Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 19A-CR-1178 | October 2, 2019 Page 1 of 11

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), 

this Memorandum Decision shall not be 

regarded as precedent or cited before any 

court except for the purpose of establishing 

the defense of res judicata, collateral 

estoppel, or the law of the case.

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT

R. Brian Woodward

Crown Point, Indiana

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE

Curtis T. Hill, Jr.

Attorney General of Indiana

Courtney Staton

Deputy Attorney General

Indianapolis, Indiana

I N T H E

COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA

Damon Guy Hill,

Appellant-Defendant,

v.

State of Indiana,

Appellee-Plaintiff

October 2, 2019

Court of Appeals Case No.

19A-CR-1178

Appeal from the Lake Superior 

Court

The Honorable Clarence D. 

Murray, Judge

Trial Court Cause No.

45G02-1703-F5-31

Baker, Judge.
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 19A-CR-1178 | October 2, 2019 Page 2 of 11

[1] Damon Guy Hill appeals the sentence imposed by the trial court after he 

pleaded guilty to Level 5 Felony Reckless Homicide.

1 Hill argues that (1) the 

trial erred by relying on improper sentence aggravators; and (2) the sentence 

should be revised in light of the nature of the offense and Hill’s character. 

Finding no reversible error and that the sentence is not inappropriate, we 

affirm. 

Facts

[2] On March 21, 2017, Hill and his cousin, Corey Brazelton, were at Hill’s 

mother’s house in Gary with some friends. Hill and the others were smoking 

marijuana and listening to music. While listening to music, Hill pulled out a 

handgun and began dancing with the gun in his hand. As he danced, Hill 

accidentally discharged the gun and fatally shot Corey in the chest. Hill initially 

told police that Corey had been shot during a drive-by shooting, but eventually

admitted that he had shot Corey on accident. 

[3] On March 23, 2017, the State charged Hill with Level 5 felony reckless 

homicide and Level 6 felony criminal recklessness. On April 20, 2018, the State 

amended the charging information to include a firearm enhancement, alleging 

that both the reckless homicide and criminal recklessness had been committed 

with a firearm. On February 15, 2019, Hill pleaded guilty to reckless homicide

 

1

Ind. Code § 35-42-1-5.
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pursuant to a plea agreement, which also provided that the State would dismiss 

the criminal recklessness charge and the firearm enhancement. 

[4] At a sentencing hearing on April 26, 2019, the trial court sentenced Hill to a

five-year sentence, with four years executed at the Department of Correction 

and one year suspended to formal probation. In determining Hill’s sentence, the 

trial court found as aggravating factors the nature and circumstances of the 

crime, Hill’s attempt to lie and conceal the crime, Hill’s contemporaneous use 

of marijuana, and Hill’s possession of a handgun without a license. As 

mitigating factors, the trial court noted Hill’s lack of criminal history and that 

he pleaded guilty; however, it did not consider Hill’s limited criminal history to 

be a significant mitigating factor because “one would not expect any individual 

of Mr. Hill’s age to have a significant criminal history.” Tr. Vol. III p. 35.2 Hill 

now appeals. 

Discussion and Decision

I. Aggravators

[5] Hill first argues that the trial court erred in the sentencing process. Specifically, 

he challenges each of the sentence aggravators and argues further that the trial

court improperly “used the elements of the offense to aggravate Hill’s sentence 

without a corresponding finding that the elements were particularly heinous,” 

 

2 At the time of the incident, Hill was twenty-one years old. 
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appellant’s br. p. 8, and that the court relied on facts not supported by the 

record. 

[6] Sentencing decisions are within the sound discretion of the trial court and we 

thus afford great deference to the trial court’s judgment. Anglemyer v. State, 868 

N.E.2d 482, 490 (Ind. 2007), clarified on reh’g, 875 N.E.2d 218. The trial court 

must enter a sentencing statement that includes “a reasonably detailed 

recitation of the trial court’s reasons for imposing a particular sentence.” Id. The 

trial court may err in its sentencing process if, among other things, it relies on 

aggravators not supported by the record or are improper as a matter of law. Id. 

at 490-91. We will not review the relative weight the trial court gave to any 

properly found aggravators or reasons. Id. at 491.

[7] The trial court articulated the following aggravating circumstances in its 

sentencing statement: 

1. The Court finds the nature and circumstances of the crime to 

be a significant aggravating factor in that [Hill] shot the 

victim, his cousin, while in the process of smoking a 

marijuana blunt, dancing and waving a handgun at the 

victim. The victim died. [Hill] attempted to conceal his 

involvement in the crime by resorting to lies and subterfuge 

with the police. Specifically, [Hill] initially told police that his

cousin was shot by a drive-by assailant. The Court finds 

[Hill’s] efforts to conceal the crime to be a significant 

aggravating factor.

2. The Court also finds that [Hill’s] act of smoking marijuana, 

an illegal substance, to also be an aggravating factor. Finally 

the Court finds that the defendant was in possession of a 
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handgun without a license at the time of the commission of 

the offense.

Appealed Order p. 1. 

A. Nature and Circumstances of the Crime

[8] The nature and circumstances of a crime is generally considered to be a valid 

aggravating factor for the trial court to use in sentencing. McCann v. State, 749 

N.E.2d 1116, 1120 (Ind. 2001). In doing so, the court must explain “what about 

this crime was worse than a typical [offense]”—meaning here, it must explain 

what about Hill’s offense was worse than a typical Level 5 felony reckless 

homicide. Smith v. State, 872 N.E.2d 169, 178-79 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007); see also 

Ind. Code § 35-38-1-7.1(a) (providing that in imposing a sentence, the trial court 

may consider as an aggravating circumstance whether “[t]he harm, injury, loss, 

or damage suffered by the victim of an offense was . . . greater than the 

elements necessary to prove the commission of the offense”). The trial court 

may not, however, use a material element of the offense as an aggravating 

circumstance, Caraway v. State, 959 N.E.2d 847, 850 (Ind. Ct. App. 2011), 

which Hill argues the trial court did here. 

[9] In its sentencing statement, the trial court specified that the nature and 

circumstances were significantly aggravating because Hill “shot the victim . . . 

while in the process of smoking a marijuana blunt, dancing and waving a 

handgun at the victim.” Appealed Order p. 1. At the sentencing hearing, the 

trial court further explained:
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This doesn’t make sense. Whatever the relationship was between 

these two men it was destroyed in a split second because they 

were getting high and playing with a gun. That is absolutely 

outrageous. That’s crazy. That doesn’t make sense. And so the 

outcome is equally nonsensical. The gun goes off and someone 

dies. So incredibly tragic. So incredibly deadly. And so incredibly 

reckless. 

Tr. Vol. III p. 37. Though the trial court mentions recklessness and the death of 

the victim in its reasoning,3it did not improperly rely on those elements of the 

offense in determining that the nature and circumstances was an aggravating 

factor; instead, we find that the trial court was merely explaining why this crime 

was worse than a typical Level 5 felony reckless homicide.

B. Concealment

[10] Hill also argues that his initial effort to conceal the crime should not have been 

found to be an aggravator because he “almost immediately recanted” and 

confessed to the police. Appellant’s Br. p. 14. But the fact remains that Hill, 

despite eventually coming forward with the truth, “initially resorted to lies and 

subterfuge in order to conceal the crime” by telling police it was a drive-by 

shooting. Tr. Vol. III p. 35. We agree that this “initially frustrated the efforts of 

law enforcement to solve a crime,” id., and find no error in the trial court’s 

conclusion that it was an aggravating factor.4If anything, the trial court already 

 

3 A person who commits reckless homicide “recklessly kills another human being.” I.C. § 35-42-1-5.

4 The State correctly points out that a person who “gives a false report of the commission of a crime or gives 

false information in the official investigation of the commission of a crime, knowing the report or 
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accounted for Hill’s later confession by finding his admission via plea 

agreement to be a mitigating circumstance. 

C. Marijuana Use

[11] Hill next contends that his marijuana use at the time of the offense was not an 

appropriate aggravating circumstance. Hill focuses his argument on whether 

using marijuana had a causal effect on or contributed in some form to Corey’s 

death. Regardless, the fact remains that Hill was using marijuana, an illegal 

substance, at the time of the offense. The trial court did not err in determining 

that Hill’s marijuana use was an aggravating circumstance.

D. Possession of Handgun Without a License

[12] Lastly, Hill challenges the trial court’s finding that Hill possessed a handgun 

without a license to be an aggravating circumstance, arguing that this 

aggravator is improper as a matter of law because he was not legally required to 

possess a license at the time of the incident and that there is no support in the 

record for this aggravator. We agree. Though a license is typically required to 

carry a handgun, a person may carry a handgun without a license if “the person 

carries the handgun . . . on property that is owned, leased, rented, or otherwise 

legally controlled by the person,” or if the person carries the gun “on property 

that is owned, leased, rented, or otherwise legally controlled by another person, 

 

information to be false” commits a Class B misdemeanor, Ind. Code § 35-44.1-2-3, which further supports 

our conclusion that the trial court’s finding of Hill’s false report to be an aggravator was appropriate. 
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 19A-CR-1178 | October 2, 2019 Page 8 of 11

if the person . . . has the consent of the owner, renter, lessor, or person who 

legally controls the property to have the handgun on the premises.” Ind. Code § 

35-47-2-1(b)(1), (2). 

[13] Here, the record shows that Hill was not licensed to carry a handgun, but at the 

time of the offense, he was in his mother’s home, and his mother was aware he 

had the gun in her home. See Tr. Vol. III p. 8-9. In its sentencing statement, the 

trial court explained that the aggravating circumstance was Hill’s “possession of 

a handgun without a license at the time of the commission of the offense,” 

appealed order p. 1 (emphasis added), not his potentially unlicensed possession 

of a gun in the days or weeks leading up to the incident, outside the setting of 

Hill’s mother’s home. Nothing in the record establishes that Hill carried the 

handgun illegally at the time the offense occurred. As such, we agree that it was 

improper for the trial court to find this to be an aggravating circumstance.

[14] Even though the trial court committed error with respect to this aggravator, 

there are still multiple valid aggravating circumstances that support the trial 

court’s sentencing judgment. “A sentence enhancement may still be upheld 

when a trial court improperly applies an aggravator but other valid aggravators 

exist.” Cox v. State, 780 N.E.2d 1150, 1156 (Ind. Ct. App. 2002). And even if we 

do find an aggravator to be improper, we will remand for resentencing only “if 

we cannot say with confidence that the trial court would have imposed the 

same sentence had it properly considered reasons that enjoy support in the 

record.” Anglemyer, 868 N.E.2d at 491. Given the presence of multiple valid 

aggravators and the fact that the unlicensed possession aggravator was not 
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indicated as “significant,” we find that the trial court would have imposed the 

same sentence even without the challenged aggravator and that Hill is not 

entitled to resentencing on this basis.

II. Appropriateness

[15] Hill’s second argument on appeal is that the sentence imposed by the trial court 

is inappropriate in light of the nature of the offense and his character. Indiana 

Appellate Rule 7(B) provides that this Court may revise a statutorily authorized 

sentence “if, after due consideration of the trial court’s decision, the Court finds 

that the sentence is inappropriate in light of the nature of the offense and the 

character of the offender.” In conducting this review, “substantial deference” 

must be given to the trial court’s decision, “since the ‘principal role of [our] 

review is to attempt to leaven the outliers,’ and not to achieve a perceived 

‘correct’ sentence.” Knapp v. State, 9 N.E.3d 1274, 1292 (Ind. 2014) (quoting 

Chambers v. State, 989 N.E.2d 1257, 1259 (Ind. 2013)) (internal citations 

omitted). 

[16] For Level 5 felony reckless homicide, Hill faced a term of one to six years, with 

an advisory sentence of three years. I.C. § 35-50-2-6(b). The trial court imposed 

a five-year sentence, with four years executed at the Department of Correction 

and one year suspended to formal probation. 

[17] With respect to the nature of the offense, we again note that Hill was smoking 

marijuana while dancing and waving a gun around in front of his cousin when 

the gun discharged. Hill then lied to police about what happened, changing his 
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story only once confronted with conflicting statements given by his family. The 

trial court also emphasized the impact the offense had on Hill’s and Corey’s 

family, noting that it had “shatter[ed] [the] family” and was simply 

“nonsensical” and “tragic.” Tr. Vol. III p. 36-37. Even Hill admitted that Corey 

had been “like [his] little brother,” id. at 34, further exacerbating the overall 

tragedy of the crime. 

[18] With respect to Hill’s character, we recognize that Hill had no history of 

criminal convictions and admitted guilt via a plea agreement. Hill admits that 

he began smoking marijuana at age twelve, and that since age thirteen or 

fourteen he smoked marijuana every day until when he was arrested for the 

present offense at age twenty-one. See, e.g., Cook v. State, 119 N.E.3d 1092, 1098 

(Ind. Ct. App. 2019) (noting defendant’s daily marijuana use for several years

up to the time of the murder offense at issue as relevant to defendant’s character 

in 7(B) analysis). Hill also began drinking alcohol at age fifteen and continued 

to do so every day until he was arrested. 

[19] We agree that the above circumstances and aspects of Hill’s character are by no 

means the worst of the worst—but the trial court recognized as much when it 

chose to not impose the maximum sentence and ordered that a portion of the 

sentence will be suspended to probation. We do not find the sentence imposed 

by the trial court to be inappropriate in light of the nature of the offense and

Hill’s character.
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[20] The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

Kirsch, J., and Crone, J., concur.