Strickler v. Com.
| Decision Date | 19 April 1991 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 901391 and 901392,s. 901391 and 901392 |
| Citation | 404 S.E.2d 227,241 Va. 482 |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
| Parties | Thomas David STRICKLER v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia. Record |
William E. Bobbitt, Jr. (Thomas E. Roberts, on brief), for appellant.
H. Elizabeth Shaffer, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Mary Sue Terry, Atty. Gen., on brief), for appellee.
Present: CARRICO, C.J., STEPHENSON, RUSSELL, WHITING, LACY and HASSELL, JJ., and POFF, Senior Justice.
In these appeals, we review a capital murder conviction and a death penalty imposed upon Thomas David Strickler, together with convictions for robbery and abduction.
Strickler was tried upon indictments charging robbery, abduction, and capital murder, Code § 18.2-31. At the first stage of a bifurcated jury trial conducted pursuant to Code §§ 19.2-264.3 and -264.4 A, Strickler was found guilty as charged in all three indictments. The jury fixed his punishment at life imprisonment for each of the two non-capital offenses. At the penalty phase of the capital murder trial, after hearing evidence in aggravation and mitigation, the jury found both the "future dangerousness" and the "vileness" predicates to be present and unanimously fixed Strickler's punishment at death for capital murder. After considering a probation officer's report and conducting a sentencing hearing, the court, by final order entered on September 19, 1990, entered judgment on the jury's verdicts.
We have consolidated Strickler's appeal of the capital murder conviction in Record No. 901391 with the automatic review of his death sentence to which he is entitled, Code § 17-110.1 A and -F, and have given them priority on our docket, Code § 17-110.2. We have also certified Strickler's appeals of his robbery and abduction convictions, Record No. 901392, from the Court of Appeals, and have consolidated the two records for our consideration.
We will review the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth.
On January 5, 1990, Leanne Whitlock (Leanne), a sophomore at James Madison University, borrowed a 1986 Mercury Lynx from her boyfriend, who worked at the Valley Mall in Harrisonburg. The car was clean at the time. Leanne left the mall at 4:30 p.m. and, with her roommate, Sonja Lamb, drove to a store, where Leanne had a part-time job, to pick up a paycheck. Leanne dropped Sonja off about 6:45 p.m. and left, alone, to return the borrowed car to her boyfriend.
Anne Stolzfus was in a store at Valley Mall with her daughter at 6:00 p.m. when Strickler, Ronald Henderson, and a blond woman entered. Strickler was behaving in such a loud, rude, and boisterous manner that she watched him with some apprehension. He was dressed in casual, but clean, clothing.
As Mrs. Stolzfus was leaving the mall soon thereafter, she saw Leanne Whitlock driving the blue Mercury. Suddenly, Strickler ran out of the mall and addressed the occupant of a nearby van, angrily pounding on the van's door. Strickler also ran up to the occupants of a pick-up truck. He then turned to the Mercury Leanne was driving, which was stopped in traffic, and pounded on the passenger side window. Leanne leaned over as if to lock the door, but Strickler wrenched the door open and jumped into the car, facing Leanne. She appeared to try to push him away, but he opened the door and beckoned Henderson and the blond woman to join him.
Leanne accelerated and began sounding blasts on the horn. Strickler struck her repeatedly and she ceased to sound the horn and stopped the car. Henderson and the blond woman entered the back seat. Mrs. Stolzfus came up to the car and asked, three times, "are you O.K.?" Leanne seemed "totally frozen." She drove the Mercury away very slowly, and mouthed the word, "help." The Mercury headed east on Route 33, toward Elkton. Mrs. Stolzfus' daughter wrote down its license number, West Virginia NKA 243.
About 7:30 p.m., Kurt D. Massie and a friend were driving north on Route 340 near Stuarts Draft. They saw a dirty blue car, southbound, turn off and drive into a field. Strickler was the driver, a white woman was in the front seat with him, * and another man was in the back seat. Massie thought he saw a fourth occupant in the car.
Between 9:00 and 9:15 p.m., Strickler and Henderson walked into Dice's Inn in Staunton. Strickler was wearing blue jeans which were dirty, bloody, and had a burn mark on them. He gave a wristwatch, later identified as the property of Leanne Whitlock, to a girl named Nancy Simmons.
[241 Va. 487] At 12:30 or 1:00 a.m., Strickler left Dice's Inn with Henderson and a girl named Donna Tudor. The three entered a dirty blue Mercury. Henderson drove the car and Strickler sat in the back seat with Donna. Strickler told her he had bought the car from a man for $500. He also said that he had been in a fight and had injured his knuckle, which appeared to be lacerated. Strickler and Henderson discussed a "fight" they had had with "it," describing "it" with a racial epithet. Strickler said they had kicked "it" in the back of the head and had used a "rock crusher." He said "it" would give them no more trouble. Strickler was calm during this conversation, but Henderson seemed nervous and kept looking over his shoulder at them. The three drove to Harrisonburg to purchase drugs. During the ride, Henderson nearly collided head-on with an approaching car, and Strickler drew a knife and threatened to stab him.
After dropping Henderson off in Harrisonburg, Donna Tudor went to Virginia Beach with Strickler in the blue Mercury. The two stayed nearly a week, during which time Donna saw Leanne Whitlock's driver's license, identification card, and bank card in the car. Strickler tried to use the bank card in Virginia Beach, and gave Donna a pair of earrings which Leanne had worn on the night of January 5.
Several days later, Donna and Strickler returned to Strickler's mother's home in New Market. Strickler's mother washed his bloodstained blue jeans and his shirt.
Strickler told Donna to hide Leanne's three identification cards in a bag with his T-shirt and other clothing. She deposited these items in an abandoned car behind Strickler's stepfather's house, but later led police to them.
On January 10 or 11, Donna and Strickler abandoned the blue Mercury near a church. Angry after an argument with Donna, Strickler cut up the interior of the car with his hunting knife and also jumped on the car's roof, leaving his footprints.
On January 13, Henderson's frozen wallet was found in the cornfield into which Kurt Massie had seen Strickler drive the blue Mercury on January 5. Later that day, police searched the field and found Leanne's frozen clothing in a pile near the place Henderson's wallet had been found. Leanne's nude, frozen body was found in a nearby wooded area, 300 feet from the highway, buried under two logs and covered with leaves which had been deliberately packed around the logs.
Leanne's hands were extended over her head and crossed at the wrists. She had been dragged by the feet over the ground face down at or shortly after the time of her death, leaving long linear scratches on her upper body. There were lacerations and abrasions on the face, neck, and thighs, some consistent with kicking. Death was caused by four large, crushing, depressed skull fractures with lacerations of the brain. Brain tissue had exuded from the left front of the skull, and bone fragments were imbedded in the brain. Any one of the fractures could have been fatal, but death was not instantaneous.
Near the body, the police found a large rock, weighing 69 pounds, 4 ounces, which was stained with human blood in two places. Despite the very cold weather, the rock was not frozen to the ground.
Beside the rock, there were two indentations in the frozen ground, one four inches deep, the other less. Each indentation contained blood of Leanne's blood type, as well as human hair consistent with Leanne's in all respects. Human hairs were also found on Leanne's frozen clothing. They were Caucasian in origin and matched Strickler's hair in all respects. Some of them had evidently been torn out of his head by the roots.
Two of the shoe impressions on the roof of the Mercury matched a shoe Strickler was wearing when he was arrested on January 11. Eighteen of his fingerprints, and nine of Donna Tudor's, were identified in the car. A jacket with Henderson's identification was found in the car. It bore at least four human bloodstains. The shirt Strickler had been wearing on January 5 was recovered from the brown bag Donna had hidden. It bore stains from semen consistent with Strickler's, as well as human bloodstains. Vaginal swabs taken from Leanne's body also showed the presence of semen, but its type was not identified.
Strickler's appeal raises a number of legal issues which are resolved by our previous decisions. Because we adhere to the views expressed in those cases, we will not discuss them beyond giving citations to representative cases in which those issues were decided adversely to Strickler's claims. The issues raised here which have been previously and expressly rejected are:
A. The death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Spencer v. Commonwealth, 240 Va. 78, 84, 393 S.E.2d 609, 613, cert. denied, 498 U.S. 908, 111 S.Ct. 281, 112 L.Ed.2d 235 (1990) (Spencer IV ).
B. The defendant should have been furnished a daily transcript. Martin v. Commonwealth, 221 Va. 436, 446, 271 S.E.2d 123, 130 (1980).
C. The defendant should have been given additional peremptory challenges. Spencer IV, 240 Va. at 84, 393 S.E.2d at 613.
D. The defendant should have been permitted to question veniremen as to what a life sentence meant to them. Eaton v. Commonwealth, 240 Va. 236, 248, 397 S.E.2d 385, 392 (1990); Spencer IV, 240 Va. at 85, 393 S.E.2d at 613.
E. The court should have prohibited the questioning of veniremen with respect to their views on the death...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Remington v. Com.
...under the Virginia and [United States] Constitutions." See Atkins, 257 Va. at 173-74, 510 S.E.2d at 453-54; Strickler v. Commonwealth, 241 Va. 482, 489, 404 S.E.2d 227, 232, cert. denied, 502 U.S. 944, 112 S.Ct. 386, 116 L.Ed.2d 337 (iv) Whether the circuit "court's denial of [Remington's] ......
-
Muhammad v. Com.
...to in some way, encourage, advise or urge, or in some way help the person committing the crime commit it . . . . In Strickler v. Commonwealth, 241 Va. 482, 404 S.E.2d 227, cert. denied, 502 U.S. 944, 112 S.Ct. 386, 116 L.Ed.2d 337 (1991), we reviewed a capital murder conviction wherein the ......
-
Fletcher v. Commonwealth
...of a deadly weapon unless, from all the evidence, [there is] reasonable doubt as to whether malice existed." Strickler v. Commonwealth, 241 Va. 482, 495, 404 S.E.2d 227 (1991). The Supreme Court has described a "deadly weapon" asone which is likely to produce death or great bodily injury fr......
-
Juniper v. Com.
...is no general constitutional right to discovery in a criminal case, even where a capital offense is charged. Strickler v. Commonwealth, 241 Va. 482, 490-91, 404 S.E.2d 227, 233, cert. denied, 502 U.S. 944, 112 S.Ct. 386, 116 L.Ed.2d 337 (1991). While a defendant has the right to exculpatory......