U.S. v. Lecroy

• Decision Date: 02 March 2006
• Docket Number: No. 04-15597.,04-15597.
• Citation: 441 F.3d 914
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William Emmett LECROY, Jr., Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

441 F.3d 914

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William Emmett LECROY, Jr., Defendant-Appellant.

No. 04-15597.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

March 2, 2006.

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Daniel A. Summer (Court-Appointed), Law Offices of Summer & Summer, Gainesville, GA, Paul S. Kish (Court-Appointed), Kish & Lietz, P.C., Stephanie Kearns (Fed. Pub. Def.) and Brian Mendelsohn (Court-Appointed), Fed. Def. Program, Inc., Atlanta, GA, for LeCroy.

Russell Glenn Vineyard, R. Joseph Burby, Amy Levin Weil, U.S. Atty., Atlanta, GA, for U.S.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before TJOFLAT, ANDERSON and MARCUS, Circuit Judges.

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge:

The defendant/appellant, William Emmett LeCroy, Jr. ("LeCroy") was convicted in the Federal District Court in the Northern District of Georgia of taking a motor vehicle from a person, Joann Lee Tiesler, by force and violence resulting in her death, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2119(3) ("carjacking"). After the penalty phase, the jury returned a death sentence. LeCroy filed a motion for a new trial, which was denied.

LeCroy appeals to this Court on the following separate issues, claiming the district court erred: (1) by failing to conclude that Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002) rendered the Federal Death Penalty Act unconstitutional, (2) by refusing to give a jury instruction on "simple" carjacking as a lesser included offense, (3) by upholding his conviction despite insufficient evidence, (4) by admitting 13 year old evidence allegedly seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment, (5) by improperly admitting evidence of bad acts from 1991, in violation of Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b), (6) by allowing a federal agent to testify as to his opinion about blood transfer patterns on a piece of the victim's clothing, (7) by preventing the presentation of mitigating evidence in violation of the 8th Amendment, (8) by admitting evidence of aggravating circumstances that went beyond the issues presented in the government's Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty, and finally (9) by instructing the jury inaccurately on the nonstatutory aggravating factor of future dangerousness.¹

After careful consideration of all of the issues, we reject each of LeCroy's arguments, and affirm his conviction and sentence of death.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Mr. LeCroy is on death row for the murder of Joann Tiesler in October 2001, but events that occurred well before her death are relevant to this case. We begin in 1989, when LeCroy was 19 years of age. After leaving the Army, LeCroy spent time at the home of his mother and stepfather, Donna and Sam Houston. Houston had two daughters, one of whom, Alecia, was 13 years old and lived with her father. LeCroy and Alecia began a sexual relationship that the parents discovered in January of 1990. Alecia's mother—Sam Houston's former wife—urged the authorities to prosecute LeCroy for statutory rape.

Around the same time, Cobb County police were investigating a series of burglaries in a residential neighborhood occurring in late 1990 and early 1991, and Cobb County Detective Kevin Flynn identified LeCroy as a suspect. On March 3, 1991, LeCroy was arrested following a traffic stop. In his car police found a holster and gun and several hand-written notes. One of the notes described a plan to "rob cars and kill people driving so the car can be used two or three days." Another listed steps to take in case of being chased, including "burglarize house," "flee and switch cars," "be ruthless and famous," and "rape rob and pillage [sic]." A third document had "H-L" written at the top and contained a list of names; authorities contended this was a "hit list" of people LeCroy wanted to kill.

The investigation and evidence discovered in LeCroy's car resulted in multiple state charges, and authorities decided to simultaneously prosecute LeCroy for his relationship with Sam Houston's daughter and for burglary. In August of 1991, LeCroy was sent to prison in Georgia for aggravated assault, burglary, child molestation, and statutory rape. As he was serving his sentence for those crimes, he was charged and convicted under federal law of possession of a sawed-off shotgun, an item he had obtained during one of the burglaries. He served an additional five years in prison, this time in a federal facility.

LeCroy was released from federal custody in August 2001. Upon his release, he began serving a three-year term of supervised probation and moved into the home of his mother and stepfather, Mr. Houston, on Cherry Log Mountain in Gilmer County, Georgia.

As a condition of his supervised release, and because of his prior convictions for statutory rape and aggravated child molestation, LeCroy was ordered to undergo a psychosexual evaluation in September of 2001. LeCroy prematurely left the evaluation, and only agreed to return to submit to the testing after being warned by his probation officer that he risked being sent back to prison if he refused again. The evaluation was rescheduled for October 22, 2001. The government argues that despite agreeing to be retested, LeCroy had decided to flee.

In the weeks preceding Ms. Tiesler's death, LeCroy's stepfather was growing concerned about his stepson's behavior. Mr. Houston testified that LeCroy spent a great deal of time on the computer, rarely leaving his bedroom. Later investigation of the computer showed that it had been used to search for survival gear, and to scan and copy Mr. Houston's passport. On the back of the letter scheduling his original psychosexual evaluation, which was later found by police, LeCroy wrote out a "need to acquire" list of items he intended to collect. These included binoculars, boots, gloves, guns, ammunition, and food and water.

On Friday, October 5, Donna and Sam Houston left LeCroy alone at the Cherry Log cabin, informing him that they would be gone until the night of October 8. This was the first time since his release from prison that Mr. LeCroy was left alone at the home. A series of robberies on Cherry Log Mountain occurred over the weekend of October 5—7, 2001, including the theft of medical supplies, a shotgun, and ammunition from homes in the neighborhood. Several weeks before Ms. Tiesler was killed, LeCroy purchased camouflage makeup and plastic cable ties. The government contends that the purchases and the robberies were part of LeCroy's plan to collect the items from his need to acquire list and flee the country.

It is undisputed that at some point on the evening of Sunday, October 7, LeCroy broke into the home of Joann Tiesler, who lived in the same neighborhood as LeCroy's stepfather. Entering through a bedroom window that overlooked a porch, LeCroy took steps to return the open blinds of the window to their original position so that it would look undisturbed from the outside. At the time of the break-in, LeCroy was armed with a loaded shotgun, a knife, and plastic cable ties.

Ms. Tiesler had spent the weekend in Rome, Georgia at the house of her fiancee. Around 5:40 pm on October 7, Tiesler was seen driving up the mountain toward her cabin. She entered her home and placed her purse on an island in the kitchen. Soon after that LeCroy attacked her, striking her in the back of the head with the shotgun and discharging it in the hallway outside her bedroom. He bound her hands behind her back with cable ties and strangled her with an electrical cord. Still alive, Ms. Tiesler was stripped of her underwear and forced to kneel at the foot of her bed, where she was raped and then anally sodomized. Semen found in Tiesler's body was identified as that of LeCroy.

After raping her, LeCroy slashed Tiesler's throat with the knife. Doctors determined that this was likely the fatal wound, as the knife severed the external jugular vein, right internal jugular vein, and right carotid artery, penetrating down to Tiesler's cervical vertebrae. Finally, LeCroy stabbed Tiesler five times in the back and wiped his knife off on her shirt. She was left naked and bound on her bed, and was discovered the next day by a co-worker and a real estate agent.

After killing Ms. Tiesler, LeCroy took her keys and her car, a Ford Explorer, loaded it up with some supplies, and headed for Canada. Two days later, on Tuesday, October 9, 2001, LeCroy was captured at the border between Minnesota and Canada driving Ms. Tiesler's vehicle. Inside police found a knife stained with Tiesler's blood; a map with writing on the back;² a separate written note;³ and plastic cable ties like those LeCroy used to tie up Ms. Tiesler. Police also discovered two unspent shotgun shells, boots, food, water, ammunition, gloves, and other items from LeCroy's need to acquire list.

LeCroy was indicted in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on May 15, 2002 for taking a motor vehicle by force, violence, and intimidation from Joann Tiesler resulting in her death, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2119(3). A superseding indictment added special death-eligibility allegations subsequently found by the grand jury on August 13, 2002.

Before trial, LeCroy filed a series of motions, all of which were denied. LeCroy was convicted on March 1, 2004. At the conclusion of the sentencing phase, the jury returned a death sentence, and LeCroy was remanded to federal custody at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. This appeal followed.

II. DISCUSSION

A. The Constitutionality of the Federal Death Penalty Act.

LeCroy makes two constitutional arguments. We review challenges to the constitutionality of a statute de novo. United States v. Scott, 263 F.3d 1270, 1271 (11th Cir.2001). A concise summary of the relevant provisions of the Federal Death Penalty Act ("FDPA") will aid our discussion. To render LeCroy eligible for the death penalty under the...