Opinion ID: 1546590
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Proceedings and Evidence

Text: At Sutton's jury trial, the government put on the following evidence: On November 16, 2003, Lamont Wright, Rodney Smith, and appellant Sutton got out of a parked car to accost Dwayne Cox as he walked away from his parked Mitsubishi Spyder. By the time the trio confronted Cox, he had walked about three car lengths from the Spyder toward the home of an acquaintance, where he was going to watch a sporting event on television. Cox was told to lie on the ground, where Sutton held him at gunpoint as the assailants robbed him of his car keys, a telephone, and approximately $18 in cash. The men told Cox not to move or he would be shot. At that point, in the words of Sutton's brief, two of the men [Sutton and Smith] got back into their own car, started it up and began to drive off; Mr. Cox got up from the ground and jumped over the fence behind the friend's house; then the [Sutton and Smith] car stopped, and the two men in the car said they were going to start shooting at him; then, at the same time, [Cox] heard his own car start up and pull off [driven by Wright]. According to the government's evidence, two days later, on November 18, at the instance of Sutton, he and Smith robbed Fred Cooper and Kirk Little of cash and other pocket items at gunpoint. Then Smith drove away in Cooper's Chevrolet Caprice, and Sutton drove off in Little's Ford Taurus. On November 20, police apprehended Smith in Cox's Spyder and found a loaded, cocked pistol under a car seat. Later that day, in the same vicinity, the police saw Wright driving the Taurus. That evening, the police saw the Taurus again, this time driven by Sutton, who led them on a high-speed chase that ended in a crash from which Sutton fled, discarding the telephone stolen four days earlier from Cox. Sutton was apprehended, and his fingerprints were found on the door of the Taurus, as well as on a compact disc from the Spyder. The jury found Sutton guilty on one count each of armed carjacking, armed robbery, PFCV, RSP, UUV, destroying property, and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. The carjacking conviction was attributable to the incident involving Cox and his Spyder, whereas the RSP and UUV convictions arose out of the theft two days later of the Taurus. For the convictions at issue here, Sutton was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for armed carjacking and, consecutively to the carjacking, concurrent sentences of twenty months of incarceration for RSP and thirty-two months for UUV. This appeal followed.