Opinion ID: 4525692
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether some other person committed the crime

Text: At the outset, Tackett contends that he was not guilty of first-degree murder because the evidence did not show him to be one of the shooters responsible for the victims’ deaths. The No. 19-1037 Tackett v. Trierweiler Page 8 evidence, he says, shows that Tackett was holding a handgun, whereas Copas and Tard were holding assault rifles. This is significant, according to Tackett, because bullets from the assault rifles were ultimately found responsible for the two victims’ deaths, and the evidence showed that the only bullet found at the scene that could have come from a handgun was fired before the incident in question. But even assuming that Tackett’s gun misfired, the jury could still have reasonably concluded that Tackett was guilty of first-degree murder under an aiding-and-abetting theory. Based on Tackett’s version of what happened, Copas and Tard fired the shots that ultimately killed the victims. The first part of the aiding-and-abetting analysis, therefore, asks whether Copas and Tard committed first-degree murder, which is to say whether they committed an intentional killing with premeditation and deliberation.
Michigan law is clear that the intent element of first-degree murder requires more than “[m]ere conscious indifference to the likelihood of death.” People v. Milton, 265 N.W.2d 397, 399 (Mich. Ct. App.), judgment amended, 282 N.W.2d 926 (Mich. 1978). “[T]o commit first-degree murder, a person must act with the purpose of causing death.” Id. In other words, a “‘very high risk of death’ intent is insufficient for first-degree premeditated murder. The defendant must have an actual intent to kill.” People v. Dykhouse, 345 N.W.2d 150, 152 (Mich. 1984). Michigan’s courts have also made clear, however, that the amount of evidence necessary to infer an intent to kill is not large. “It is well settled that the intent to kill may be inferred from any facts in evidence. Because of the difficulty of proving an actor’s state of mind, minimal circumstantial evidence is sufficient to establish a defendant’s intent to kill.” People v. Unger, 749 N.W.2d 272, 286 (Mich. Ct. App. 2008) (citations omitted). A defendant’s use of a lethal weapon, for example, will support an inference of such an intent. People v. Ray, 224 N.W.2d 735, 737 (Mich. Ct. App. 1974). The case of People v. Brown, No. 305794, 2013 WL 5539284 (Mich. Ct. App. Oct. 8, 2013) (per curiam), encompasses facts that are strikingly similar to those in the present case. No. 19-1037 Tackett v. Trierweiler Page 9 Brown involved a first-degree murder conviction stemming from the 2004 death of Karibe Anderson, Jr., who was killed in a drive-by shooting. Id. at . Anderson had the bad luck of staying at a particular house in Flint, Michigan at the time when the defendant wanted to carry out a drive-by shooting of the house next door because of a dispute that he was having with rival gang members who were known to meet there. Several of the gunshots entered the house that Anderson was staying at, and at least one of them killed him while he slept. After Brown was convicted of first-degree murder, he appealed, raising a sufficiency-of-the-evidence claim. The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed. It observed that there was evidence that the defendant “wanted to shoot up a house on Baltimore Street where members of the rival gang were known to congregate in retaliation for an earlier incident in which defendant was shot.” Id. at . Most notably, on the issue of intent to kill, the court wrote: “Evidence that defendant fired several shots into a house at a time when people were likely to be present and fired the shots ‘below the windows,’ i.e., at a height calculated to strike an occupant, was evidence of an intent to kill.” Id. Brown strongly supports the conclusion that the shooters possessed an intent to kill in the present case. In both cases, the defendant or defendants used lethal weapons, firing guns into a house or trailer from the outside, and in both instances the shooters were seeking to retaliate for previous incidents. Similarly, the shooting here took place at night, at approximately 11:30 p.m. That is a time when one would reasonably expect people to be in their dwellings; in other words, a “time when people were likely to be present.” See id. The defendants in the present case also fired “below the windows,” this being a height where individuals were likely to be hit, as evidenced by the fact that Bonar and Feldman actually were hit and killed. See id. In short, virtually all of the facts that supported an inference of an intent to kill that were present in Brown are also present in this case. And a number of additional facts buttress the conclusion that Copas and Tard possessed an intent to kill. To begin with, they fired assault rifles, which are more powerful than ordinary firearms. They also shot the assault rifles into a trailer, as opposed to, for example, a larger house with thicker and sturdier walls. And perhaps most crucially, the evidence showed that at least some of the lights were on in the trailer at the time of the shooting, which would have indicated to the shooters that people were likely to be inside. From No. 19-1037 Tackett v. Trierweiler Page 10 all of these facts, the jury could have reasonably concluded that Copas and Tard possessed an intent to kill. Tackett’s theory of the case, on the other hand, is that the shooters did not possess an intent to kill because they merely intended to destroy property in order to avenge Ousley’s damaging of Copas’s van earlier in the day. He relies heavily on the opinion of the trial-court judge who, in addressing Tackett’s motion for relief from judgment, stated the judge’s belief that the evidence showed at most that Tackett (along with his codefendants) was guilty of second-degree murder. The trial judge expressed the view that the defendants did not intend to murder Ousley or anyone else, and that they fired into the trailer without thinking about the consequences. But the question before us is not whether this assessment is correct as an original matter. Rather, it is whether any rational trier of fact could have agreed with the jury’s conclusion. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979). For the reasons stated above, the answer to that question is “yes,” especially in light of AEDPA’s requirement that, on habeas review, we are required to give an extra layer of deference to the state court’s decision. See Coleman v. Johnson, 566 U.S. 650, 651