State v. McManus

Citation941 A.2d 222
Decision Date21 February 2008
Docket NumberNo. 98-141-C.A.,98-141-C.A.
PartiesSTATE v. Joseph E. McMANUS Jr.
CourtUnited States State Supreme Court of Rhode Island

Christopher R. Bush, Esq., for Plaintiff.

Joseph E. McManus Jr., pro se.

Susan M. Iannitelli, Esq., for Defendant.

Present: WILLIAMS, C.J., GOLDBERG, FLAHERTY, SUTTELL, and ROBINSON, JJ.

OPINION

Chief Justice WILLIAMS, for the Court.

This is a heinous and horrific case of domestic abuse that resulted in the execution-style murder of a wife and beloved mother of three children. Our decision today marks the first time that this Court has had the opportunity to consider and uphold a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for a crime of domestic violence occurring between a husband and wife.

In the early morning hours of June 29, 1996, Kelly McGinity McManus (Kelly), was stabbed six times with an eleven-inch kitchen knife in her own home, in Bonnet Shores, Narragansett. In one of the incisions, the knife entered her left breast, pierced the lower lobe of her right lung, and penetrated the right ventricle of her heart, resulting in her death. For a period in excess of twelve-minutes, Kelly endured excruciating pain and terror that was the. culmination of physical and mental abuse inflicted by her husband that had been ongoing for years. Within an hour of her fatal stabbing, police located Kelly's husband, defendant, Joseph E. McManus Jr. (defendant), at the Bonnet Shores. Beach Club (BSBC), where he was attempting suicide. A grand jury subsequently indicted defendant on one count of murder for his wife's death.

The defendant did not dispute having fatally stabbed his wife, but instead advanced a diminished-capacity defense at trial. After an eight-day trial, a jury convicted defendant of one count of first-degree murder. The jury further concluded that defendant murdered his wife in a manner involving torture and aggravated battery. The trial justice agreed and sentenced defendant to life without parole. On appeal, defendant raises multiple arguments of error. For the reasons set forth herein, we affirm defendant's conviction.

I Facts and Travel

In June 1996, defendant and Kelly had spent about twenty years together and had been married for four years. They were the biological parents of Jennifer McGinity (Jennifer), Joseph McGinity (Joseph), and Karen McGinity (Karen).

According to the testimony of their children and their close friends, the couple's marriage began to deteriorate months before Kelly's death. During this time, defendant and Kelly argued constantly and, at times, their verbal fights turned physical, with defendant assaulting Kelly. Their friends and children testified that the couple's fighting worsened, in large part because of defendant's growing belief that his wife was having an affair with one Keith Knapton, a man who played on defendant's softball team.

Beginning in March 1996, Kelly relied on friends to help protect her from defendant's abuse. Joyce Petrocelli, a longtime friend of the McManuses, testified about a telephone call she received that month. According to Petrocelli, Kelly was "crying, sobbing and kind of hysterical." When Petrocelli arrived at the McManus home she could hear defendant yelling "you f______ b____;" and, when she entered the house, she saw Kelly kneeling on the floor with her hands over her head and crying, as defendant stood over her. Petrocelli testified that she confronted defendant about assaulting Kelly. When defendant denied this allegation, Jennifer spoke up to confirm Petrocelli's allegation. The defendant, outraged that Jennifer was telling Petrocelli the family's "personal business," finally admitted to Petrocelli that "maybe [he] pushed her."

Ronda Sankey VanWormer (Ronda), who considered Kelly her "best friend," also testified about defendant's erratic behavior on several occasions before Kelly's death. Ronda described one evening in May when she and Kelly picked up defendant at a local restaurant. After getting into Ronda's car, defendant, who was noticeably drunk, began yelling and screaming at Kelly. Ronda testified that he pulled Kelly's hair, slapped her face, and screamed "when [I] tell [you] to f______' do something, [you'd] better do it and if [I] had a gun, [I] would f______' kill you."

Ronda also testified about defendant's suspicions that his wife was having an affair with Knapton. On one occasion, Ronda noticed that defendant was sitting in his parked truck outside the convenience store where Kelly worked. When Ronda approached defendant to say hello, he informed her that he was sitting in the parking lot to see how many times Knapton would go inside the store. He told Ronda that "if [Kelly] was screwing around on him, he would f______' kill her." On another occasion, defendant told Ronda and Ronda's husband, Timothy VanWormer (Timothy), that he had gone to Knapton's workplace to find out whether Knapton was sleeping with Kelly.

Timothy also testified about defendant's suspicions of Kelly's infidelity. Timothy, who described defendant as "practically [his] best friend," testified that during the month before Kelly's death, defendant repeatedly threatened that "if he ever found out that [Kelly] was going to leave him or cheated on him he was going to kill her and kill himself."

As defendant's suspicions intensified, he confided in other friends, including his business partner and close friend Dean Jordan. In the weeks before Kelly's death, defendant told Jordan that "if he ever caught her with anyone else, he would kill that person, kill her and kill himself." Andrew Northup, who had known defendant for six or seven years, likewise testified that defendant threatened to kill Kelly if he caught her cheating on him.

After months of enduring defendant's abuse, Kelly on June 28, 1996, finally asked her husband to leave the family's home. During an argument between the two, Joseph heard his father accuse his mother of being unfaithful and heard him call her a "slut" and a "whore." After pleading with Kelly to allow him to stay, defendant packed some of his belongings in a laundry basket and left the house. That evening, after having drinks at several local taverns, defendant told his softball teammate, Christopher Coppa, "if I can't have her, nobody is going to have her" and "if I can't have her, I will kill her."

Shortly after 5 a.m. on June 29, 1996, Kelly's fourteen-year-old son, Joseph, and sixteen-year-old daughter, Jennifer, arose out of bed after hearing the sound of their father, defendant, attempting to get into their family's home. The teenagers could hear their father pleading with their mother to allow him back into the house and begging her to take him back. As their father's voice and footsteps drew closer, the teenagers realized that their father had found a way into the house. The defendant continued to plead with his wife, asking her to sit down and talk to him. Kelly, who was on her way to work, told defendant that they could talk after her shift but that she had to get going or she would be late. Dissatisfied with this answer, defendant retorted, "[i]f you leave this house, you are dead." While still pleading with his wife for permission to stay in the house again, defendant disconnected both household telephones, telling her "now you can't call anybody if anything happens."

Jennifer watched as her father grabbed her mother from the bedroom doorway and tossed her into the living room. Upon seeing this, Jennifer got out of bed, yelled upstairs to her brother, and ran out of the house. Joseph, still upstairs in his bedroom, could hear someone being thrown to the floor and his mother crying. He went downstairs to try to help his mother, but before he reached the bottom step, he looked over the railing and made eye contact with his father, who was stabbing his mother. Joseph picked up a rock on the staircase, ran down the remaining steps, and threw it at his father. Despite Joseph's efforts, defendant continued to stab Kelly. Attempting once more to stop his father, Joseph picked up a coffee table and broke it over his father's head. Finally, defendant stopped, walked to the front door, and left the house.

Jennifer, still outside in the yard, saw her father leave and went back inside the house, where she found her mother kneeling on the floor, pleading for her children's help. Jennifer and Joseph had difficulty calling 911 because their father had disconnected the phones, but they finally were able to get a dial tone and called for help.

When Narragansett Police Officer John Maher received a call from dispatch that morning, he headed toward King Phillip Road, where he spotted Joseph at the top of the street, waving him down and pleading with him to "hurry up." Inside the home he saw Kelly lying on the floor. She was not responsive. Jennifer, who was cradling her mother's head in her lap, told Officer Maher that her father had stabbed her mother and that he probably was at the BSBC attempting to commit suicide.

Lieutenant Byron Cahoone of the Narragansett Fire Department also responded to the McManus home and discovered that Kelly was not breathing. Despite his efforts to resuscitate her, Kelly remained unresponsive. She was taken to South County Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

As Jennifer suspected, after leaving the house, defendant went to the BSBC, where he was employed as a maintenance manager. At approximately 5:30 a.m., Dwight Kallinich, a security guard at the BSBC, spotted defendant at the club; defendant was bleeding from one wrist. When Kallinich approached defendant to offer his help, defendant refused, telling his coworker: "[J]ust let me die, I just want to die." Actually, defendant was bleeding from both wrists.

Kallinich ignored defendant's request and proceeded to get paper towels from the nearby men's room to wrap around defendant's wrists. The defendant again refused Kallinich's help, but finally agreed to sit down. The defendant continued...

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