Nowlin v. State
PD-0840-14
Case Summary written by Jenée Durán, Staff Member.
JUDGE MEYERS delivered the opinion of a unanimous court.
Appellant, Keiona Dashelle Nowlin, was convicted of felony hindering apprehension after allegedly encouraging Demarcus Degrate, her boyfriend, to run away from the United States Marshals who had come to arrest him. She was sentenced to four years in prison; her offense was raised to a third-degree felony because the State alleged that she knew that Degrate was charged with a felony when she encouraged him to escape.
Degrate was charged in federal court with the offense of felon in possession of a firearm, and his indictment was sealed. He was also on bond for state charges. Deputy United States Marshal Kevin Scott went to Degrate’s home in order to execute the sealed federal warrant, but Degrate fled and Scott pursued him. Scott testified at trial that he did not hear Nowlin say anything to Degrate, and Scott had not informed either of the two why he was stopping them. United States Marshal Clayton Brown responded to the scene after Degrate began to flee, saw Nowlin, and allegedly heard her shout, “Run baby run! Get away.” Deputy United States Marshal Anton Slavich also testified that he saw Nowlin running while in pursuit of Degrate, went after her, and detained her. When she attempted to flee, she was caught and placed under arrest. Slavich testified that Nowlin then told him that when she saw the officers, she told Degrate, “Those are the marshals,” or “That’s the laws. Run.” She also allegedly said to Slavich that she knew the cars the Marshals drove because some of their neighbors had pictures of them and she did not want Degrate to get arrested because he was out on bond for the state charges. Slavich also stated that Nowlin had “Demarcus Degrate” tattooed across her chest.
Nowlin appealed her conviction, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to show that she “warned” Demarcus Degrate of impending apprehension, or that she had knowledge that Degrate was charged with a felony offense. She also challenged the sufficiency of the evidence enhancing her conviction for hindering apprehension from a misdemeanor to a felony because the federal warrant had been sealed and there was no evidence to show that she knew Degrate was charged with a felony. The court of appeals disagreed on both counts.
ISSUE: Was the evidence presented at trial legally sufficient to prove that Nowlin knew Degrate was charged with a felony offense when she allegedly encouraged him to flee from authorities?
The Court of Criminal Appeals held that they did not concur with the court of appeals that there was sufficient evidence of Nowlin’s knowledge of Degrate’s federal felony charge to justify raising her offense from a misdemeanor to a third-degree felony. The court reasoned that the state offense that Degrate had been on bond for could not be the basis for Nowlin’s conviction. Nothing was presented at trial for the court to determine whether the state offense Degrate was charged with had been a felony, and there was no testimony that Nowlin knew what the state offense was, or whether it was a felony. The court also reasoned that because Degrate’s federal indictment had been sealed, there was no evidence presented that showed that either Degrate or Nowlin knew about the federal indictment prior to the arrest, and none of the officers stated what Degrate was being arrested for. Because Degrate himself could not have know that he was being indicted for felon in possession of a firearm, it would have been impossible for him to have told Nowlin about the indictment or what offense it purported to charge him with. The court ruled that Nowlin’s felony conviction of hindering apprehension could not be upheld.
The Court of Criminal Appeals, however, also held that because the trial court had found that each element of the lesser-included offense of misdemeanor hindering apprehension had been proven sufficient to support a conviction, it would convert Nowlin’s conviction to misdemeanor hindering apprehension and remanded the case to the trial court for a new punishment hearing.