State v. Millan

Darren Madison and Lamarr Sands were estranged former friends who saw each other at a motel where they were both coincidentally staying. Madison and Sands began arguing, and Madison left the motel, indicating that he would return with some of his friends. Sands’s friend Jeffrey Smith was present during the argument. Smith stayed at the motel out of concern that Sands would be outnumbered in a fight if Madison returned with others. Later that night Madison returned to the motel with a few friends, including Cristobal Millan (defendant), whom Madison had picked up from his job as a stocker at a store. Millan had his work-issued box cutter in his back pocket. After Madison and his friends banged on Sands’s motel-room door and taunted Sands to come out, Sands emerged and began to fight with Madison. Smith warned Millan and the others not to intervene in the fight. Millan swung at Smith, but Smith punched Millan, and the two fought until they fell to the floor. Millan pulled out his box cutter. Millan told one of the other men to hit Smith with a chair. Smith ducked and avoided the chair but fell to the ground. Millan jumped on Smith and slashed him seven times around his head and torso, as Millan’s accomplice yelled at Millan to “cut his throat.” By this time the fight between Sands and Madison had ended. Millan stopped attacking Smith, and Madison, Millan, and Madison’s other friends left the motel. Smith was seriously wounded in the attack. Millan was eventually apprehended. Millan was convicted of first-degree assault for causing serious injury to Smith, and of conspiracy to commit first-degree assault for agreeing with the others to commit assault on Sands with a dangerous weapon. Millan appealed, alleging that there was insufficient evidence to support the conspiracy conviction.