Opinion ID: 2431016
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the guilt issues

Text: Defendant insists that his confession to the murder of Carolyn Doyle should have been suppressed because it was not freely and voluntarily given. The Memphis Police Department had information implicating Defendant in a number of armed robberies and murders. Upon learning that Defendant was being held in jail at Marion, Arkansas, Sergeant Harvey and another Memphis Police Officer were sent to interrogate him. On February 8, 11, and 14, 1983, eleven separate statements were taken at the Arkansas jail concerning eleven or more separate crimes. On February 19 and March 2, 1983, nine additional statements were taken at the Criminal Justice Center in Memphis. Defendant contends that on all of these occasions he was undergoing severe drug withdrawal symptoms, that he had an unattended gunshot wound to the head, that he was not allowed to communicate with his family, and that his many requests for counsel were ignored. The officers involved denied that he displayed any signs of drug withdrawal and stated that Defendant had a superficial crease wound about which he never complained. The officers also testified that Defendant never asked for counsel and that he had been advised of his Miranda rights, after which he freely executed written waivers on each occasion. The statements were recorded and transcribed and the tapes were played back to Defendant; he acknowledged the accuracy of the statements in each instance. After a full pre-trial hearing, the trial judge held that all of the statements were freely and voluntarily given and were admissible at trial. Nevertheless, appropriately, the only statement introduced at the guilt phase of the trial was Defendant's confession to the murder of Mrs. Doyle. [2] The trial judge made express findings of fact, all contrary to Defendant's contentions. Those findings have the weight of a jury verdict and we find material evidence to support the trial judge's findings; we are, therefore, required to affirm. See State v. O'Guinn, 709 S.W.2d 561, 565-566 (Tenn. 1986). Defendant insists that the trial judge should have granted his motion for a change of venue based upon the publicity of Defendant's trial for the murder of George Huffman, Jr., which occurred approximately two and one-half months prior to the Doyle murder trial. In support of that issue, Defendant claims that the trial judge did not consider the factors listed in State v. Hoover, 594 S.W.2d 743, 746 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1979). The Huffman murder trial was reported in The Memphis Commercial Appeal from December 4 through 12, 1984. The articles can be fairly described as routine factual reporting of a murder trial. The trial judge allowed individual voir dire of the jurors, no doubt in recognition of the short interval between the two trials. The voir dire indicates that, of the jurors selected who had any knowledge of the publicity about the Huffman murder trial, all testified that they could decide the case entirely on the evidence presented in this case without reference to any prior publicity. The matter of a change of venue addresses itself to the sound judicial discretion of the trial judge; his decision will be respected absent an affirmative and clear abuse of that discretion. Rippy v. State, 550 S.W.2d 636 (Tenn. 1977). Defendant complains that the trial judge refused to grant his challenge for cause of juror Brenda Endress. Ms. Endress was examined individually on the second day of jury selection, February 19, 1985. The prospective jurors had not been sequestered at that point and that morning she had read an article in The Memphis Commercial Appeal reporting that Defendant's second trial was underway. Although most of the article dealt with Defendant's pre-trial motions, it mentioned that Defendant had been convicted in December of the murder of George Huffman, Jr., and given a life sentence after the jury had dead-locked eleven to one in favor of sending him to the electric chair. Ms. Endress was carefully examined by defense counsel and by the court; her examination concluded as follows: THE COURT: All right. Can you set anything aside that you have read or seen or heard and make your decision solely on what you hear and see from that witness stand and base it on the law that I give you at the end of this trial? Can you do that? JUROR ENDRESS: I feel like that I am knowledgeable enough to do that. There was no error in rejecting Defendant's challenge of this juror for cause. Defendant asserts that the State's challenges for cause of prospective jurors Morris Brooks and Ella Fields were erroneously granted by the trial judge. Although some of Mr. Brooks's responses to defense counsel's questions were ambiguous, his responses taken as a whole reveal that he was opposed to the death penalty on religious and other grounds and would not impose it under any circumstances. Among his objections to capital punishment, Mr. Brooks believed that [m]ost of the folks that are on death row and that get the death penalty just happen to be black and I am strongly opposed to that. With respect to Ella Fields, she repeatedly made it clear that her opposition to the death penalty was so strong that to avoid facing the punishment issue she probably could not vote for conviction, regardless of the proof. The trial court correctly excused jurors Brooks and Fields for cause. See Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S. 412, 105 S.Ct. 844, 83 L.Ed.2d 84 (1985). Defendant says that the trial court excluded jurors from service on the jury who were opposed to the death penalty on religious grounds, amounting to a religious test for jury service in violation of Article I, § 6, Tennessee Constitution. Defendant fails to single out any particular juror in asserting this issue. We have read the voir dire carefully and, while some jurors said their opposition to and inability to impose the death penalty, regardless of the evidence adduced, was based in whole or in part on religious grounds, those jurors were excused because their views on capital punishment rendered them unable to follow the law as given to them by the court and to perform their duties as jurors in accord with their oaths. That their views on capital punishment may have had a religious foundation does not necessarily transform the tests mandated by the United States Supreme Court in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968), and Wainwright v. Witt, supra , into religious tests for the purposes of the Tennessee Constitution. This issue has no merit. Defendant raises the conviction-prone or death qualified jury issue, adopted by an Arkansas Federal District Judge in Grigsby v. Mabry, 569 F. Supp. 1273 (1983), and affirmed by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals at 758 F.2d 226 (1985). The decisions in Grigsby were based on social science studies labelled Conviction-Prone-ness Surveys. We have rejected those studies and their rationale of unconstitutional jury rejection in State v. McKay, 680 S.W.2d 447 (Tenn. 1984), and in numerous subsequent cases. This issue has now been settled by the United States Supreme Court in Lockhart v. McCree, ___ U.S. ___, 106 S.Ct. 1758, 90 L.Ed.2d 137 (1986), in which the social science studies were found to be seriously flawed. The United States Supreme Court found that prospective jurors excludable under Witherspoon were not distinctive groups for fair cross section purposes. The death qualification of the jury resulted in an impartial jury that would apply the law and find the facts according to their oath. Defendant argues that the trial judge erred in admitting certain photographs into evidence. During the guilt phase of the trial, a photograph of Mrs. Doyle and, subsequently, at the sentencing phase, photographs of two other murder victims were admitted. While these photographs had little probative value, all were head shots and contained nothing prejudicial to Defendant. This issue has no merit. Defendant says that the trial judge erred in admitting the testimony of Joe Dean Felix regarding two attempted robberies that immediately preceded the robbery and murder of Mrs. Doyle. Mr. Felix testified that they were cruising around looking for victims to rob and that, after spotting a prospect at a supermarket, Defendant, armed with a revolver and accompanied by one of the Bridgeforth brothers, left the car but they soon returned and reported that the victim had eluded them. Later they followed a woman in a car to her home and parked around the corner; Defendant left the car but quickly returned, stating: I missed that bitch, but I am going to get the next one. The robbery and murder of Mrs. Doyle occurred approximately one hour later according to Mr. Felix. In Defendant's statement admitted into evidence he insisted that the shooting of Mrs. Doyle was accidental. These two attempts at similar crimes, which immediately preceded the one for which Defendant was on trial, and Defendant's statement that he was going to get the next one were relevant to the issue of whether the killing was accidental or intentional. See, e.g., Bunch v. State, 605 S.W.2d 227 (Tenn. 1980). Defendant insists that the State's proof was insufficient to justify a rational trier of fact in finding guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The confession of Defendant and the testimony of Joe Dean Felix were more than sufficient to permit any rational trier of fact to find Defendant guilty of the murder of Mrs. Doyle beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); Rule 13(e), T.R.A.P. Defendant insists that the Tennessee Death Penalty Act is unconstitutional for a number of reasons, all of which we have fully considered and rejected in prior opinions of this Court.