Corroborating an Accomplice with Forensic and Digital Evidence; “Any Person” in First‑Degree Battery Includes Unintended Victims

Introduction

In Justin Mays v. State of Arkansas, 2025 Ark. 25, the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed convictions for capital murder, two counts of terroristic act, and first-degree battery arising from a pre-dawn highway shooting between occupants of a black Dodge Charger and a red Ford Mustang. The case centers on whether the State produced substantial evidence—direct and circumstantial—to support that Mays either fired at, or acted as an accomplice to someone who fired at, the Mustang, killing backseat occupant Kindelyn Roberts; and whether evidence supported the terroristic-act and first-degree-battery counts tied to other victims.

The appeal presented three sufficiency challenges:

• Capital murder under the “drive-by” provision (Ark. Code Ann. § 5-10-101(a)(10));
• Two counts of terroristic act (Ark. Code Ann. § 5-13-310(a)(1)) against the driver and another passenger of the Mustang;
• First-degree battery (Ark. Code Ann. § 5-13-201(a)(8)) for injury to Mays’s associate, Dalvin Howard, inside the Charger.

The Supreme Court, applying the well-settled substantial-evidence standard and Arkansas’s accomplice-liability and corroboration rules, held that forensic trajectory analysis, digital evidence (license-plate reader and hospital video), physical evidence, and Mays’s own admissions corroborated the driver’s testimony identifying Mays as the shooter. The Court also applied the “any person” language in the first-degree-battery statute to an unintended victim—the shooter’s own cohort—injured by bullet fragmentation.

Summary of the Opinion

Chief Justice Karen R. Baker, writing for a unanimous Court (with one justice not participating), affirmed all convictions. The Court concluded:

• Capital murder: There was substantial evidence that Mays, from the front passenger seat of the Charger, purposely fired at the occupied Mustang and caused Roberts’s death under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life. Even if Mays were not the shooter, the evidence was sufficient to convict him as an accomplice.
• Terroristic act: Evidence overwhelmingly supported that Mays, as shooter or accomplice, shot at an occupied conveyance (the Mustang) with purpose to cause injury or property damage.
• First-degree battery: The State proved that, with the purpose of causing physical injury to another person (the Mustang’s occupants), Mays caused physical injury “to any person”—here, Howard—by means of a firearm, when a bullet fragment penetrated the Charger’s roof and struck Howard.
• Accomplice corroboration: Even assuming the driver (Hughes) was an accomplice, independent evidence—including ballistic trajectory, LPR data, hospital surveillance, and Mays’s admission about his seating position—tended to connect Mays to the offenses, satisfying Ark. Code Ann. § 16-89-111(e).

The Court also noted prior remand to supplement missing jury verdict forms (Mays v. State, 2024 Ark. 160) and conducted the Rule 4-3(a) review, finding no additional prejudicial error. The judgment was affirmed, leaving in place Mays’s sentence of life imprisonment without parole plus ten years (four firearm-use enhancements running concurrently).

Analysis

Precedents and Statutes Cited and Their Role

• Substantial-evidence review and circumstantial proof:
  • Edmond v. State, 351 Ark. 495, 95 S.W.3d 789 (2003): Confirms that appellate courts view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, considering only evidence that supports it, and will affirm if substantial evidence exists.
  • Dortch v. State, 2018 Ark. 135, 544 S.W.3d 518: Defines substantial evidence as that which compels a conclusion without speculation or conjecture.
  • Drennan v. State, 2018 Ark. 328, 559 S.W.3d 262: Reinforces that the jury resolves credibility and conflicts in the evidence.
  • Carmichael v. State, 340 Ark. 598, 12 S.W.3d 225 (2000): In circumstantial-evidence cases, whether the evidence excludes other reasonable hypotheses is a jury question.
  These cases collectively framed the deferential lens through which the Court reviewed Mays’s sufficiency arguments.
• Accomplice liability:
  • Ark. Code Ann. § 5-2-403(a)(1)–(2): Defines accomplice liability for one who, with purpose of promoting or facilitating the offense, solicits, encourages, or aids another in committing it.
  • Gilcrease v. State, 2009 Ark. 298, 318 S.W.3d 70: Identifies factors—presence, opportunity, and association suggestive of joint participation—to infer accomplice status.
  • Price v. State, 2019 Ark. 323, 588 S.W.3d 1: No distinction between principals and accomplices in criminal liability; each is liable for the conduct of both when they assist one another.
  These authorities undergird the Court’s alternative holding that even if Mays were not the shooter, his conduct and position made him criminally responsible as an accomplice.
• Accomplice corroboration (felony cases):
  • Ark. Code Ann. § 16-89-111(e)(1)(A)–(B): A felony conviction cannot rest solely on accomplice testimony; corroboration is required and must be more than proof of the crime’s occurrence.
  • MacKool v. State, 365 Ark. 416, 231 S.W.3d 676 (2006): Corroboration must be substantive and tend to connect the accused with the crime, but need not be sufficient to support a conviction by itself; circumstantial corroboration is permissible if substantial.
  The State used independent, non-accomplice evidence—ballistics, positioning, LPR, and video—to meet this threshold.
• Substantive offenses:
  • Capital murder (drive-by provision): Ark. Code Ann. § 5-10-101(a)(10) (Supp. 2021): Purposely discharging a firearm from a vehicle at a person or an occupied vehicle, thereby causing death under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life.
  • Terroristic act: Ark. Code Ann. § 5-13-310(a)(1) (Repl. 2013): Shooting at or projecting an object at an occupied or operating conveyance with purpose to cause injury or property damage, while not engaged in a lawful act.
  • First-degree battery (firearm): Ark. Code Ann. § 5-13-201(a)(8) (Repl. 2023): With purpose of causing physical injury to another person, causing physical injury to any person by means of a firearm.
  The Court applied these provisions to the facts adduced at trial.

Legal Reasoning Applied to the Evidence

1) Capital Murder

The crux of the capital-murder analysis was whether the State showed that Mays, as principal or accomplice, purposely discharged a firearm from the Charger at the occupied Mustang, causing Roberts’s death under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference.

The State’s theory rested largely on driver Ty-Shun Hughes’s testimony that:

• Mays directed Hughes to follow and pass the Mustang leaving a gas station;
• As the Charger pulled alongside, Mays leaned out of the front passenger window and fired a Glock with an extended magazine at the Mustang;
• Howard, seated behind the driver, was injured contemporaneously.

Treating Hughes as an accomplice for corroboration purposes, the Court collected independent evidence “tending to connect” Mays to the crime:

• Mays’s admission: He acknowledged to police that he was the front-seat passenger in the Charger at the time (placing him exactly where the shooter would reasonably be positioned).
• Ballistic trajectory evidence: Arkansas State Police Sergeant Jacks and Special Agent Bray used probes/rods to analyze bullet holes in the Charger and Mustang, concluding shots were fired from the front-passenger side of the Charger toward the Mustang. The Mustang exhibited seventeen bullet strikes almost entirely along its passenger side, with no apparent bullet holes on the driver’s side—consistent with the State’s account and inconsistent with Mays’s claim that the Mustang initiated the gunfire.
• Digital proximity evidence: A license-plate reader placed the Mustang and the Charger within seconds of each other heading toward the interstate, corroborating Hughes’s sequence of events. Hospital video confirmed Mays exiting from the front-passenger seat and assisting the wounded Howard, further supporting the seating-configuration testimony.
• Physical/scene evidence: Troopers observed no firearms in the Mustang or on its occupants when they arrived, undermining Mays’s account that the Mustang shot at the Charger.

Against this evidentiary backdrop and through the deferential substantial-evidence lens, the jury could reasonably find that Mays purposely discharged a firearm from a vehicle at an occupied vehicle, causing death. The number and placement of bullet strikes, the trajectory analysis, and the seating position supplied the “extreme indifference” circumstances. On this record, the Court held that the evidence was sufficient to convict Mays as either the shooter or an accomplice.

2) Terroristic Act

The State needed to establish that someone (Mays or his accomplice) shot at an occupied conveyance with the purpose to cause injury or property damage. The Court pointed back to the same cluster of corroborated facts: the purposeful pursuit and passing of the Mustang, Mays’s leaning and firing from the front passenger window, and the concentration of bullet impacts on the Mustang’s passenger side. That evidence was more than adequate for a rational jury to infer the requisite purpose. Thus, the Court affirmed both terroristic-act convictions for the driver (Lockhart) and passenger (Dosty).

3) First-Degree Battery

The battery statute at issue requires (i) the purpose of causing physical injury to another person and (ii) causing physical injury to any person by means of a firearm. The Court’s application underscores two important points:

• The “purpose” element attaches to the defendant’s aim to injure “another person”—it need not be the same person who is actually injured.
• The statute’s “any person” clause permits liability when an unintended victim—including an associate or bystander—is injured by the gunfire.

Here, while Mays attempted to injure the Mustang’s occupants, one of the bullets fired from the Charger penetrated the Charger’s roof, fragmenting and injuring Howard. That factual chain satisfied the statute as written: the purposeful shooting to injure others, coupled with actual injury to “any person” by a firearm. The Court therefore affirmed the first-degree-battery conviction.

What This Opinion Clarifies and Reinforces

• Corroboration can be built on forensic and digital evidence: Under § 16-89-111(e), corroboration must tend to connect the defendant to the crime. The Court accepted ballistic trajectory analysis, LPR data, hospital surveillance, scene photographs, and the defendant’s own admission about seat location as substantive corroboration. This clarifies that modern, technology-driven evidence can independently satisfy the corroboration requirement without eyewitnesses other than an accomplice.
• “Any person” in first-degree battery is broad: The opinion applies the statutory language to unintended victims within the shooter’s own vehicle, confirming that the statute does not limit the injured person to the target of the shooter’s purpose. This is particularly salient in vehicular shootouts, where ricochets or fragmentation commonly injure non-targets.
• Accomplice-principal equivalence continues to matter: The Court again stresses that under Arkansas law there is no liability distinction between principals and accomplices (Price). In a joint-venture shooting from a vehicle, either participant can be convicted for the acts of the other.

Complex Concepts Simplified

• Substantial evidence: This isn’t about proof beyond all doubt; it’s evidence strong enough that a reasonable person, without speculating, would reach the same conclusion. On appeal, courts don’t reweigh evidence or judge credibility—that was the jury’s job.
• Accomplice liability: You can be guilty of a crime even if you didn’t personally pull the trigger. If you purposely helped, encouraged, or facilitated the crime, you are treated the same as the person who carried it out.
• Accomplice corroboration rule: Arkansas does not allow a felony conviction based solely on testimony from an accomplice. There must be some independent evidence—like physical or digital forensics—that connects the defendant to the crime. That extra evidence can be circumstantial, and it does not have to be enough to convict by itself.
• Drive-by capital murder (Ark. Code Ann. § 5-10-101(a)(10)): Purposely shooting from a vehicle at an occupied vehicle or person and causing death, under circumstances showing extreme disregard for life (e.g., a barrage of bullets on a highway).
• Terroristic act (Ark. Code Ann. § 5-13-310(a)(1)): Not terrorism in the colloquial sense; it criminalizes shooting at an occupied or operating vehicle with the purpose to injure or damage.
• First-degree battery (firearm) and the “any person” clause: The State must prove the defendant acted with a purpose to injure someone, but the actual person injured can be anyone—including a friend or accomplice—so long as the injury is inflicted by means of a firearm.
• Ballistic trajectory analysis: Investigators insert rods or probes into bullet holes to determine the angle and direction of shots. Consistent angles across multiple strikes can pinpoint where shots originated (for example, from the front passenger side of a car).
• License-plate reader (LPR) evidence: Automated cameras log vehicle passages by time and location. When two cars appear seconds apart on a path toward the crime scene, it can corroborate pursuit or proximity.

Potential Impact and Practical Takeaways

• Evidentiary playbook for corroboration: Prosecutors can rely on a mosaic of forensic trajectory, LPR logs, and surveillance video to corroborate accomplice testimony. The opinion validates such evidence as “substantive” under § 16-89-111(e).
• Charging and jury-instruction strategies: In vehicular shootings with multiple victims, separate counts for capital murder (for the deceased) and terroristic acts (for survivors) are supported where evidence shows purposeful shooting at an occupied conveyance. Jury instructions on accomplice liability and the corroboration rule remain pivotal.
• First-degree battery scope in crossfire cases: The “any person” clause gives prosecutors flexibility to charge injuries to unintended victims—even within the shooter’s own vehicle—where the shooter’s purpose was to injure others. Defense counsel should address this statutory breadth when advising clients and framing trial strategy.
• Appellate posture in “who shot first” disputes: Because Arkansas appellate courts view evidence favorably to the verdict and let juries resolve competing hypotheses (Carmichael), defendants face an uphill battle when physical forensics point to the defendant’s gunfire and no defense firearm is found on the supposed aggressors.
• Record preservation: This case also serves as a procedural reminder—omissions like missing verdict forms prompt remand to supplement the record (see 2024 Ark. 160). Appellate counsel should audit records carefully before lodging an appeal.

Conclusion

Justin Mays v. State of Arkansas is a thorough reaffirmation—and practical application—of core Arkansas doctrines on sufficiency review, accomplice liability, and the corroboration requirement. The Court’s analysis highlights that modern forensic and digital tools (ballistic trajectory, LPR entries, surveillance video) can independently link a defendant to crimes, satisfying § 16-89-111(e)’s corroboration bar even when a key witness may be an accomplice. The opinion also provides a clear, text-driven reading of Ark. Code Ann. § 5-13-201(a)(8): a shooter’s purpose to injure “another person” will support first-degree battery where the firearm inflicts injury on “any person,” including an unintended victim within the shooter’s own vehicle.

In the broader legal context, the decision underscores how juries may synthesize physical forensics and digital breadcrumbs to resolve credibility and intent in fast-moving vehicular shooting cases. It confirms that the “drive-by” capital murder statute applies squarely to highway shootouts, and that terroristic-act charges appropriately address the purposeful firing at occupied vehicles. For practitioners, the case offers a roadmap for evidentiary corroboration and a cautionary note on the expansive reach of firearm-based battery when gunfire unpredictably harms unintended victims.