People v. Alan Beaman

Facts

Beaman (defendant) was convicted of the first-degree murder of his former girlfriend, Jennifer Lockmiller. The police recovered seven fingerprints from Lockmiller’s apartment: two from Beaman, four from Lockmiller’s boyfriend Michael Swaine, and one from an unidentified person. Beaman testified that he had broken up with Lockmiller due to her relationships with Swaine and another man identified as John Doe. The court granted the State’s motion to exclude evidence of Lockmiller’s relationships with other men because it did not have nonspeculative evidence of a third-party suspect.

The State believed the murder occurred between 12 P.M. and 2 P.M. on August 25, 1993. Beaman testified that on the morning of the murder, he had just finished a shift at his uncle’s grocery store. He drove to the bank, and a surveillance camera showed him leaving the bank around 10:11 A.M. His mother testified that Beaman’s car was in the driveway when she returned home around 2:15 P.M. The State argued that Beaman could have driven from the bank to Lockmiller’s apartment to commit the murder and return home by 2:15 P.M. if he drove 10 mph over the speed limit.

The jury found Beaman guilty of first-degree murder. Beaman argued that the State withheld exculpatory evidence about John Doe, whom the police considered as an alternative suspect. Doe lived 1.5 miles from Lockmiller’s apartment, was in a previous romantic relationship with her, had a history of domestic violence, and did not cooperate with investigators during a polygraph examination.