Scott A. Estep v. State of Indiana

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Estep lived with his girlfriend Maria Nieves in an upstairs apartment in Fort

Wayne. They had dated for two or three years, and they drank and argued a

lot. On May 3, 2016, Estep and Nieves drank beer all day in their apartment

with their downstairs neighbor, Dianna Buchwald. Estep and Nieves started

arguing and pushing and shoving each other. Buchwald said that she was going

to leave and picked up her cell phone. Estep said, “[Y]ou’re not gonna be

calling the cops,” and slammed the phone down, breaking the screen. Tr. at 46.

Buchwald went downstairs to her apartment. Nieves called 911. Officer Sage

Kopp arrived and observed that Nieves was crying and upset but had no visible

injuries. The officer left.

[3] Less than half an hour later, Buchwald heard a “tussle upstairs.” Id. at 43.

Nieves came down to Buchwald’s apartment and was crying and “having a

hard time breathing.” Id. at 44. According to Buchwald, Nieves was “[r]eally

super upset” and “had red marks on her.” Id. Buchwald called 911. Officer

Kopp arrived and observed that Nieves was “much more upset” and had “some

marks on her that […] looked fresh and were starting to become more

noticeable.” Id. at 55. Nieves was also crying “uncontrollably.” Id. Officer

Kopp took photos of Nieves’s injuries. Officer Randy Miller arrested Estep.

[4] The State charged Estep with battery, resisting law enforcement, and

interference with the reporting of a crime. The State filed a notice of intent to

introduce evidence of Estep’s prior batteries against Nieves in April 2013 and

June 2015 pursuant to Indiana Evidence Rule 404(b), asserting that the

evidence was “relevant and material” to the issues of “[k]knowledge, motive,

intent, preparation, plan, identity, relationship between the parties, and/or

absence of mistake.” Appellant’s App. at 21. After a hearing, the trial court

ruled that evidence regarding the June 2015 battery would be admissible “on

the issue of the nature of the relationship between” Estep and Nieves and that

evidence regarding the April 2013 battery would not be admissible because the

incident was too remote. Id. at 25.

[5] A jury trial was held on June 30, 2016. Estep raised a continuing objection to

any evidence of prior batteries. Nieves testified that she and Estep were

“drunk” and “arguing” and “shov[ed] each other back and forth” during the

May 3 incident. Tr. at 25, 26. She also testified that Estep “wouldn’t

intentionally hurt [her] per se” and that he did not punch or slap or choke her

on May 3. Id. at 28, 39. Over Estep’s hearsay objection, Buchwald testified

that Nieves told her that Estep “was throwing her around and hitting her” on

May 3. Id. at 46. Over another hearsay objection, Officer Miller testified that

Nieves told him that Estep had “grabbed [her] by the shirt and hit [her] in the

chest[.]” Id. at 71.1 Without objection, the State offered into evidence Officer

Kopp’s photos of Nieves’s injuries.

[6] Finally, Officer Trevon Brown testified that he was dispatched to Estep and

Nieves’s apartment on June 24, 2015. According to the officer, Nieves was

“crying, upset, and injured” and told him that Estep “had assaulted her in the

home and then he had left.” Id. at 85, 86. Officer Brown testified that Nieves

“had various bruises in various stages of healing across her body” and “some

very recent injury to her mouth,” which was bleeding. Id. at 87. The trial court

instructed the jury that the evidence of the prior battery “has been admitted

solely on the issue of the relationship of the parties. It should be considered by

you only for the limited purpose for which it was received and should not be

considered on the ultimate issue of guilt or innocence of [Estep] on these

charges.” Id. at 91-92.

[7] In a bifurcated proceeding, the jury found Estep guilty of battery and not guilty

of the other charges. The jury then found that Estep had a prior conviction for

battering Nieves, which elevated the offense to a level 5 felony. The trial court

sentenced Estep to six years executed. This appeal followed.



Discussion and Decision

Section 1 – The trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence regarding Estep’s prior battery of Nieves.

[8] Estep first contends that the trial court erred in admitting Officer Brown’s

testimony regarding his June 2015 battery of Nieves. The admission of

evidence is within the trial court’s discretion. Scisney v. State, 55 N.E.3d 321,

323 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016), trans. denied. “We will reverse a ruling on the

admission of evidence only for an abuse of that discretion, which occurs only

when the ruling is clearly against the logic and effect of the facts and

circumstances and the error affects a party’s substantial rights.” Id.

[9] The challenged testimony was admitted pursuant to Evidence Rule 404(b),

which provides in pertinent part that “[e]vidence of a crime, wrong, or other act

is not admissible to prove a person’s character in order to show that on a

particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character” but

“may be admissible for another purpose, such as proving motive, opportunity,

intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of

accident.” The rule’s “list of permissible purposes is illustrative but not

exhaustive.” Vermillion v. State, 978 N.E.2d 459, 463 (Ind. Ct. App. 2012). In

assessing the admissibility of Rule 404(b) evidence, the court must determine

that it is relevant to a matter at issue other than the defendant’s propensity to

commit the charged act and then balance its probative value against its

prejudicial effect pursuant to Evidence Rule 403. Ortiz v. State, 716 N.E.2d 345,

350 (Ind. 1999). Evidence Rule 401 provides that evidence is relevant if it “has

any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the

evidence” and “the fact is of consequence in determining the action.” Evidence

Rule 403 provides that the court “may exclude relevant evidence if its probative

value is substantially outweighed by a danger of … unfair prejudice[.]”

[10] Our supreme court has stated that evidence of a defendant’s prior actions with

respect to the victim is “usually admissible to show the relationship between the

two[,]” id., which was the basis for the admission of the prior battery evidence

in this case. Estep first contends that the relevance of the prior battery is

“insignificant” because it “occurred almost a full year before the charged

offense.” Appellant’s Br. at 14. Estep cites no authority to support this

contention. In any event, the relevance of the June 2015 battery was far more

significant than that of the April 2013 battery, which the trial court excluded as

being too remote.

[11] Estep also suggests that the prior battery evidence was irrelevant because “there

was no dispute that [he] and Ms. Nieves were in an intimate relationship.” Id.

at 15. Although the existence of their intimate relationship was undisputed, the

nature of the relationship was another matter entirely. Nieves acknowledged

that she and Estep drank and argued frequently and engaged in mutual pushing

and shoving, but she claimed that he “wouldn’t intentionally hurt [her] per se.”

Tr. at 28. This left a false impression with the jury, and the evidence of the

prior battery was relevant to rebut this falsehood. Cf. Davis v. State, 907 N.E.2d

1043, 1055 (Ind. Ct. App. 2009) (noting that otherwise inadmissible evidence

may become admissible where defendant “opens the door” to questioning on

that evidence by leaving trier of fact with false or misleading impression of

facts).

[12] Finally, Estep complains that the evidence regarding the prior battery “had

great prejudicial effect” because Nieves was “the only person who had personal

knowledge of what occurred to her” and the other witnesses “all testified to

statements given to them by [her].” Appellant’s Br. at 15. We have stated that

“[a]ll evidence that is relevant to a criminal prosecution is inherently

prejudicial; thus proper inquiry under Evidence Rule 403 boils down to a

balance of the probative value of the proffered evidence against the likely unfair

prejudicial impact of that evidence.” Fuentes v. State, 10 N.E.3d 68, 73 (Ind. Ct.

App. 2014), trans. denied. “When determining the likely unfair prejudicial

impact, courts will look for the dangers that the jury will substantially

overestimate the value of the evidence or that the evidence will arouse or

inflame the passions or sympathies of the jury.” Id. In this case, the trial court

minimized those dangers by giving the aforementioned limiting instruction to

the jury. “When a limiting instruction is given that certain evidence may be

considered for only a particular purpose, the law will presume that the jury will

follow the trial court’s admonitions.” Ware v. State, 816 N.E.2d 1167, 1176

(Ind. Ct. App. 2004). Under these circumstances, we cannot conclude that the

trial court abused its discretion in admitting the prior battery evidence.2

Therefore, we affirm Estep’s conviction.

Section 2 – Estep has failed to establish that his sentence is inappropriate.

[13] Estep also asks us to reduce his sentence pursuant to Indiana Appellate Rule

7(B), which provides that this Court “may revise a sentence authorized by

statute if, after due consideration of the trial court's decision, the Court finds

that the sentence is inappropriate in light of the nature of the offense and the

character of the offender.” The principal role of appellate review is to leaven

the outliers, not to achieve the perceived correct result in each case. Kunberger

v. State, 46 N.E.3d 966, 973 (Ind. Ct. App. 2015). The question is not whether

another sentence is more appropriate but whether the sentence imposed is

inappropriate. Helsley v. State, 43 N.E.3d 225, 228 (Ind. 2015). The defendant

bears the burden of persuading us that his sentence is inappropriate. Prater v.

State, 59 N.E.3d 314, 318 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016).

[14] “The advisory sentence is the starting point the legislature selected as an

appropriate sentence for the crime committed.” Blair v. State, 62 N.E.3d 424,

430 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016). Estep committed battery with a prior battery

conviction against the same person, which is a level 5 felony. Ind. Code § 35

42-2-1(g)(4)(A). The sentencing range for a level 5 felony is one to six years,

with an advisory sentence of three years. Ind. Code § 35-50-2-6(b). Battery is

the knowing or intentional touching of another person in a rude, insolent, or

angry manner. Ind. Code § 35-42-2-1(c)(1). At trial and at the sentencing

hearing, the State presented evidence that a drunk and argumentative Estep

grabbed and hit Nieves approximately one month after he finished serving his

sentence for battering her in June 2015. Nieves’s injuries may not have been

serious, but the timing of the offense certainly supports a sentence above the

advisory term.

[15] The timing of the offense is also indicative of Estep’s character as a career

criminal who has made no efforts to reform his behavior after numerous

encounters with the justice system in five Indiana counties. Since 1985, fifty

one-year-old Estep has accumulated a staggering twenty-seven misdemeanor

convictions (including criminal conversion, criminal mischief, criminal trespass,

battery, marijuana possession, public intoxication, operating while intoxicated,

and resisting law enforcement) as well as five felony convictions (including

cocaine possession, escape, failure to return to lawful detention, and battery).

He has had three suspended sentence modifications and one probation

revocation, and he has received substance abuse evaluation and counseling that

obviously failed to have an impact on him. This is his third conviction for

battering Nieves, and at the time of his arrest a 2011 warrant remained pending

for failure to appear for a pretrial conference on three misdemeanor charges.

Estep notes that his most serious prior offense was a level 6 felony, and he

argues that he is not “the ‘worst of the worst’ of offenders deserving of the

maximum sentence.” Appellant’s Br. at 17. The sheer number of his prior

convictions, his serial battering of his girlfriend, and his failure to respond to

judicial leniency all demonstrate otherwise.