Opinion ID: 1960214
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Evidence of a Third Person's Involvement

Text: Defendant points first to a supplemental police report detailing the pursuit of the blue Cadillac after the shooting. In that report, the officer wrote that he observed two (2) black male subjects exit the vehicle while the vehicle was still in motion, before it rolled into a parked car. The report goes on: Ofc. observed passenger as: fair complexioned male, checked shirt, dark pants with a bag on his hand exit the vehicle and run North on 17th and run under an illuminated street light. Ofc. observed driver as: black male, 5' 6 to 5' 7, medium build, blue or dark shirt and pants run South through vacant area toward Blanch Court. (emphasis added). Defendant now claims that the officer's clothing description of the driver is inconsistent with that of the witnesses, who described the driver's shirt as a multicolored, striped, polo shirt. Defendant suggests that the officer's description of the driver matches the description given by the witnesses of the masked gunman, i.e., all dark clothing. [13] Ignoring the two (2) black males portion of the report, defendant interprets the report as supporting his theory of a third party gunman. The report does no more than show the subjectivity of perceptions. The officer's description of the passenger's clothing matches identically with the photographs of defendant taken upon his arrest. Nothing in this report can be remotely construed as supporting a third party gunman theory, and the discrepancies pointed out by defendant do not rise to a level of lessening confidence in the verdict. A second supplemental report pointed to by defendant stated: Ofc. spoke with Church's Chicken employees who advised ofc. that they had seen two b/m's in the parking lot prior to the shooting and had seen a b/m wearing a ski mask. The officer who authored the report was not called to testify by either side. This report does not establish that there were three participants in the robbery; rather, the report merely states that two black males were seen before the shooting and that a black male wearing a ski mask was seen at one point. There are no discrepancies that rise to a level of lessening confidence in the verdict.