The Akron Legal News

Columbus murder verdict upheld by appeals court

JESSICA SHAMBAUGH
Special to the Legal News
Published: December 19, 2013

The 10th District Court of Appeals recently affirmed a murder conviction for a man who shot and killed another man from his SUV.

Andrew Hunt appealed to the three-judge appellate panel after the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas found him guilty of murder and having a weapon while under disability.

His charges stemmed from the May 16, 2012 shooting death of James Daniel “Dan Dan” Canty.

Columbus police officer Brian Smith testified that he responded to a call on Vida Place in Columbus around 4 a.m. on that date.

When he arrived on the scene, Smith found Canty laying on the ground bleeding from the neck.

Another man was holding a towel to the wound in an effort to stop the bleeding and a witness told Smith the shooter was in a silver Chevrolet Tahoe with tinted windows.

Other witnesses described the Tahoe as blue or gold.

Paramedics arrived shortly after Smith and pronounced Canty dead at the scene.

Alexis Lewis, who lived on Vida Place and called 911, told officers at the scene that she heard five or six shots and saw a light colored SUV leaving the area.

She denied seeing anything else because she said she was in the kitchen making a sandwich.

Lewis was taken to police headquarters and gave a second interview, in which she named Hunt as the shooter and gave a physical description of him and his vehicle.

During a third interview, and at trial, Lewis said Canty lived next door to her.

On the night in question, she said Hunt arrived at Canty’s house around 2:30 a.m. and was acting “obnoxious, demanding, kind of like in charge” and she asked him to leave.

Lewis said she was in the kitchen when she heard a conversation outside that caused her to look out her front door.

She then saw Canty and Hunt talking, Hunt get into his SUV and roll down the window and Canty turn to walk away.

“And (Hunt) must have said ‘Dan’ or something. He turned around, and that’s when he started shooting him,” Lewis testified.

She said Canty tried to run away and fell onto the ground. She explained that she was not forthcoming in her initial interviews because she feared for her personal safety.

Another man testified that he was in his house when he heard four gunshots.

As he ran outside he said he saw a 2003 gray Tahoe pulling away as the driver rolled up the window.

The man said he then removed his shirt and used it to try to stop Canty’s bleeding.

Acting on a search warrant, Columbus police searched Hunt’s address on South Ogden Avenue and found a box containing marijuana and some pills, $9,000 in cash and several pieces of gold jewelry.

Hunt’s mother told the police that the cash belonged to her and her husband and that the drugs were her husband’s.

Police also found a 2003 gold Tahoe, titled to Hunt, behind the residence. One officer noticed a small spot on the driver’s side door that tests showed was blood matching Canty’s DNA.

The jury in the common pleas court found Hunt guilty of murder and the trial court found him guilty of having a weapon under disability and repeat violent offender specifications.

Hunt was sentenced to an aggregate term of 31 years to life in prison.

On appeal, Hunt first argued that the prosecutor committed misconduct and overreaching that deprived him of a fair trial.

He claimed the prosecutor fabricated a drug-related motive for the shooting.

Upon review, the appellate judges found that during the closing statements, the prosecutor explained that he did not have to prove why Hunt shot Canty, only that Hunt did shoot Canty.

He highlighted that there was more than $4,300 cash in Canty’s pockets at the time of the shooting.

“What can you infer James Daniel Canty did for a living based upon that?” he asked during closing statements.

He then pointed to the money and “gold diamond encrusted jewelry” found in Hunt’s home and again asked the jury what they thought Hunt did for a living.

“Do you think he is a quiet, Columbus State student? I don’t have to prove motive, ladies and gentlemen. But I would argue to you the motive is pretty clear in this case,” he concluded.

The judges found that Hunt failed to object to the statements at the time they were made, leaving them only able to consider plain error.

They further stated that the prosecutor did not say that the shooting was drug related, but instead highlighted the facts and asked the jury to infer what it wanted from the information presented.

“Though the passage quoted above focuses on the money, when placed in context with all of the evidence presented throughout the trial, including evidence that Vida Place had a reputation as a ‘drug house,’ and drugs were found at both Vida Place and appellant’s residence, we do not conclude the prosecutor’s comments were improper,” Judge Lisa Sadler wrote for the court.

“Moreover, because the trial court instructed the jury the closing arguments were not evidence, we presume the jury followed the instruction and did not consider the closing arguments as evidence.”

Finding that no error occurred during the prosecution’s closing remarks, the appellate panel rejected Hunt’s first assignment of error.

Hunt also contended that his convictions were against the manifest weight of the evidence because Lewis’ testimony lacked the credibility necessary to sustain a murder conviction.

The panel held that the jury knew about Lewis’ prior drug use, timeline discrepancies, false statements to police and her evasiveness.

It stated that Lewis was able to testify about each of those issues and that the jury had the ability to weigh those factors when considering credibility.

“Upon careful review of the record presented before us, we conclude appellant’s arguments regarding the credibility of the state’s witnesses does not render their testimony not credible as a matter of law such that a reversal on manifest-weight grounds is required,” Judge Sadler stated.

Next, Hunt argued that he could not be convicted of discharging a weapon from a motor vehicle because the Tahoe was not moving when he fired his weapon.

The judges noted that the governing statute mentions discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle, not a “moving motor vehicle.”

“Hence, from the face of the statute, appellant’s argument fails,” Judge Sadler wrote.

After overruling all of Hunt’s assignments of error, the appellate judges affirmed the lower court’s ruling.

Judge Julia Dorrian and retired Judge Grey, formerly of the 4th District Court of Appeals, concurred.

The case is cited State v. Hunt, 2013-Ohio-5326.

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