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The Indiana Court of Appeals has reversed the convictions of a man accused of being involved in an altercation that resulted in the death of a La Porte County man in December 2018.
In an opinion published Thursday, the appellate court remanded the case and instructed the trial court to vacate the man’s convictions for felony aggravated battery and possession of a dangerous firearm.
According to court records, on Dec. 20, 2018, then-16-year-old Hakim Zamir Lamar Qualls was initially charged with murder and carrying a handgun without a license after he was found in possession of two guns following an altercation with another man two days earlier.
Qualls had gotten into an altercation with a man in which they were shooting at each other. When Qualls moved to grab the other man’s gun, the gun discharged, and the man was shot in the head.
He later died from his injuries.
Qualls’s first trial in December 2019 ended in a mistral, with the court acknowledging a violation of a motion in limine and violation of Qualls’s Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.
The motion requested that the state be prevented from referencing the fact that Qualls didn’t testify at the trial and that he remained silent during questioning by law enforcement during the proceedings.
However, the state allegedly hadn’t sent a copy of the motion to a detective on the case, and the detective had commented on his choice to remain silent while she was on the stand.
The detective was related to the victim in this case, and while she was on the stand, Qualls’s counsel probed her potential bias. It was during this exchange that she commented on his choice to remain silent.
Immediately after the ruling from the bench, counsel for Qualls argued that a mistrial granted while the jury is seated prevents a retrial. The court declined to rule on the propriety of a retrial at the time and set a new trial date for the following January.
Between his trials, the state moved to add one count of felony attempted murder and one count of felony aggravated battery to Qualls’s charges.
Counsel for Qualls objected the motion, saying it was untimely because it was not filed before the start of the first trial.
His team also argued that the mistrial was caused by the detective making the comment about Qualls’s choice to remain silent, and that despite not receiving the motion in limine, the detective should’ve known not to comment on it.
At his retrial, Qualls was found guilty of aggravated battery and dangerous possession of a firearm. He was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Writing for the appellate court, Senior Judge Margret Robb said that the trial court’s denial of the motion to dismiss the charges against Qualls was erroneous because the state had various missteps, including failing to give the detective a copy of the motion in limine and putting the detective on the stand despite the potential biases.
Robb also wrote that the state did not overcome the presumption of prosecutorial vindictiveness and that the trial court shouldn’t have granted the motion to amend the information and add additional counts to Qualls’s charges.
The senior judge wrote Qualls should not have faced trial on the aggravated battery charge of which he was convicted.
Judges Paul Mathias and Stephen Scheele concurred.
The case is Hakim Zamir Lamar Qualls v. State of Indiana, 24A-CR-131.
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