Antwone Ervin, Appellant-Defendant v. State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff (2026)

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Case Summary

[1] Antwone Ervin appeals his conviction for murder, following a jury trial. He challenges three evidentiary rulings but, finding that any error in the admission of those three exhibits was harmless, we affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

[2] On the morning of March 24, 2023, Ervin was at his residence with his uncle, Craig Hicks. Brian Williams, a longtime friend of Hicks, came over to the residence to sell marijuana to Ervin. Williams gave Ervin the marijuana, and Hicks went to the bathroom because he was ill from drinking alcohol the night before. While in the bathroom, Hicks did not hear any argument or raised voices, but he heard what sounded like firecrackers. When he came out of the bathroom, Hicks did not see Ervin but saw Williams lying on the living room floor. Williams told Hicks to call 9-1-1. Hicks went into the hallway to make the 9-1-1 call and, when he returned to the living room, Williams was gone, and the back door was open.

[3] That same day, Calvin Gathers, Ervin's neighbor, heard someone banging on his back door. He went to the door and saw Williams sitting on the step with a bleeding head. Williams said, “Call 9-1-1. The neighbor shot me.” Tr. v. 3 at 19. Gathers called 9-1-1, informed Williams that he had done so, and went back into the house to check on his daughter. While in the house, he heard multiple gunshots. Gathers returned to his back door, but Williams was no longer there.

[4] Police arrived on the scene and found Williams lying in the Gathers's front yard with gunshot wounds. Police spoke with Hicks, who stated that Ervin had shot Williams and left the scene in a red Camaro. Williams was transported to the hospital, where he later died from multiple gunshot wounds. Several of the entrance wounds indicated that the bullets had entered Williams's body from the back.

[5] Sometime that same afternoon, Ryan Eakle, a Hoosier Helper incident response technician who was patrolling I-465, noticed a red Camaro with a flat tire on the shoulder and stopped to assist. Ervin exited the car and told Eakle he had run out of gas and had a flat tire. As Eakle was assisting, another car pulled up, and Ervin got in that car and left. Eakle saw a magazine of ammunition in the driver's side door of the Camaro, so he called dispatch to contact the police. The police later discovered a loaded Glock “23 GEN5” .40 caliber gun under the driver's seat, and a magazine of ammunition in the driver's side door. Tr. v. 3 at 13. During a subsequent search of Ervin's house, police found an empty box for a Glock pistol along with unused ammunition in Ervin's bedroom.

[6] Footage from a surveillance camera at a property near Ervin's residence captured the sound of three gunshots on March 24 and video of a red Camero leaving Ervin's house seconds later. Six fired cartridge casings were recovered from the scene, and several fired bullets were recovered from Williams's body; forensic testing confirmed that all six casings, and one of the bullets recovered from Williams's body were fired from the gun recovered from underneath the driver's seat of Ervin's red Camero.¹

[7] On March 25, 2023, Ervin turned himself in to police and, in a recorded interview, admitted to shooting Williams. Ervin admitted that he shot Williams in the house, saw Williams scale the fence into the neighbor's yard, shot Williams twice more in the neighbor's yard, and then fled the scene in his red Camero.

[8] The State charged Ervin with murder. Ervin's jury trial was held from May 19 to May 21, 2025. At trial, the State sought to admit into evidence a portion of footage from a responding officer's body camera which captured the officer arriving upon the scene and rendering aid to Williams. Ervin objected to the admission of that video and two still photos taken from that video on the grounds that they were irrelevant and that the large amount of Williams’ blood that was depicted would have a prejudicial effect on the jury. The State argued the exhibits were relevant to show Williams's physical state after the shooting and his location in relation to the Gathers's house. The exhibits were admitted over Ervin's objections.

[9] Ervin testified on his own behalf at trial. He said he had met Williams on two occasions prior to March 24, 2023, when he purchased marijuana from Williams. On one of those occasions, Williams made a comment that Ervin “felt was demeaning.” Tr. v. 4 at 11. On the other occasion, Ervin and Williams had a dispute about the method of payment for the marijuana.

[10] Ervin admitted that Williams came to his house and sold him marijuana on March 24, 2023. He further testified that Williams had received a phone call while at Ervin's house and answered it by speaker phone. Ervin heard the person on the phone ask Williams, “Got his location? Got his location?” Tr. v. 3 at 244. The phone call made Ervin feel “threatened, like [Williams] was threatening me without tryna tell me he's threatening me.” Id. Ervin stated that Williams had also shown him “multiple pictures of guns” on Williams's phone, which made Ervin “[un]comfortable.” Tr. v. 4 at 2. Ervin therefore went to his bedroom, retrieved his gun, and placed it in his hoodie pocket “where [the bulge of it] could be seen.” Id.

[11] Ervin then went back into the living room and attempted to pay Williams by CashApp but accidentally sent the money to his mother instead. Ervin said Williams told him, “[You] better figure it out,” and Ervin responded, “You acting like ․ I can't pay tomorrow.” Id. at 7. Ervin testified that Williams then “got in [his] face” and struck him in his jaw, causing Ervin to fall down. Id. Ervin then saw Williams “mak[e] a[n] aggressive face” and “pursue” Ervin. Id. at 9. Ervin said he “expected” that Williams had a gun on his person. Id. at 13. Ervin then pulled out his gun and shot Williams.

[12] Ervin testified that he went to his car to leave but realized he had forgotten his key. When he turned back toward the house to get his key, he saw Williams jump over the fence into the neighbor's back yard. Ervin went into the house, retrieved his key, went back to his car, and then noticed that Williams's car was blocking Ervin's car in the driveway. Ervin then decided to go to the neighbor's house “until the police came” or “to get help.” Id. at 16. Ervin fled in the same direction Williams had gone, toward the neighbor's back yard. Ervin stated that he then saw Williams in the neighbor's yard, and Williams had an “angry, aggressive face.” Id. at 20. Ervin saw Williams “reaching for ․ his midline or his pocket” and then doing “a crazy type of swing,” which “caused [Ervin] to step back and withdraw [his] weapon.” Id. Ervin then shot Williams again, ran back to his car, and drove away—scraping Willliams's car as he did so.

[13] On cross examination, Ervin admitted that he never saw Williams with a gun and that Williams did not have one that day. Ervin testified that he was honest with the police when he voluntarily spoke with them on March 25, the day after the shootings. And he admitted that, at that time, he did not tell the police about the following alleged facts to which he had testified in court: the phone calls Williams took, the pictures of guns Williams showed him, or that he felt threatened by the calls and the pictures; that there was a problem with his payment to Williams or that Williams had told Ervin in a threatening manner to “figure out” how to pay him, id. at 36; that Williams had struck him or caused him to fall down; that Ervin had gone into the neighbor's yard because he was trying to get to safety to wait for police; or that Ervin had “expected” that Williams had a gun even though Ervin had never seen one. He further admitted that he shook his head “no” when the detective had asked him during the March 25 interview whether Williams “g[o]t physical” with Ervin. Id. at 40.

[14] The jury found Ervin guilty of murder, and the court sentenced him to fifty-one years in prison. This appeal ensued.

Discussion and Decision

[15] Ervin asserts that his murder conviction must be reversed because the trial court erred in admitting the State's three exhibits relating to the body camera video of a responding officer, which depicts Williams lying in the Gathers's front yard, wounded and bleeding. He contends those exhibits were inadmissible because their prejudicial effect outweighed their probative value under Indiana Rule of Evidence 403. However, we do not address that claim because, even assuming the exhibits were inadmissible, any error was harmless.

[16] We review the admission of evidence for an abuse of discretion. E.g., Halliburton v. State, 1 N.E.3d 670, 675 (Ind. 2013). But even if evidence is erroneously admitted, we will not reverse a conviction if the admission was harmless error. Ind. Appellate Rule 66(A).² When we must determine whether a non- constitutional error, such as the one here, is harmless, Rule 66(A)’s “probable impact test” controls. Hayko v. State, 211 N.E.3d 483, 492 (Ind. 2023).

Under this test, the party seeking relief bears the burden of demonstrating how, in light of all the evidence in the case, the error's probable impact undermines confidence in the outcome of the proceeding below. Importantly, this is not a review for the sufficiency of the remaining evidence; it is a review of what was presented to the trier of fact compared to what should have been presented. And when conducting that review, we consider the likely impact of the improperly admitted or excluded evidence on a reasonable, average jury in light of all the evidence in the case. Ultimately, the error's probable impact is sufficiently minor when—considering the entire record—our confidence in the outcome is not undermined.

Id. (citation modified). In conducting the harmless error analysis, we consider such factors as

the presence or absence of other, corroborating evidence on material points; whether the impermissibly admitted evidence was cumulative; the overall strength of the prosecution's case; the importance of the impermissible evidence in the prosecution's case; and the extent of cross-examination or questioning on the impermissibly admitted evidence.

Hall v. State, 177 N.E.3d 1183, 1197 (Ind. 2021) (citation modified).

[17] Here, the admission of the exhibits depicting Williams's wounded body immediately after the shootings likely had little, if any, effect on the jury's verdict given the overwhelming evidence that Ervins murdered Williams. Ervins admitted that he shot Williams multiple times, which led to Williams's death, and the State presented an abundance of evidence corroborating Ervins’ admission, such as the facts that the casings recovered at the scene and one of the bullets recovered from Williams's body were fired from the gun recovered from Ervin's car that same day.

[18] However, at trial, Ervin claimed his shooting of Williams was justifiable, as it was done in self-defense.³ But it is within the province of the jury to determine whether the defendant's evidence supporting a claim of self-defense was believable, unbelievable, or sufficient to warrant the use of force, Ault v. State, 950 N.E.2d 326, 328 (Ind. Ct. App. 2011), trans. denied, and whether the State met its burden of negating the claim of self-defense, e.g., Quinn v. State, 126 N.E.3d 924, 927 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019). On appeal, we do not reweigh the evidence or judge witness credibility, and we only look at the evidence most favorable to the judgment. Hall v. State, 231 N.E.3d 868, (Ind. Ct. App. 2024), trans. denied.

[19] The only evidence in support of Ervin's self-defense claim is his own self-serving trial testimony, which was admittedly inconsistent with his recorded statement to police the day after the shootings. In the latter statement, Ervin did not mention any of the facts upon which he based his self-defense claim at trial. For example, the day after the shootings, he did not tell police that he felt threatened by Williams, that Williams had hit him, or that he “expected” that Williams had a gun, Tr. v. 4 at 13; in fact, Ervin shook his head “no” when asked if Williams ever “g[o]t physical” with him, id. at 40. Moreover, the evidence established that Ervin shot Williams multiple times, and two of those shots entered from Williams's back; those facts “undercut[ ] a claim of self-defense.” Cooper v. State, 854 N.E.2d 831, 838 (Ind. 2006).

[20] The jury was free to disbelieve Ervin's self-serving trial testimony, as it apparently did, and we are not free on appeal to reweigh the evidence or judge witness credibility, as Ervin seems to request. The probable impact of the admission of the exhibits depicting Williams's wounded body was sufficiently minor, given the overwhelming evidence that Ervin shot and killed Williams and did not do so in self-defense. Therefore, our confidence in the jury's verdict is not undermined by the admission of those exhibits, even if it was erroneous.

Conclusion

[21] Assuming—without deciding—that the challenged exhibits were admitted in error, any such error was harmless given its probable low impact on the jury in light of all the other evidence of Ervin's guilt. Therefore, we affirm.

[22] Affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   The remaining bullet fragments recovered from Williams's body were not suitable for analysis because they were hollow-point bullets which burst open when they made contact with the body.

2.   “No error or defect in any ruling or order or in anything done or omitted by the trial court or by any of the parties is ground for granting relief or reversal on appeal where its probable impact, in light of all the evidence in the case, is sufficiently minor so as not to affect the substantial rights of the parties.” App. R. 66(A).

3.   “A person is justified in using reasonable force against any other person to protect the person or a third person from what the person reasonably believes to be the imminent use of unlawful force.” Ind. Code § 35-41-3-2(c).

Bailey, Judge.

Vaidik, J., and Scheele, J., concur.