Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 84A01-1709-CR-2116 | May 4, 2018 Page 1 of 7

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

Cara Schaefer Wieneke

Wieneke Law Office, LLC

Brooklyn, Indiana

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE

Curtis T. Hill, Jr.

Attorney General of Indiana

Matthew B. Mackenzie

Deputy Attorney General

Indianapolis, Indiana

I N T H E

COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA

Phillip Evans,

Appellant-Defendant,

v.

State of Indiana,

Appellee-Plaintiff.

May 4, 2018

Court of Appeals Case No.

84A01-1709-CR-2116

Appeal from the Vigo Superior 

Court

The Honorable Michael J. Lewis, 

Judge

Trial Court Cause No.

84D06-1401-MR-51

Barnes, Judge.

Case Summary

[1] Phillip A. Evans appeals his sixty-year sentence for murder. We affirm.
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Issue

[2] The sole issue before us is whether Evans’s sentence is inappropriate in light of 

the nature of the offense and his character.

Facts

[3] Pamela Jones and her boyfriend, Devlin Decker, planned to host a party in 

Terre Haute on December 31, 2013. That evening, they picked up Decker’s 

uncle, Evans, and his roommate, Joshua Thomas. They stopped briefly at a gas 

station so Evans could withdraw money from an ATM. Evans returned to the 

car and angrily accused Thomas, whom he had earlier allowed access to his 

bank card, of withdrawing money from his account. Thomas denied doing so. 

They all returned to Jones’s home and drank until they were intoxicated. 

[4] Later, Thomas began to flirt with Jones. Decker and Thomas argued and 

began to fight. The fight spilled outside. Evans, who was still angry with 

Thomas, followed Decker and Thomas outside. Evans watched as Decker 

kicked and punched Thomas repeatedly. Jones’s next door neighbors, Eric and 

Diana Goucher, heard the commotion, looked outside, and saw Thomas with 

“his hands up . . . saying I’m sorry, please stop[.]” Tr. p. 179. Decker knocked

Thomas off the porch onto the concrete surface below. When Thomas rose to 

his hands and knees, Decker lifted a wooden table weighing approximately fifty 

pounds and slammed it down onto his head. Decker then walked back into 

Jones’s house. When Thomas attempted to re-enter the house, Evans pinned 

him against the house, “kind of looked around and took a step back and hit 
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him.” Id. at 26. Thomas’s body went limp and “fell onto [Evans].” Id. at 27. 

Both men crashed off the porch with Evans landing on top of Thomas. The 

noise brought Decker running from the house; he jumped off the porch, and 

“started to stomp [Thomas] in the head and Phillip Evans started to kick 

[Thomas] in the side.” Id. at 29. Thomas was unconscious.

[5] Diana Goucher dialed 911 “telling them they need[ed] to hurry up cause 

[Decker and Evans were] gonna hurt [Thomas] bad.” Id. at 181. “[T]hey were 

kicking him so hard that, in the head and stuff [that she] looked away at one 

point.” Id. Decker and Evans stopped their attack on Thomas when they “saw

[the Gouchers] looking out the window” at them. Id. Decker enlisted a newlyarrived party guest, Camron Wormser, to help him move Thomas. As 

Wormser helped drag Thomas, Decker resumed kicking Thomas’s head. 

[6] Officers of the Terre Haute Police Department arrived at the scene. Decker ran 

into Jones’s house in a panic and told her that he had stabbed Thomas. Soon 

thereafter, Evans came into the house and told Jones and Wormser’s girlfriend, 

Courtney Dailey, that he too had stabbed Thomas. Medical responders 

transported Thomas to the hospital, where he died. An autopsy revealed 

multiple abrasions to his head and torso as well as three stab wounds, one of 

which had perforated his heart, killing him.

[7] Evans told Detective Darren Long of the Terre Haute City Police Department

that he had called 911; that four members of the Aryan Brotherhood had 

attacked Thomas; and that they had knocked Evans unconscious when he tried 
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to render aid. The Gouchers contradicted Evans’s account and advised that 

Evans was “not a witness” but a participant in the attack on Thomas. Id. at 95.

[8] On January 8, 2014, the State charged Evans with murder and Class B felony 

aggravated battery, later filing an additional information alleging that he was an 

habitual offender. He was tried by a jury and found guilty as charged on May 

11, 2017. On August 16, 2017, the trial court imposed a sixty-year sentence for 

the murder conviction and enhanced that sentence by thirty years because 

Evans was an habitual offender. He now appeals his sixty-year sentence.1

Analysis

[9] Evans argues that his sixty-year sentence is inappropriate in light of the nature 

of the offense and his character. Indiana Appellate Rule 7(B) provides that we 

may revise a sentence authorized by statute if, after due consideration of the 

trial court’s decision, we find that the sentence is inappropriate in light of the 

nature of the offenses and the character of the offender. When considering 

whether a sentence is inappropriate, we need not be “extremely” deferential to 

a trial court’s sentencing decision. Rutherford v. State, 866 N.E.2d 867, 873 (Ind. 

Ct. App. 2007). Still, we must give due consideration to that decision. Id. We 

also understand and recognize the unique perspective a trial court brings to its 

sentencing decisions. Id. Under this rule, the burden is on the defendant to 

 

1 Evans does not challenge the thirty-year habitual offender enhancement.
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persuade the appellate court that his or her sentence is inappropriate. Childress 

v. State, 848 N.E.2d 1073, 1080 (Ind. 2006). 

[10] The principal role of Rule 7(B) review “should be to attempt to leaven the 

outliers, and identify some guiding principles for trial courts and those charged 

with improvement of the sentencing statutes, but not to achieve a perceived 

correct result in each case.” Cardwell v. State, 895 N.E.2d 1219, 1225 (Ind. 

2008). We “should focus on the forest—the aggregate sentence—rather than 

the trees—consecutive or concurrent, number of counts, or length of the 

sentence on any individual count.” Id. When reviewing the appropriateness of 

a sentence under Rule 7(B), we may consider all aspects of the penal 

consequences imposed by the trial court in sentencing the defendant, including 

whether a portion of the sentence was suspended. Davidson v. State, 926 N.E.2d 

1023, 1025 (Ind. 2010). 

[11] Under Indiana Code Section 35-50-2-3, a person convicted of murder “shall be 

imprisoned for a fixed term of between forty-five (45) and sixty-five (65) years, 

with the advisory sentence being fifty-five (55) years.” Evans argues that his 

sixty-year sentence is inappropriate because “Decker was the primary 

aggressor”; that his own “actual participation in the fight was . . . not as 

involved as Decker’s”; that Decker “apparently inflicted the fatal stab wounds”; 

that the most serious offense on his extensive criminal history is a Class C 

felony; that he suffers from mental illness and alcohol abuse; that he expressed 

remorse at sentencing and offered condolences to Thomas’s family; and that he 

“did not intend to seriously harm or kill Thomas,” whom he “had taken in” 
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and “provided . . . with a home when Thomas needed help.” Appellee’s Br. p. 

12, 13, 14. 

[12] Regarding the nature of the offense, the record reveals that Evans and Decker 

both viciously kicked, punched, and stabbed Thomas in an attack that ended his 

life. The record is clear that Thomas died of a knife wound to his heart. As for 

his character, in 1992, Evans was admitted to an inpatient program as a 

juvenile “for his violent behavior” and “was diagnosed with oppositional 

defiant disorder and conduct disorder.” Conf. App. Vol. III, p. 11. In 2001, he 

was court-ordered to attend anger management courses, but was discharged for 

failing to attend sessions. His pre-sentencing investigation report states, “[He]

stated that he is innocent in this case and that his drinking caused him to lie to 

the police”; “[h]e has abused alcohol for many years and been referred to 

treatment multiple times”; but “[h]e has never successfully completed 

treatment.” Id. 

[13] Evans’s criminal history includes three juvenile adjudications for theft and 

alcohol consumption by a minor, as misdemeanors, and felony criminal 

recklessness. As an adult, he has ten misdemeanor convictions for alcohol 

consumption by a minor, driving with a suspended license (twice), receiving 

stolen property, glue sniffing, public intoxication (three times), criminal 

trespass, and possession of marijuana, as well as five felony convictions for 

sexual battery, battery resulting in bodily injury, intimidation, and failure to 

register as a sex offender, as Class D felonies, and Class C felony battery 

resulting in bodily injury. In the instant offense, Evans looked on as Decker 
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brutally kicked, punched, and smashed a fifty-pound table on Thomas’s head.

For his part, Evans looked around to see if he was being watched before he

stabbed Thomas; he also kicked Thomas as he lay unconscious and lied to 

police investigators at the scene. 

[14] Evans’s multiple contacts with the criminal justice system and court-ordered 

participation in treatment programs or alcohol and drug abuse and mental 

health issues have not deterred him from violent crime. Given his extensive 

criminal history, including multiple battery convictions, his inability and 

unwillingness to address his alcohol problem and to correct his behavior, the 

viciousness of his attack on Thomas, and his fabricated claims of rogue

assailants and his own heroics, we cannot say that his sentence is inappropriate.

Conclusion

[15] Evans’s sixty-year sentence is not inappropriate. We affirm.

[16] Affirmed.

[17] Vaidik, C.J, and Pyle, J., concur.