Stephens v. State

Trial court impermissibly commented on the evidence by charging that the jury was bound to disbelieve incredible, impossible or inherently improbable testimony, since the defendants' story that the victims loaned them the stolen cars, while improbable, was not impossible.

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John and Dwayne Stephens appeal from the judgment entered after a jury found them guilty of hijacking a motor vehicle. Because we conclude the trial court erred when it charged the jury that it was “not bound to believe incredible, impossible or inherently improbable” testimony, we reverse.

The evidence at trial, taken in the light most favorable to support the verdict, was as follows. Herman McCladdie and Mike Eubanks left Club Hollywood on the night in question and drove to Eubanks’s house. They were driving a friend’s car that had custom rims, hydraulic lifts and special paint. As they got out of the car, they noticed another car pull up. McCladdie and Eubanks had seen the car shortly before in the parking lot at Club Hollywood. Dwayne Stephens got out of the car and began talking with Eubanks and McCladdie, whom he knew from school. Shortly after, John Stephens, Dwayne’s brother got out of the car along with another man. The men talked for a little while and then another man got out of the car and pointed a sawed-off shotgun at McCladdie and Eubanks and told them to give up their car keys. In addition to the friend’s car they had been driving, Eubanks’s car was also parked nearby. The four men took the keys to the two cars, Dwayne Stephens got in Eubanks’s car, one of the other men got in McCladdie’s friend’s car, and John Stephens and the man with the shotgun got back in their car. After the three cars drove off, Eubanks and McCladdie ran to Eubanks’s house, told his mother they had been robbed, and got in his mother’s car to chase the stolen cars. They saw a police officer at a gas station and told him of the theft.

Stephens v. State

Trial court impermissibly commented on the evidence by charging that the jury was bound to disbelieve incredible, impossible or inherently improbable testimony, since the defendants' story that the victims loaned them the stolen cars, while improbable, was not impossible.

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