Opinion
A-13719 7107
06-05-2024
SAVON TRANELLE WILEY, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Elizabeth D. Friedman, Law Office of Elizabeth D. Friedman, Prineville, Oregon, under contract with the Office of Public Advocacy, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Elizabeth T. Burke, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Treg R. Taylor, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
UNPUBLISHED See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d)
Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Anchorage, Trial Court No. 3AN-17-02500 CR Erin B. Marston and Steve W. Cole, Judges.
Elizabeth D. Friedman, Law Office of Elizabeth D. Friedman, Prineville, Oregon, under contract with the Office of Public Advocacy, Anchorage, for the Appellant.
Elizabeth T. Burke, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Treg R. Taylor, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
Before: Allard, Chief Judge, and Harbison and Terrell, Judges.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
HARBISON, JUDGE
Savon Tranelle Wiley was convicted, following a jury trial, of first-degree robbery (under an accomplice liability theory) and second-degree murder (under a felony murder theory). Wiley was sentenced to a composite sentence of 76 years with 20 years suspended (56 years to serve).
AS 11.41.500(a)(1) and AS 11.41.110(a)(3), respectively; see also AS 11.16.110(2).
On appeal, Wiley raises challenges to his convictions and sentence. We affirm Wiley's convictions but remand for resentencing.
Underlying facts and proceedings
On December 24, 2016, three armed and masked men entered the home of a marijuana dealer, Christopher Brooks, and his wife, Danielle Brooks, to commit an armed robbery. A struggle broke out, in which three people were shot: one robber was shot in the leg; Danielle Brooks was shot multiple times and died at the apartment; and Christopher Brooks was shot multiple times and died on the way to the hospital. The Brooks' five-year-old child was in the apartment but was not physically harmed.
Two of the robbers - De'Anthony Harris and Jaylyn Franklin - were later identified and arrested after Franklin took Harris to the hospital to seek treatment for the gunshot wound to his leg. The third robber - Lamarkus Mann - was identified and arrested a few days after that.
A subsequent police investigation revealed that in the minutes before the robbery, Wiley had been texting with Christopher Brooks and repeatedly calling Mann. While the police learned the substance of these text messages, they never learned the substance of the voice calls. Only the times and durations of the calls were preserved.
In the minutes before the robbery, Wiley was texting with Christopher Brooks to arrange an alleged purchase of marijuana from Brooks at Brooks' apartment. Brooks sent several texts to Wiley with updates about when he anticipated returning to his apartment. Each time Wiley received one of these text updates from Brooks, Wiley spoke with Mann on the phone shortly thereafter.
Time-stamped surveillance video footage from a nearby residence revealed that cars belonging to Franklin's grandmother and Mann's girlfriend drove by the Brooks' apartment before the robbery. Both cars would later be found to have significant amounts of Harris's blood in them. The cars drove by the Brooks' apartment at the same time that one of the phone calls between Wiley and Mann occurred.
After Brooks texted Wiley that he was home, Wiley once again called Mann. Wiley did not text or call Brooks again after receiving Brooks' text that he was home (despite having previously told Brooks that he would be at his apartment in twenty minutes).
The surveillance video shows that within two minutes of Wiley's call to Mann, three masked robbers arrived at Brooks' apartment. After the robbery occurred, Harris, Franklin, and Mann fled Brooks' residence. Within seconds of leaving the residence, Wiley and Mann began calling each other again. In the half hour following the robbery, Wiley and Mann exchanged a dozen phone calls, some of which were initiated by Wiley and others by Mann.
At trial, the State called Marika Meabon, the mother of Mann's children, as a witness. Through Meabon, the State played portions of a recorded interview she had given to the police. In the interview, Meabon stated that Mann, Harris, and Franklin had been told that "there was money involved" and that they were "after what the homeowners had." Meabon did not implicate Wiley, other than to say that Mann spent a lot of time with him.
Harris, Franklin, and Mann were indicted together on two counts of first-degree murder, four counts of second-degree murder (two under an extreme indifference theory and two under a felony murder theory), and one count of first-degree robbery. Wiley was later charged by supplemental indictment with two counts of second-degree murder (under a felony murder theory), one count of first-degree robbery, and one count of second-degree robbery.
AS 11.41.100(a)(1)(A), AS 11.41.110(a)(2) and (a)(3), and AS 11.41.500(a)(1), respectively.
AS 11.41.110(a)(3), AS 11.41.500(a)(1), and AS 11.41.510, respectively.
Harris's and Franklin's charges were severed from the charges involving Wiley and Mann, and Wiley and Mann were ultimately tried in a joint trial. The jury found Wiley guilty on all counts and the superior court entered convictions for two counts of second-degree murder and one count of first-degree robbery. The court sentenced Wiley to consecutive sentences of 35 years with 10 years suspended (25 years to serve) for each murder count and 6 years for the robbery, for a composite sentence of 76 years with 20 years suspended (56 years to serve).
Wiley now appeals his convictions and sentence. (Mann separately appealed, and we affirmed his conviction and sentence in a prior decision.)
See Mann v. State, 2024 WL 713917 (Alaska App. Feb. 21, 2024) (unpublished).
Wiley's argument that the superior court erred by declining to sever his charges from Mann's charges under Alaska Criminal Rule 45(d)(5)
Wiley was indicted in March 2017 and arraigned in April 2017. In December 2018, after Harris's and Franklin's cases were severed from Wiley's and Mann's, the superior court conducted a pretrial conference. During this hearing, Mann requested a trial date in June 2019. Wiley objected to this proposed trial date and instead requested an earlier trial date in March 2019. In response, the State argued that the joint trial should take place on the later date requested by Mann unless Wiley filed a successful motion to sever. The court agreed with the State, and scheduled the joint trial for June 2019.
Subsequently, Wiley moved to sever his case from Mann's under Alaska Criminal Rule 45(d)(5), arguing that severance was necessary for him to receive a trial within 120 days. The superior court rejected Wiley's request, finding that the continuance that Mann requested constituted only a "modest extension of time" and that Wiley and Mann's joint presence at trial was important or necessary to the State's case. Wiley and Mann's joint trial began on July 8, 2019.
On appeal, Wiley argues that the superior court abused its discretion by denying his request to sever his trial from Mann's under Rule 45(d)(5), and that this error requires reversal of his convictions.
Alaska Criminal Rule 45(b) provides that "[a] defendant charged with a felony, a misdemeanor, or a violation shall be tried within 120 days from the time set forth in paragraph (c) of this rule." However, certain periods of time may be excluded in computing this time for trial. Relevant to this case, Rule 45(d)(5) provides that a "reasonable period of delay" may be excluded "when the defendant is joined for trial with a codefendant as to whom the time for trial has not run and there is good cause for not granting a severance," but that a severance should be granted in "all other cases."
Wiley's argument on appeal misperceives the remedy he would be entitled to if we agreed that his case should have been severed from Mann's under Rule 45(d)(5). Wiley assumes that if the superior court erroneously denied his motion to sever, then he would be entitled to reversal of his convictions regardless of whether he has established a Rule 45(b) violation. Wiley is mistaken.
When a court erroneously fails to sever charges under Rule 45(d)(5), the resulting period of delay may not be excluded from the speedy trial calculation unless that time is subject to exclusion under another provision of Rule 45(d). If the defendant is not brought to trial within 120 days under this new calculation, then the case must be dismissed. If the defendant is brought to trial within 120 days under this new calculation, then no Rule 45 violation occurred. In other words, when a Rule 45 motion to sever is improperly denied, the defendant still has the burden of showing that their right to a speedy trial under Rule 45 was violated.
Wiley has erroneously analyzed the court's denial of his motion to sever as if the motion to sever had been made under Alaska Criminal Rule 14 rather than under Alaska Criminal Rule 45. For example, he asserts that "the events that transpired during the home invasion where Wiley was not present were sufficiently gruesome" such that "the details needed to convict co-defendant Mann were prejudicial to separately evaluating Wiley's culpability." But the question of whether a joint trial with Mann would lead to the introduction of evidence that is unnecessarily prejudicial to Wiley is a question that is distinct from whether Wiley received a speedy trial.
Wiley has failed to meet this burden for two reasons. First, although Wiley filed a motion to sever under Alaska Criminal Rule 45, he did not file a motion to dismiss alleging that he was not brought to trial within the time for speedy trial under Rule 45. Second, Wiley does not affirmatively assert that his right to a speedy trial was violated, and that this violation was attributable to the court's erroneous denial of severance under Rule 45(d)(5). Instead, on appeal, Wiley states that his rights under Rule 45 may have been violated, and he claims that the matter should be remanded so that the superior court can determine whether a violation occurred. This speculation is insufficient to warrant relief on appeal.
See Alaska R. Crim. P. 45(f) (stating that the "[f]ailure of a defendant represented by counsel to move for dismissal of the charges under these rules prior to plea of guilty or trial shall constitute waiver of the defendant's rights under this rule").
See McGee v. State, 95 P.3d 945, 947-48 (Alaska App. 2004), rev'd on other grounds ("Because McGee went to trial and never sought dismissal of the charges under Rule 45, he is not entitled to seek dismissal of those charges now.").
For these reasons, we reject Wiley's claim that the superior court's denial of his motion to sever would require the reversal of his convictions.
Wiley also briefly argues that the three-month delay in going to trial from March to June 2019 violated his constitutional right to a speedy trial under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution. But Wiley did not make this argument in the superior court, and on appeal, although he recited the factors used to determine whether a defendant has been denied the constitutional right to a speedy trial set out by Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 530 (1972), he did not meaningfully analyze these factors in light of the trial court record. We accordingly conclude that this issue was waived.
Wiley S argument that the superior court erred by denying his Batson challenge
During jury selection, Mann objected to the State using a peremptory challenge on a Black woman, R.W., arguing that doing so violated Batson v. Kentucky. Wiley joined the objection, and now appeals the denial of this objection.
See Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 93-94 (1986) (holding that the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution prohibits prosecutors from using peremptory challenges to exclude jurors based on race).
We described the facts underlying Mann and Wiley's Batson challenge in our decision on Mann's appeal. To summarize, after Mann raised his Batson challenge, the prosecutor explained that the State struck R.W. from the jury because she was impatient, and the superior court credited this testimony. We concluded that the superior court did not clearly err in accepting this race-neutral justification. We adhere to our conclusion in Mann.
Mann v. State, 2024 WL 713917, at *6-7 (Alaska App. Feb. 21, 2024) (unpublished).
Id. at *8.
Wiley also points to a separate comment made during the voir dire of R.W.
The State's voir dire of R.W. was conducted by one prosecutor, but a second prosecutor interjected at one point. After the first prosecutor asked R.W. what she thought of the process so far, R.W. asked if she should say the "truth" or if she should "sugar coat it." The second prosecutor then interrupted and said jokingly, "Would you please lie to us." Wiley now argues that this interjection was inappropriate and demonstrates a lack of respect for R.W.
But Wiley did not make this argument below, and the superior court did not make findings on it. The second prosecutor's comment was made during a time of levity, when people were laughing in the courtroom, and that prosecutor also made joking comments at other times to other jurors during voir dire. We cannot say based on this interjection that the superior court's ultimate finding - that the proffered raceneutral explanation was credible - was clearly erroneous.
Finally, Wiley argues that the prosecutors treated R.W. differently in the questions they asked because other prospective jurors were not asked about their patience. But R.W.'s assertion of her view that jury selection was being conducted inefficiently came in response to an initial question about her thoughts on the process thus far. And prosecutors similarly started voir dire of other prospective jurors by asking vague questions. Minor discrepancies in questioning different prospective jurors do not establish that the superior court's acceptance of the prosecutor's race-neutral explanation was clearly erroneous.
See Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U.S. 231, 241-52 (2005) (comparing voir dire records of Black jurors who were struck to similarly situated White jurors who were not struck by the prosecution).
As we explained in our decision on Mann's appeal, "[T]he superior court found, based on the arguments made to it at the time, that the prosecution had articulated a credible race-neutral reason for the peremptory strike. We are not in a position to second-guess that finding on the record currently before us." We therefore conclude that the superior court did not clearly err by rejecting the Batson challenge and allowing the State to peremptorily challenge R.W.
Mann, 2024 WL 713917, at *8.
Wiley's argument that there is insufficient evidence to support his conviction
At the conclusion of the State's case, Wiley moved for a judgment of acquittal on all charges. Wiley's attorney noted that there was no evidence about the content of the phone calls between Wiley and Mann and no evidence that Wiley was physically involved in the robbery. He argued that too much speculation was required to conclude that he was an accomplice to the robbery, and therefore that there was insufficient evidence for a reasonable juror to find him guilty of robbery. By extension, Wiley also implicitly argued that there was insufficient evidence for a reasonable juror to find him guilty of second-degree murder (because the felony murder theory relied on the predicate crime of robbery).
The superior court denied the motion for judgment of acquittal, and Wiley renews this argument on appeal.
When we review the sufficiency of the evidence on appeal, we are required to view the evidence, and all reasonable inferences to be drawn from that evidence, in the light most favorable to upholding the verdict. The evidence is sufficient if "a reasonable fact-finder could have concluded that the State's case was proved beyond a reasonable doubt."
Johnson v. State, 188 P.3d 700, 702 (Alaska App. 2008).
Id.
The evidence in this case reflects that Wiley was texting with Christopher Brooks about when Brooks would arrive home, and that Wiley called Mann in between receiving updates about Brooks' estimated time of arrival. Furthermore, the evidence reflects that Wiley was on the phone with Mann as the robbers' getaway cars passed by the Brooks' apartment, immediately before the robbers walked into the Brooks' apartment, and multiple times in the minutes after the robbery and murders. Despite telling Brooks he would be there in twenty minutes, Wiley never texted or called Brooks after the last call he made to Mann before the robbery.
This evidence was sufficient to permit a reasonable juror to infer that Wiley had communicated Brooks' estimated time of arrival to Mann, that Wiley had informed Mann that Brooks was home (which prompted Mann, Franklin, and Harris to go to the Brooks' apartment), that Wiley and Mann discussed the robbery after it happened, and that Wiley's texts with Brooks about his whereabouts were for the purposes of assisting with the robbery rather than purchasing marijuana. Thus, the jury could reasonably conclude that Wiley was an accomplice to the robbery.
AS 11.16.110(2)(B) ("A person is legally accountable for the conduct of another constituting an offense if . . . with intent to promote or facilitate the commission of the offense, the person . . . aids or abets the other in planning or committing the offense[.]").
We therefore reject Wiley's argument that the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions.
Wiley's challenge to his sentence
Wiley faced a sentencing range of 15 to 99 years for each second-degree murder conviction. As a first felony offender, he faced a presumptive range of 3 to 6 years for the first-degree robbery. The court was required to impose at least the mandatory minimum for each murder and at least one additional day for the robbery consecutively. In his sentencing memorandum, Wiley argued for the minimum possible sentence - 30 years and 1 day. He argued that the mitigating factor in AS 12.55.155(d)(2) - that "the defendant, although an accomplice, played only a minor role in the commission of the offense" - should apply by analogy.
AS 12.55.125(b).
Former AS 12.55.125(c)(1) (pre-July 2019).
AS 12.55.127(c)(2)(B), (c)(2)(F); see also Scholes v. State, 274 P.3d 496, 500 (Alaska App. 2012).
See Allen v. State, 51 P.3d 949, 960 (Alaska App. 2002) ("We have recognized and approved the practice of using [statutory aggravating and mitigating] factors as points of reference when evaluating how a specific offense should be viewed in comparison to a typical murder." (cleaned up) (quoting Sakeagak v. State, 952 P.2d 278, 284 (Alaska App. 1998))).
The State, meanwhile, proposed consecutive sentences of 50 years with 10 years suspended (40 years to serve) for each murder and 6 years flat for the robbery - a composite sentence of 106 years with 20 years suspended (86 years to serve). In its memorandum, the State asserted that Wiley was "the mastermind behind" the robbery and "orchestrated" and "arranged" it. The State speculated that Wiley did not go into the Brooks' home because he knew Christopher Brooks would recognize him and therefore that "Wiley had to employ others to do his dirty work for him." In her sentencing remarks, the prosecutor similarly argued, "Wiley orchestrated this entire thing, this entire robbery. He planned it. He put it into action." And she argued that Wiley "pulled all the strings like a master puppeteer."
In passing sentence, the superior court appears to have agreed with the factual assertions of the State. The court said that Wiley "had cooked up a plan . . . to have a home invasion done" and that "Mr. Wiley couldn't go into the house to do it himself because Mr. Brooks would ID him, obviously, to the police later. So Mr. Wiley got another friend of his, Lamarkus Mann, to do it." And the court found that "if it weren't for Mr. Wiley's participation in these crimes, Christopher Brooks and Danielle Brooks would likely be alive today, and their many children would have their parents," again stating that Wiley "concocted this plan to rob Mr. Brooks."
The court rejected Wiley's proposed mitigator and sentenced Wiley to consecutive sentences of 35 years with 10 years suspended (25 years to serve) for each murder and 6 years flat for the robbery - a composite sentence of 76 years with 20 years suspended (56 years to serve).
Wiley now appeals his sentence. On appeal, he argues that the superior court, in its sentencing remarks, adopted the State's position that he was the "mastermind" behind the robbery, and he argues that such an assertion is unsupported by the record.
We agree with Wiley that some of the superior court's statements at sentencing appear to align with the State's position that Wiley was the "mastermind" behind the robbery, and we agree that the evidence does not support such an inference. As we explained in the previous section, the telephone data and surveillance video constituted sufficient evidence to conclude that Wiley lured Christopher Brooks home and then told Mann that Brooks was home in order to facilitate the armed robbery of Brooks. But the evidence, although sufficient to support the conclusion that Wiley was aware of a plan and participated in executing it, is insufficient to support the conclusion that Wiley planned the robbery. The superior court's findings to this effect were clearly erroneous.
Because the superior court's findings on these points might have impacted the sentence it imposed on Wiley, we must remand for resentencing.
Wiley also argues that the superior court erred in its sentencing remarks under Graham v. State, 440 P.3d 309, 323 (Alaska App. 2019), rev'd, 513 P.3d 1046 (Alaska 2022), by "employ[ing] the sentencing goal of community condemnation to give voice to the community's outrage at a particular defendant or at a particularly disturbing crime." But the court, in its sentencing remarks, stated that it was "not attempting to seek revenge or retribution by automatically having a knee-jerk reaction and ordering the defendant to spend the rest of his life in jail under these circumstances and given the role he played." Instead, it was "impos[ing] a substantial amount of jail time to reaffirm [the] norm that we ought to be able to live in our own homes and free of danger." We have independently reviewed the sentencing, and we conclude that the superior court did not misapply the sentencing goal of community condemnation.
Conclusion
We AFFIRM Wiley's convictions, but we REMAND for resentencing consistent with this opinion.