Background
In late December 2020, Micah Ezekial Davis went to a Lansing home shared by two residents, EJ and his elderly father ES. A doorbell camera recorded Davis approaching the home around 4:00 p.m. and leaving without entering. He returned around 8:30 p.m. in different clothing and carrying a blue Bible and business flyers. Almost immediately after he entered, the camera captured yelling, groaning, screaming, and sounds of a struggle. Officers responding to the scene found EJ bleeding from the head and ES unresponsive in a pool of blood. ES died from his injuries. A person on the phone with EJ at the time of the attack testified that EJ yelled “Dad, no, or no, Dad, don’t let him in,” followed by sounds of a scuffle before EJ stopped responding.
Physical evidence recovered from the scene and from Davis linked him directly to the attack. Officers found a blood-stained coat Davis had been seen wearing in a garbage bin, a bent metal lamp and a baseball bat with bloodstains, and items of clothing with Davis’s DNA at the scene. Blood on Davis’s clothing at the time of his arrest was linked by DNA testing to EJ. Davis denied having any physical injuries.
Davis was charged with open murder, first-degree home invasion, and assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder (AWIGBH). The jury convicted him of first-degree felony murder, first-degree home invasion, and AWIGBH. The trial court sentenced him to life imprisonment for felony murder, 160 to 240 months for home invasion, and 67 to 120 months for AWIGBH, all to run concurrently. Davis appealed, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to prove he entered the home without permission.
The Court’s Holding
The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed all convictions in a per curiam opinion by Judges Cameron, Boonstra, and Swartzle. The court rejected Davis’s sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge, holding that the prosecution presented ample evidence from which a rational jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that Davis entered the dwelling without permission — a required element of first-degree home invasion under MCL 750.110a(2).
Davis argued that the absence of direct evidence that the victims did not want him present, combined with the fact that ES may have opened the door for him, raised reasonable doubt on the “without permission” element. The court disagreed, pointing to the near-immediate outbreak of screaming and struggling captured on the doorbell camera and, critically, EJ’s words overheard on the phone — “Dad, no, or no, Dad, don’t let him in” — as direct evidence that entry was made over the residents’ objection. Viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, this evidence was sufficient.
Because first-degree home invasion was the predicate felony underlying the felony-murder charge under MCL 750.316(1)(b), the court held that the felony-murder conviction likewise withstood sufficiency review. The court confined its analysis to the single issue raised on appeal and did not address the AWIGBH conviction separately.
Key Takeaways
- Under Michigan law, “without permission” for home invasion purposes means without consent from the owner, lessee, or any person lawfully in control of the dwelling; circumstantial and testimonial evidence of resistance at the threshold can satisfy this element.
- A phone witness’s testimony about statements made by a victim during the attack — here, an apparent plea to a parent not to let the defendant in — can be sufficient circumstantial evidence that entry was unconsented.
- Where home invasion is the predicate offense for felony murder, a successful sufficiency challenge to the home invasion charge would unravel the felony-murder conviction; conversely, affirming the home invasion conviction necessarily sustains the felony-murder conviction.
- Appellate courts reviewing sufficiency claims draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the prosecution and defer to the jury’s credibility and weight determinations.
Why It Matters
This decision illustrates how modern surveillance technology — here, a residential doorbell camera — can serve as critical evidence in violent-crime prosecutions, capturing not only the defendant’s presence but also audible sounds of an attack in real time. Defense challenges focused on the absence of explicit “no trespassing” evidence are unlikely to succeed where the totality of circumstantial evidence strongly supports an unconsented entry.
For practitioners, the case reaffirms that the “without permission” element of Michigan home invasion does not require direct testimony from a surviving victim. Overheard phone statements and the immediate onset of violence can together create sufficient evidence for a jury to reject a consent defense, with downstream consequences for any felony-murder charge built on the home invasion predicate.