Court Opinion

ID: 9948062
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-06 15:02:12.954919+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:29:02.110267
License: Public Domain

Cite as 2024 Ark. App. 164
                   ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS
                                         DIVISION I
                                        No. CR-23-402

                                                Opinion Delivered March 6, 2024
 FREDDRICK CHILDS
                                APPELLANT APPEAL FROM THE JEFFERSON
                                          COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT
 V.                                       [NO. 35CR-20-226]

                                                HONORABLE JODI RAINES
 STATE OF ARKANSAS                              DENNIS, JUDGE
                                  APPELLEE
                                                AFFIRMED

                            N. MARK KLAPPENBACH, Judge

       Following a jury trial, Freddrick Childs was convicted in the Jefferson County Circuit

Court of two counts of aggravated robbery and two counts of first-degree battery. On appeal,

he contends that the circuit court abused its discretion in admitting into evidence cell phone

extraction reports and evidence of other bad acts pursuant to Arkansas Rule of Evidence

404(b). We affirm.

       The State alleged that on August 11, 2019, Childs committed aggravated robbery and

battery against Dennis Bradley and Matthew Mellor. On that date, Bradley saw a Chevrolet

Corvette posted for sale on Facebook Marketplace, and after communicating with the seller

via messages and a phone call, Bradley and Mellor drove to Pine Bluff to look at the car. The

seller texted Bradley two different addresses, and after they met face-to-face, he told Bradley
that the car was a couple of blocks away in his uncle’s garage. The seller rode in the back

seat of Bradley’s Jeep and directed Bradley to drive to the garage of a Car-Mart. The seller

then got out of the Jeep, pointed a gun at Bradley, and demanded that Bradley “give [him]

the money.” Bradley pulled out his own gun but was shot in the hand by the seller. Bradley

drove away while the seller continued shooting. Mellor sustained two gunshot wounds.

       Prior to trial, the State filed a notice of intent to introduce other crimes or bad acts

pursuant to Rule 404(b). The State alleged that on August 7 and 22, 2019, Childs had

committed aggravated robbery in Pulaski County against individuals who were responding

to posts he had made on Facebook Marketplace listing items for sale. The circuit court ruled

that the evidence was admissible over Childs’s objection.

       Bradley and Mellor testified at trial and identified Childs as the person who had shot

them. Mellor had previously identified Childs in two separate photographic lineups.

Screenshots from Bradley’s phone were admitted into evidence without objection showing

the text messages Bradley exchanged with the seller and the seller’s phone number.

       Sergeant Michael Bryant of the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office testified that he

investigated two aggravated robberies that occurred in August 2019 at the Wrightsville City

Hall. Zachariah Richards, a victim in the first robbery, testified that he had communicated

with someone with the username “Runit” on Facebook Marketplace regarding the sale of an

Apple Watch. After Richards arrived at the address provided by the seller, the seller told

him that the watch was located a short distance away, and he needed to ride with Richards

to get it. After the seller got into the back seat of the car, he pointed a gun at Richards and

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demanded his cash. The sheriff’s office responded to the Wrightsville City Hall again on

August 22. While investigators were still on the scene, suspects were stopped in a traffic stop

a short distance away, and a victim made a positive identification. An iPhone was recovered

from the scene of the crime, and the phone number for this phone matched the phone

number used by the seller who had communicated with Bradley. The iPhone was sent to

the FBI office in Little Rock to be opened and its contents downloaded.

       Michael Rogers, a digital forensic examiner for the FBI, testified that the iPhone was

sent to a regional FBI lab in Kansas City so that the phone could be connected to a device

called a “GrayKey” that would run software to extract data from the phone. Rogers testified

that after the data was extracted, it was put on his office’s network in “raw form,” and his

office used an additional forensic tool to process it. Forensic examiner Timothy Whitlock

testified that he created and analyzed reports using the copy of the iPhone that was on their

forensic network. Childs objected that neither Rogers nor Whitlock was the person who

extracted the data from the phone and generated the report. Childs’s objections were

overruled, and the court admitted into evidence reports created by Whitlock showing the

iPhone’s user accounts, instant messages, emails, web history, text messages, and Facebook

messenger chats. In messages, the person using the phone identifies himself as “Freddrick

Childs.” Web history from August 11, 2019, shows that the user performed Google searches

for Corvettes. Text messages found on the iPhone were the same messages shown in the

screenshots admitted during Bradley’s testimony, and text-message-location data showed that

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a message was sent from the area of Car-Mart. Finally, Facebook messenger chats showed

that the iPhone user was using the username “Runit Up.”

       On appeal, Childs first argues that the circuit court abused its discretion in admitting

the extraction reports from the iPhone. Childs contends that for the extraction reports to

be admissible, the State had to offer the testimony of the individual who performed the

extraction. In evidentiary determinations, a circuit court has wide discretion, and we do not

reverse a ruling on the admission of evidence absent an abuse of discretion. Hoey v. State,

2017 Ark. App. 253, 519 S.W.3d 745.

       The only case Childs cites is Jenkins v. State, 2019 Ark. App. 419, 582 S.W.3d 32. In

Jenkins, the circuit court ruled that an extraction report was inadmissible because it could

not be properly authenticated after the court disallowed the testimony of the witness who

extracted the text messages and created the report due to the State’s failure to disclose the

witness during discovery. However, the admissibility of the extraction report was not an

issue on appeal. It was brought up only to provide context for the appellant’s arguments

that the court abused its discretion in denying his motions for mistrial after the State

attempted to use the text messages during the trial. Accordingly, Jenkins does not stand for

the proposition that the person who performed the extraction must testify at trial for the

extraction report to be admissible. Childs does not otherwise make an argument that the

extraction reports were not properly authenticated by Rogers and Whitlock or that the

GrayKey-generated report was testimonial in nature, thereby implicating his right to

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confrontation. We will not develop an argument for an appellant. See Hathcock v. State, 357

Ark. 563, 182 S.W.3d 152 (2004).

       Childs next argues that the circuit court abused its discretion in allowing the

testimony of Zachariah Richards because there was nothing to link Childs to that crime.

Childs argues that Richards was unable to identify him from a photo lineup and that unlike

the charged case, which was an evening robbery at Car-Mart involving the purported sale of

a car, Richards was robbed in the daytime in Wrightsville while attempting to purchase a

watch. Childs claims that the testimony was introduced solely to prove that he is a bad

person.

       Arkansas Rule of Evidence 404(b) allows evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts to

be admitted for the purpose of proving “motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan,

knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident.” However, evidence is not admissible

under Rule 404(b) to prove the character of a person in order to show that he acted in

conformity therewith. For evidence to be admissible under Rule 404(b), it must have

independent relevance. Morris v. State, 367 Ark. 406, 240 S.W.3d 593 (2006). Evidence

admitted under Rule 404(b) is independently relevant if it has a tendency to make the

existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more or less

probable than it would be without the evidence. Id. Any circumstance that ties a defendant

to the crime or raises a possible motive for the crime is independently relevant and admissible

as evidence. Id.

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       In reviewing the admission of evidence under Rule 404(b), the supreme court has

observed that circuit courts have broad discretion in deciding evidentiary issues, and their

decisions are not reversed absent an abuse of discretion. Vance v. State, 2011 Ark. 243, 383

S.W.3d 325. We hold that the circuit court did not abuse its discretion here. Although

Richards did not identify Childs, the “Runit” account with which Richards communicated

was tied to Childs. Both Richards and Bradley were attempting to purchase items on

Facebook Marketplace; after arriving at the location where Childs directed them, Childs got

into their vehicles to travel to a different location; and Childs then pulled out his gun and

demanded their money. We conclude that the robbery of Richards had independent

relevance to the intent, motive, or plan of the Bradley robbery and that the two crimes were

sufficiently similar to warrant admission of the Rule 404(b) evidence.

       Affirmed.

       HIXSON and BROWN, JJ., agree.

       Willard Proctor, Jr., P.A., by: Willard Proctor, Jr., for appellant.

       Tim Griffin, Att’y Gen., by: Joseph Karl Luebke, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee.

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