We hold the same rule applies with respect to Class A Misdemeanor Pointing a 
Firearm.  That is, if a defendant charged with Class D Felony Pointing a Firearm seeks instead to 
be convicted of Class A Misdemeanor Pointing a Firearm, the defendant must place the fact of 
the gun having been unloaded at issue if the State’s evidence has not done so.  Once at issue, the 
State must then prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the firearm was loaded. 
 
While it is apparent from this discussion that the trial court’s instruction was not in 
 
5
 
6
accord with our holding, Adkins is not entitled to relief.  Adkins offered no evidence to suggest 
that the firearm was unloaded when he pointed it at Boze.5  There is ample evidence in the record 
from which to conclude that the gun was loaded since Boze, Walters, and Leason all testified that 
they heard gunshots when Adkins went outside.  Adkins did not place the question of whether 
his gun was unloaded at issue and so the State had no obligation to prove that it was loaded.  For 
this reason, the instruction given by the trial court constituted harmless error. 
 
Conclusion 
 
We affirm the judgment of the trial court.   
 
 
Shepard, C.J., and Dickson, Boehm, and Rucker, JJ., concur.   
 
 
 
 
                                                 
5 Cf. Watts v. State, 885 N.E.2d 1228 (Ind. 2008), where we held that it was error for a trial court in a murder 
prosecution to instruct a jury on the option of convicting defendant of voluntary manslaughter in the absence of any 
evidence of sudden heat.