State v. Buckles

NOTICE: NOT FOR OFFICIAL PUBLICATION.
UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL
AND MAY BE CITED ONLY AS AUTHORIZED BY RULE.

IN THE
ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS
DIVISION ONE

STATE OF ARIZONA, Appellee,

v.

JOHNNIE B. BUCKLES, Appellant.1

No. 1 CA-CR 25-0291
FILED 06-09-2026

Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County
No. CR2024-147631-001
The Honorable Aryeh D. Schwartz, Judge

AFFIRMED

COUNSEL

Arizona Attorney General’s Office, Phoenix
By Anne Carmack
Counsel for Appellee

Maricopa County Public Defender’s Office, Phoenix
By Grahame McNevin
Counsel for Appellant

1 On the Court’s motion, the caption in this matter is amended to include

the defendant’s middle initial. This amended caption shall be used on any
future filings.
STATE v. BUCKLES
Decision of the Court

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Presiding Judge Daniel J. Kiley delivered the decision of the Court, in which
Judge D. Steven Williams and Judge Cynthia J. Bailey joined.

K I L E Y, Judge:

¶1 Johnnie Buckles appeals his conviction for attempt to commit
armed robbery. For the following reasons, we affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶2 We view the facts and all reasonable inferences in the light
most favorable to affirming Buckles’s conviction. State v. Haywood, 257 Ariz.
472, 475, ¶ 2 (App. 2024) (citation omitted).

¶3 In the early morning hours one day in October 2024, the
victim, a truck driver, pulled into a gas station to deliver fuel. After getting
out of his truck, he was approached by someone he later described as a
black man who was “about 40, 50 years old” wearing a gray shirt with black
sleeves, jeans, and a white hat. The man pointed a gun at the victim and
said, “Give me all you got.” The victim tried to grab the gun and the two
tussled briefly. The man then ran away, and the victim called the police.

¶4 Officers responded to the scene and obtained, from the victim,
a description of the suspect and the gun. Officer Ryan relayed the
description, but incorrectly stated that the suspect was wearing a black
shirt.

¶5 Officers Danford and Brice canvassed the area near the scene.
Seeing a “black male approximately in his 50s” wearing a gray shirt with
black sleeves walking away from the location of the gas station, they
detained him. The man identified himself as “Johnnie Buckles” and said
that he was staying at a nearby E-Z 8 Motel. In response to Officer Danford’s
questioning, Buckles denied being at the gas station that night.

¶6 Because the shirt Buckles was wearing did not match the
description provided by Officer Ryan, Officer Danford let him go.

¶7 Meanwhile, Officer Brice found a CO2 gun matching the
description given by the victim under some debris on the ground about 100
feet from where the officers stopped Buckles.

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STATE v. BUCKLES
Decision of the Court
¶8 Still at the scene, Officer Ryan reviewed video of the incident
obtained from the dash-cam of the victim’s truck and realized that he had
provided an incorrect description of the shirt the suspect was wearing. He
then relayed a corrected description.

¶9 Realizing that Buckles matched the corrected description,
Officer Danford notified others that he had made contact with the suspect
and that he was staying at the E-Z 8 Motel. Officer Ryan showed the victim
a photo lineup that included Buckles’s picture; the victim identified Buckles
as the man who had tried to rob him. Officers then arrested Buckles at the
motel.

¶10 Officers obtained Buckles’s DNA via a buccal swab, which
was then tested against DNA found on the CO2 gun and found to be a
match.2

¶11 Buckles was charged with one count of attempt to commit
armed robbery in violation of A.R.S. §§ 13-1001, -1904. He was tried in June
2025. At trial, the State presented the testimony of the victim, the
investigating officers, and the forensic experts, and showed the jurors the
dash-cam video from the victim’s truck. Additionally, a copy of Buckles’s
identification card was admitted as an exhibit. The document, which
reflected Buckles’s date of birth, established that he was 57 years old at the
time of the attempted robbery.

¶12 In his testimony about the attempted robbery, the victim
described the man who tried to rob him, but was not asked to make an in-
court identification of the defendant.

¶13 During his testimony, Officer Ryan was asked about the
photo lineup. After the first couple of questions, the defense objected,
saying, “[I]f the officer is going to testify that the victim identified Mr.
Buckles in a photo lineup, . . . [t]hat’s hearsay.”

¶14 In response, the State agreed not to ask Officer Ryan whether
the victim identified Buckles, offering instead to ask whether the officer
“showed [the victim] a photo lineup and as a result of that . . . [the police]
went to the E-Z 8 Motel.” Defense counsel objected, asserting that the State’s

2 As the criminalist later explained, the CO2 gun had four DNA profiles on

it, and Buckles was “260 quintillion times more likely . . . than random
unrelated people” to have contributed one of the four.

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STATE v. BUCKLES
Decision of the Court
proposal would necessarily “imply[] that the victim identified Mr.
Buckles.”

¶15 The court directed the State not to “elicit testimony from the
officer about a positive identification” but permitted the State to ask
“whether there was a lineup presented to the victim and then just jump to
what [the officer] did next.”

¶16 Officer Ryan then testified that he showed the victim a photo
lineup. When asked what he did next, he responded, “So officers had
located the individual that we used in the photo lineup.” Defense counsel
objected, and the court sustained the objection and ordered the jury to
disregard the statement.

¶17 At the next trial break, the defense moved for a mistrial,
arguing that Officer Ryan’s statement violated the court’s prior ruling. In
response, the State argued, for the first time, that the victim’s out-of-court
identification of Buckles was admissible as non-hearsay under Arizona
Rule of Evidence (“Rule”) 801(d)(1)(C). The court denied the mistrial
motion, saying “I . . . don’t believe that [Officer Ryan’s statement] was
hearsay” and that, in any event, it had given a curative instruction directing
the jurors to disregard the statement.

¶18 The State rested, and Buckles presented no evidence. After
closing arguments, the jury deliberated and convicted Buckles. During the
aggravation phase, the jury found that the State had not proven its
allegation that the conviction was “dangerous” for sentencing enhancement
purposes. See A.R.S. § 13-105(13).

¶19 Buckles was sentenced to 9 years’ imprisonment. He timely
appealed. We have jurisdiction pursuant to Article 6, Section 9, of the
Arizona Constitution and A.R.S. §§ 12-120.21, 13-4031, and 13-4033(A).

DISCUSSION

¶20 On appeal, Buckles argues that the superior court erred in
denying his motion for a mistrial.

¶21 In determining whether a mistrial was warranted, “we look
to (1) whether the jury heard what it should not hear, and (2) the probability
that what it heard influenced it.” State v. Bolivar, 250 Ariz. 213, 224, ¶ 34
(App. 2020) (citation modified).

¶22 Courts have long recognized that the denial of a motion for a
mistrial is reviewed for abuse of discretion. See, e.g., id. at 220, ¶ 18. Buckles

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STATE v. BUCKLES
Decision of the Court
insists, however, that we owe “less deference” to the superior court’s ruling
here because “the circumstances giving rise to the motion for mistrial were
caused by the State.” In support of his position, Buckles cites State v.
Dickinson, 242 Ariz. 120 (App. 2017).

¶23 In Dickinson, this Court held that the standard for determining
whether a retrial is barred following the declaration of a mistrial without
the defendant’s consent depends in part on whether the mistrial was
granted based on prosecutorial misconduct. Id. at 124-25, ¶¶ 17-18. An
order granting a mistrial over the defendant’s objection is reviewed with
“the strictest scrutiny,” the Dickinson court held, if “there is reason to
believe that the prosecutor is using the superior court of the State to harass
or to achieve a tactical advantage over the accused.” Id. at ¶ 18 (citation
modified). Dickinson’s holding thus applies only to appellate review of an
order granting a mistrial. As the State correctly points out, our supreme
court reviews the denial of a mistrial under the “abuse of discretion”
standard. See, e.g., State v. Strong, 258 Ariz. 184, 215, ¶ 149 (2024). We
likewise apply that standard here, and so will “defer to the trial judge’s
discretionary determination” to deny the mistrial motion “because the trial
judge is in the best position to assess the impact of a witness’s statements
on the jury[.]” State v. Dann, 205 Ariz. 557, 570, ¶ 43 (2003).

¶24 Buckles argues that the court erred in denying his motion for
a mistrial after Officer Ryan testified that, after showing the victim the
lineup, officers “located the individual we used in the photo lineup.” The
only “reasonable interpretation” of the officer’s testimony, he asserts, “is
that the victim identified [Buckles] from the lineup[.]” Because “the key
issue in dispute was identity[,]” Buckles argues, “Officer Ryan’s testimony
that Mr. Buckles was the person in the lineup is highly prejudicial[.]”

¶25 For several reasons, we reject Buckles’s contention that the
court erred in denying his mistrial motion.

¶26 First, Officer Ryan did not repeat any statement that the
victim made at the scene. Instead, the officer merely stated what the officers
did – i.e., showed the victim a lineup that included Buckles’s photo, then
went looking for Buckles – rather than what the victim said. Cf. State v.
Chavez, 225 Ariz. 442, 444, ¶ 8 (App. 2010) (“[W]ords or conduct not
intended as assertions are not hearsay even when offered as evidence of the
declarant’s implicit belief of a fact.”).

¶27 Second, even if the officer’s statement were construed as an
assertion that the victim identified Buckles from the lineup, that statement
would not be hearsay. Under Rule 801(d)(1)(C), an out-of-court statement

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STATE v. BUCKLES
Decision of the Court
that “identifies a person as someone the declarant perceived earlier” is not
hearsay so long as the declarant is “subject to cross-examination.” Ariz. R.
Evid. 801(d)(1)(C); State v. Rojo-Valenzuela, 235 Ariz. 617, 622, ¶ 17 (App.
2014). Because the victim testified at trial and was subject to cross-
examination, Officer Ryan’s statement was squarely within Rule
801(d)(1)(C). See Rojo-Valenzuela, 235 Ariz. at 622, ¶ 17; see also State v.
Romanosky, 162 Ariz. 217, 225-26 (1989) (rejecting defendant’s argument that
because victim was not asked to make an in-court identification at trial, trial
court erred by allowing officer to testify about victim’s response to photo
lineup).

¶28 And assuming that the officer’s statement constituted
inadmissible hearsay, Buckles would be entitled to no relief because any
error was clearly harmless. The one-sentence statement was very brief, the
court instructed the jury to disregard it, and the testimony immediately
moved on to another subject. See State v. Goudeau, 239 Ariz. 421, 446, ¶ 67
(2016) (“We presume jurors follow the court’s instructions.”). Moreover,
there was overwhelming evidence of Buckles’s guilt. Buckles was present
near the crime scene, walking in the opposite direction. He matched the
victim’s physical description of the assailant. The jurors were shown the
dash-cam video, so they could see the assailant for themselves. A CO2 gun
that matched the description given by the victim was found near where
Buckles was stopped, and DNA testing showed that Buckles had handled
it. When balancing this evidence of Buckles’s guilt against Officer Ryan’s
statement, we conclude that the statement, even if deemed inadmissible
hearsay, had no effect on the verdict. State v. Bocharski, 218 Ariz. 476, 486, ¶
38 (2008) (“Erroneously admitted evidence is harmless in a criminal case
only when the reviewing court is satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that
the error did not impact the verdict.” (citation modified)). The court did not
err in denying Buckles’s motion for a mistrial.

CONCLUSION

¶29 We affirm.

MATTHEW J. MARTIN • Clerk of the Court
FILED: JR

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