Background

• On March 11, 2009, Gary Holmes was shot and killed when a masked shooter fired through the front door of BJ’s convenience store; another customer was seriously injured.
• Surveillance and multiple eyewitnesses observed the shooting; the shooter wore a black hoodie and ski mask and fired about 15 shots.
• Dontia Bullard testified he saw Akeem R. Jones (known as "Grimey") walk toward BJ’s shortly before the shooting and return to a nearby red car carrying a gun and ski mask after the shots.
• Tysheonna Anthony, Jamie Romaine Pace, and Syerra Chatmon testified about Jones’s behavior that day: Jones was upset after a prior encounter at BJ’s, had a gun and ski mask, changed clothes in an alley, left in a red car with Maxwell Griffey, later returned to an apartment, confessed to Anthony that he had gone back to BJ’s and shot two men, showed her a 9-mm, and burned clothes outside the apartment.
• Fire department records show a smoldering mattress/fire near the apartment complex at 2:25 p.m. the day of the shooting; Griffey (who drove the red car) was later killed in 2009.
• Jones did not testify; his sole defense witness placed the shooter running northwest from BJ’s (a point Jones relied on to challenge identification). Jones was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment and appealed, arguing insufficient evidence of identity.

Issues

Key Cases Cited

• State v. Olbricht, 294 Neb. 974 (2016) (standard for sufficiency review: evidence reviewed in light most favorable to prosecution)
• State v. Rocha, 295 Neb. 716 (2017) (appellate courts do not resolve credibility conflicts or reweigh evidence)