Youngstown Daily Legal News

Conviction upheld in case of accidental shooting death

JESSICA SHAMBAUGH
Special to the Legal News
Published: January 30, 2014

Ruling that the state presented sufficient, credible evidence, the 10th District Court of Appeals recently affirmed a Franklin County man’s convictions for reckless homicide and tampering with evidence.

The three-judge appellate panel rejected Quayjuan English’s contentions that his convictions were against the manifest weight and sufficiency of the evidence.

English’s charges came to light after an unintentional shooting on July 5, 2011.

Case summary states that on that date English and David Rivers were in and around Rivers’ car with a group of people.

At one point, someone handed English a gun and started to “mess with” or “flick” the shotgun’s hammer.

Other members of the group testified that English was swinging the gun while flicking the hammer and it discharged, firing a single shot that struck Rivers in the upper right chest.

Police and medical personnel responded, but Rivers was pronounced dead at the scene.

English immediately told the police that he was holding a gun and “pulled back the thing on the top” but denied pulling the trigger and any knowledge that the gun was loaded.

He also said he did not see where Rivers was standing.

Police located a .22 caliber rifle from under the porch of the residence, but an autopsy report showed that Rivers died as a result of a shotgun wound and that shotgun pellets and wadding were recovered from his body.

The police later recovered a shotgun found in the area and English identified it as the one he handled on the day of the shooting.

A jury for the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas found English guilty of reckless homicide with a firearm specification and tampering with evidence.

On appeal, English challenged the sufficiency and manifest weight of the evidence because no rational trier of fact could have found his actions to be reckless.

“Although he concedes that he held the shotgun while sitting in the backseat of the car and that he repeatedly ‘flicked’ the shotgun’s hammer, he denies that he pulled the trigger. Appellant denies that he acted recklessly because he did not perversely disregard a known risk that flicking the hammer without pulling the trigger would cause the shotgun to fire,” Judge Julia Dorrian wrote for the court.

Upon review, the appellate panel found that the Supreme Court of Ohio had previously determined that “a firearm is an inherently dangerous instrumentality, the use of which is reasonably likely to produce death.”

It further determined that English was sitting in close proximity to several people and that at least one of them asked him to move the gun away from him.

Under the circumstances, the judges ruled that English’s actions clearly created a risk of harm to the rest of the group and that he perversely disregarded that risk by continuing to play with the gun.

The judges also discovered that the state presented testimony that English had been playing with the trigger of the gun as well as the hammer and ruled that the jury had the right to determine witness credibility.

“While there was evidence supporting both the state’s theory and appellant’s theory, this is not an exceptional case where the evidence weighs heavily against conviction,” Judge Dorrian stated.

Similarly, the judges ruled that the jury was in the best position to weigh witness credibility with regard to what happened to the gun after it discharged.

English claimed he did not touch the gun after it discharged and was unaware of what happened to it, rendering his tampering with evidence conviction improper.

The judges found that other witnesses testified that he threw the gun into a neighbor’s yard and ruled that that was sufficient to support the conviction.

Presiding Judge Lisa Sadler and retired Judge Grey formerly of the 4th District Court of Appeals joined Judge Dorrian in affirming the lower court’s ruling.

The case is cited State v. English, 2014-Ohio-89.

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