Mecca Smith, Appellant-Defendant, v. State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff. (2026)

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Statement of the Case

[1] Mecca Smith appeals from his conviction of Level 3 felony armed robbery, asserting fundamental error in the admission of Smith's pre-Miranda identification information statements and subsequent Mirandized statements to a detective and alleging an error showing his status as a credit restricted felon in the abstract of judgment. After reviewing the issues presented, we find no fundamental error in the admission of Smith's statements, but we agree that Smith's abstract of judgment should be corrected. Thus, we affirm in part and remand in part with instructions.

Facts and Procedural History

[2] On February 18, 2025, Yeison Lezcano-Huete (“Lezcano”) listed a Samsung cell phone for sale on Facebook Marketplace under his account name “Nm Hades Hades.” Tr. Vol. II, pp. 83, 129. Lezcano was contacted by an individual, later identified as Smith, with the username “Mecca Overly,” who expressed interest in purchasing the phone. Id. at 83-84. The two arranged to meet at Smith's house on East Castle Avenue near the University of Indianapolis campus to complete the transaction. When Lezcano arrived, Smith emerged from between two houses and approached Lezcano's vehicle. Lezcano recognized Smith from his Facebook profile picture, which depicted Smith with several face tattoos. Lezcano remained in his vehicle with the window rolled down halfway as Smith approached the vehicle.

[3] Smith asked to see the phone, looked it over, turned it on, and instructed Lezcano to “go.” Id. at 90. Lezcano replied that Smith should either return the phone or pay for it. Smith did not pay for the phone. Instead, he retrieved a black handled seven-inch knife with a shiny blade from his waistband, held it approximately eight inches from Lezcano's face, and threated, “Go or [I'll] kill you.” Id. at 90-91, 95-96. Lezcano believed that Smith would cut his throat, so he quickly drove away. While doing so, he looked in his driver's side mirror and saw Smith running to a parking lot behind the Castle Avenue house. Lezcano drove to a different parking lot and called the police. He later provided the police with a photograph of Smith from Mecca Overly's Facebook profile.

[4] Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Detective Keith Ortega investigated the robbery two days later. While canvassing the area for surveillance cameras, he realized that one of the people he spoke with was Smith's mother. Smith's father was also present and identified 1508 East Castle Avenue as their home address. Detective Ortega was still canvassing the neighborhood when he observed a silver Ford Explorer with a personalized license plate bearing the word “Mecca” pull up to the back of the Smiths’ residence. Id. at 101. He ran the license plate information and learned that the vehicle was registered to Smith. He realized that Smith was the potential robbery suspect who might live at the Smiths’ residence.

[5] After requesting backup, Detective Ortega knocked on the front door of the Smiths’ house. Smith opened the door. Law enforcement officers detained him and transported him to the City County Building for an interview. Meanwhile, Detective Ortega obtained a search warrant for the residence. He recovered an iPhone with a green and black case from a basket in Smith's brother's closet. He also recovered a knife with a black handle and silver blade which was wrapped in a paper towel in a drawer. The placement of the knife in that location and in that manner seemed out of place.

[6] When Detective Ortega arrived at the City County Building, he gathered Smith's contact information. During that time, the two talked about where they had grown up and where they had worked. Smith told the detective that he did not have a home address and slept at the Wheeler Mission. He said that he could be contacted at his phone number 765-374-9052 and offered that he did not have social media accounts.

[7] Detective Ortega provided an advice of rights form and read it to Smith. Smith signed the form acknowledging his waiver of rights and indicated that he did not wish to have a lawyer present. Smith then gave a statement to police. He denied using Facebook but admitted that he had an Instagram account handle of gye.mecster42. He told the detective that he had an iPhone with a green and black case.

[8] Detective Ortega obtained a search warrant to download the data from the iPhone recovered during the search of the Smiths’ house. The phone number associated with the phone was 765-374-9052, which was the same number Smith provided. He also obtained a search warrant for the Facebook profile of Mecca Overly and took a screen shot of the profile which showed a picture of Smith and an associated Instagram account handle of “gye.mecster42” connected to the Mecca Overly Facebook account. Id. at 111-12. The data extracted from the cell phone revealed accounts logged into on the iPhone which included: a Tinder account for “Mecca”; a Facebook Messenger account for “Mecca Overly”; a Facebook account for “Mecca Overly”; several Google accounts and a Venmo account for “Mecca Smith”; a Snapchat account for “mecster”; and an Instagram account for “mecster” which was similar to the username Smith previously admitted belonged to him when he told the detective he had no other social media accounts. Id. at 116-17.

[9] The iPhone also contained a message thread between “Mecca Overly” and “Nm Hades Hades” concerning the purchase of the Samsung phone. Id. at 117-20. The last message between the two was on February 8, 2025, at 12:45 p.m. The iPhone revealed several searches that day between 12:39 p.m. and 1:09 p.m., including: “[s]amsung s24 ultra”; “phone stores near me”; “pawn shop near me”; and “phone stores within 1 mile.” Id. at 120; Exhibit Vol. I Electronic, pp. 69-72 (State's Exhibit 19). The Samsung S24 phone was not recovered.

[10] The State charged Smith with Level 3 felony armed robbery. At trial, Smith stipulated that the phone number of the phone recovered during the search was 765-374-9052 and stipulated to the admission of all the information extracted from the iPhone associated with that number. And he did not object to the admission or playing of any portion of his interview with Detective Ortega. On October 9, 2025, the jury found Smith guilty as charged. The trial court sentenced Smith to nine years in the Department of Correction (DOC) followed by two years on community corrections home detention. The abstract of judgment was sent to the DOC the same day. Smith now appeals.

Discussion and Decision

I. Fundamental Error Claim

[11] Smith did not object to the admission of his recorded interview with Detective Ortega. Thus, Smith contends that the trial court committed fundamental error by admitting the interview, beginning with his pre-Miranda statements. He contends that his interview as whole is inadmissible because law enforcement officers interrogated him before administering his Miranda warnings.

[12] “Fundamental error is an exception to the general rule that a party's failure to object at trial results in a waiver of the issue on appeal.” Kelly v. State, 122 N.E.3d 803, 805 (Ind. 2019). “A fundamental error is one that ‘make[s] a fair trial impossible or constitute[s] a clearly blatant violation of basic and elementary principles of due process presenting an undeniable and substantial potential for harm.’ ” Id. (quoting Durden v. State, 99 N.E.3d 645, 652 (Ind. 2018) (internal citations and quotations omitted)). “This exception is very narrow and includes only errors so blatant that the trial judge should have acted independently to correct the situation.” Kelly, 122 N.E.3d at 805. “Further, ‘merely because the error relates to a violation of a constitutional right does not, in and of itself, render it fundamental error requiring [an appellate court to] consider the matter absent an objection at trial.’ ” Id. at 805-06 (quoting Wilson v. State, 514 N.E.2d 282, 284 (Ind. 1987)).

[13] Smith argues that Detective Ortega was required to advise him of his Miranda ¹ rights prior to asking for his contact information. The State agrees that Smith was in custody and that the procedural safeguards of Miranda applied to him by virtue of being in custody. The question here is whether Detective Ortega's six-minute conversation with Smith during which he obtained identification information prior to Smith receiving his Miranda advisement constituted interrogation by law enforcement. We conclude that it did not.

[14] “Miranda safeguards come into play whenever a person in custody is subjected to either express questioning or its functional equivalent.” Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 300-01 (1980). “ ‘Interrogation,’ as conceptualized in the Miranda opinion, must reflect a measure of compulsion above and beyond that inherent in custody itself.” Id. at 300. “The term ‘interrogation’ for purposes of Miranda analysis includes both express questioning and words or actions that, given the officer's knowledge of any special susceptibilities of the interviewee, the officer should know are reasonably likely to have the force of a question on the person being questioned.” Loving v. State, 647 N.E.2d 1123, 1126 (Ind. 1995) (citing Pennsylvania v Muniz, 496 U.S. 582, 600-01 (1990)). “However, routine administrative questions such as name, address, height, and weight, regardless whether considered within a ‘routine booking exception’ or whether deemed ‘not testimonial’ are removed from the requirements of Miranda.” Loving, 647 N.E.2d at 1126. And we have held that an officer's questions regarding the defendant's address are routine identification questions even though the defendant's answer was ultimately incriminating. Matheny v. State, 983 N.E.2d 672, 678 (Ind. Ct. App. 2013), aff'd on reh'g, 987 N.E.2d 1169 (Ind. Ct. App. 2013), trans. denied.

[15] An appellate court must look at the totality of the circumstances to “determine if police action is intended to undermine the protections set forth in Miranda.” Castillo-Aguilar v. State, 962 N.E.2d 667, 671 (Ind. Ct. App. 2012). Here, Detective Ortega asked Smith for his address and learned that he slept at the Wheeler Mission. Because of Smith's transient residency, the detective's following inquiries about Smith's name, age, phone number, email address, name of his school, and social media, were appropriate preliminary questions to gather identifying information not subject to Miranda advisements. All of that identifying information was important for maintaining contact with Smith. And as in Matheny, the routine question about Smith's phone number was proper and did not run afoul of Miranda, even though that number later proved to be incriminating. Id. Looking at the totality of the circumstances, we conclude that the trial court did not commit fundamental error in admitting Smith's pre-Miranda statements.

[16] Smith's argument with the admission of the post-Miranda statements is that: “(1) Detective Ortega employed deception in obtaining pre-warning incriminating statements from Smith; and (2) [w]ithout Smith's pre- and post-warning statements, the police lacked probable cause to be able to extract data from the phone found in the Smith home.” Appellant's Br. p. 17.

[17] It is true that “any evidence that the accused was threatened, tricked, or cajoled into a waiver will, of course, show that the defendant did not voluntarily waive his privilege.” Miranda, 384 U.S. at 476. Here, however, the record reveals that after the brief exchange with Smith during which the detective gathered Smith's identifying information, Detective Ortega read the advice of rights form to Smith and provided a copy of it for Smith to use to read along. Smith indicated that he understood each of the enumerated rights, agreed that he had not been pressured or coerced in any way, agreed to waive those rights, and signed the form. Detective Ortega then explained the nature of the allegation against him.

[18] Smith answered all of Detective Ortega's questions, which were not aggressive in nature. And the post-Miranda interview lasted approximately fifteen minutes. Detective Ortega did not make any promises of leniency, threaten Smith, or engage in physical violence toward Smith. In sum, there was nothing improper in Detective Ortega's presentation of Smith's rights. See Malloch v. State, 980 N.E.2d 887, 889-90 (Ind. Ct. App. 2012) (where Miranda warning was read, defendant acknowledged that he understood them, had no questions about them, and wished to waive them was sufficient), trans. denied.

[19] Smith further argues that Detective Ortega used his pre-Miranda statements to support his request for a search warrant to extract data from the phone collected at the Smiths’ house. Detective Ortega learned from Smith's pre-Miranda statements that he had a phone number and what that number was. However, Smith's post-Miranda statements were the source of the information that his iPhone had a green and black case. Smith's voluntary statements to the detective after he was Mirandized connected him to the green and black iPhone seized during the search. Because there was no deception involved in the pre-Miranda interview segment such that the pre- and/or post-Miranda statements should be excluded, we conclude that Smith's voluntary provision of information which turned out to be incriminating does not run afoul of Smith's Fifth Amendment rights.

[20] We conclude that Smith has not demonstrated fundamental error in the trial court's decision to admit Smith's pre- and post-Miranda statements into evidence.

II. Abstract of Judgment

[21] Next, Smith contends that the abstract of judgment incorrectly reflects that he is a credit restricted felon. The State concedes that Smith is correct. Based on our independent review of the issue, we agree that this matter should be remanded for a correction of Smith's abstract of judgment.

[22] Our General Assembly has defined a “credit restricted felon” as “a person who has been convicted of at least one (1) of the following offenses” including, child molesting involving sexual intercourse, deviate sexual conduct, or other sexual conduct, child molesting resulting in serious bodily injury or death, or murder in certain circumstances. See Ind. Code § 35-31.5-2-72 (2014). “At the time of sentencing, a court shall determine whether a person is a credit restricted felon.” Ind. Code § 35-38-1-7.8(a) (2012). That determination must be based on evidence admitted at trial, introduced at the sentencing hearing, or in the factual basis provided as part of a guilty plea as to the status. Ind. Code § 35-38-1-7.8(b) (2012). When the determination is made that a defendant is a credit restricted felon, the court “shall advise the defendant of the consequences of this determination.” Ind. Code § 35-38-1-7.8(c) (2012).

[23] Here, the court determined that Smith was a serious violent felon. However, the court did not make the determination that Smith was a credit restricted felon at the sentencing hearing. And the court did not advise Smith of the consequences of such a determination. Neither the trial court's sentencing statement nor the sentencing order reflect that Smith has been determined to have that status. And a review of his criminal history does not include any convictions that would serve as qualifying offenses under the statute. Because the abstract of judgment erroneously reflects that status, we must remand the matter to the trial court to correct this scrivener's error.

Conclusion

[24] We conclude that Smith has not established fundamental error in the trial court's admission of his pre- and post-Miranda statements to law enforcement. But we also conclude that the trial court's scrivener's error reflected in the abstract of judgment must be corrected to remove the erroneous notation that Smith is a credit restricted felon. Consequently, we affirm in part and remand in part with instructions.

[25] Affirmed and remanded.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).

Baker, Senior Judge.

Tavitas, C.J., and Bradford, J., concur