Opinion ID: 1036479
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: State’s Rebuttal Evidence

Text: In its rebuttal presentation, the State called Lee’s work supervisor, Howard Mitchell, at Taylor Lumber Company. Mitchell testified that Lee had worked for him for “a period of time,” and Mitchell found Lee a capable and responsible employee with no problems following any instructions.5 The State next called Van Smith, the principal of Lee’s high school, Billingsley High School. Principal Smith described Lee as “a good student.” Principal Smith said that the high school had three levels of classes: special education, basic level, and advanced track; Lee was “in the advanced track preparing for college.” Lee was not in special education and “was never tested for special education.” During his time at Billingsley, Lee maintained “average grades, Bs and Cs. . . . [j]ust an average student in that particular level.” Lee began encountering problems around the eleventh grade, when “[h]is grades turned down,” and Lee’s twelfth grade year was “pretty much the worst year.” Lee did 4 Based on Dr. Blanton’s testimony about Lee’s mental capacity and Lee’s written confession that the first shot was accidental, Lee’s counsel asked for jury instructions on “lesser included charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.” The State objected. Ultimately the state trial court agreed to give: (1) a lesser-included manslaughter charge as to the capital murder of Jimmy Ellis, Count 1; and (2) a lesser-included charge of assault in the second degree as to the fourth count charging the attempted murder of Helen King. 5 Mitchell testified that while he did hire “a lot of special ed people,” Lee was not hired as such. 16 Case: 12-14421 Date Filed: 08/01/2013 Page: 17 of 128 not complete high school, although he did take and pass the high school graduation exam in his eleventh grade year. On cross-examination, defense counsel showed Lee’s SAT test and Smith agreed that Lee’s scores were “somewhat low.” On redirect examination, the State showed Principal Smith a number of Lee’s school records. These school records indicated Lee had grades of 90, 60, 90, 85, and 87 in ninth grade, and grades of 90, 68, 81, 69, 68, and 86 in eleventh grade. In recross-examination, Lee’s counsel confirmed with Principal Smith that Lee had been a high school senior in 1995, and that Smith had had no contact with Lee since then and no knowledge of Lee’s substance abuse or whether something else may have impacted Lee’s mental abilities. The State then called Dr. Kathy Ronan, the clinical psychologist who had evaluated Lee. Dr. Ronan testified to her conclusion that Lee suffered from “no mental illness or mental retardation that would have impaired his understanding of right or wrong during the time of questioning.” Prior to her trial testimony, Dr. Ronan reviewed Dr. Blanton’s report. Dr. Ronan agreed with some aspects of Dr. Blanton’s report but disagreed with others. Dr. Ronan stated that Dr. Blanton’s test results—which measured Lee’s intelligence and achievement ability—“were quite low, and they were inconsistent with my original findings. They were also inconsistent with the history of Mr. 17 Case: 12-14421 Date Filed: 08/01/2013 Page: 18 of 128 Lee’s academic performance.” Dr. Ronan stated that the inconsistencies could be attributed to two possibilities: (1) Lee was depressed when Dr. Blanton saw him— suffering from what she termed “an adjustment reaction” to incarceration—and that depression may have impacted Lee’s testing ability; or (2) malingering. Dr. Ronan also testified that even a mildly mentally retarded person’s condition is “[n]ot so great as to interfere with [his] decision making process or ability to understand right from wrong.” She explained that “when you’re talking about [a] mental retardation level that interferes with some people to distinguish between right and wrong, you’re really talking about an I.Q. level of in the forties, we call that moderate to se[vere] . . . retardation.” And here, it was Dr. Ronan’s opinion that Lee did not suffer from retardation of any kind. On cross-examination, Dr. Ronan admitted that her examination of Lee lasted for an hour and a half to two hours and that she did not give Lee the entire WAIS-R test that Dr. Blanton gave Lee. Dr. Ronan also confirmed that Lee had told her that on the day of the crimes, his head was burning and he saw “a dead woman dressed in white” who was trying to wake him up. Dr. Ronan agreed that drugs might affect a person’s decision-making ability. Ultimately, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty against Lee on all counts.