Baldwin v. State, 1999-KA-00812-SCT.

• Decision Date: 12 April 2001
• Docket Number: No. 1999-KA-00812-SCT.,1999-KA-00812-SCT.
• Parties: Clint BALDWIN v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

784 So.2d 148

Clint BALDWIN v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 1999-KA-00812-SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

April 12, 2001.

Carrie A. Jourdan, Columbus, for Appellant.

Office of the Attorney General by Scott Stuart, for Appellee.

EN BANC.

MILLS, Justice, for the Court:

¶ 1. Clint Baldwin was tried and convicted in the Circuit Court of Lowndes County of capital murder and sentenced to a term of life imprisonment. He now appeals to this Court.

STATEMENT OF FACTS

¶ 2. Mary Elizabeth Mosley Dill ("Liz") was the thirty-year-old wife of Bryan Dill and mother of a fifteen-month-old baby daughter named Taylor. She worked with pregnant teens at a community counseling center and was studying to be a nurse. On Easter weekend, 1996, Liz was kidnapped, raped, and murdered.

¶ 3. Bryan Dill reported his wife missing through a 911 call shortly after seven o' clock on the morning of Saturday, April 6, 1996. He told investigators that he had left Liz at home alone the previous evening at around 8:30 p.m. and had gone to a camp house called "the Shack," where he and his friends grilled hamburgers, drank beer, and spent the night. He returned at 5:30 the next morning to find Liz missing.

¶ 4. Three days later, on the afternoon of April 9, 1996, Officer Steven Beale of the Mississippi Highway Patrol was flagged down by a passing motorist on Highway 69 and led to a small field off a dirt road. There he found the mutilated, partially-decomposed, nude body of a young woman. Dental records would later prove this body to be that of Liz.

¶ 5. The initial investigation performed at the Dill residence the morning Liz was reported missing revealed no sign of forced entry into the house and produced no fibers, hairs, fingerprints, body fluids, or other evidence that could be used to identify a suspect. Also, there was no sign of a struggle in the home. Bryan did, however, report a .25 caliber handgun missing. ¶ 6. After Liz's body was discovered, further investigation led deputies to Clint Baldwin and his brother Darnell. The deputies interviewed guests from the party at the Shack and learned that the two brothers had briefly attended on the night in question. Two of these guests testified that Clint and Darnell Baldwin arrived at the party in Darnell's 1975 Monte Carlo between 2:00 and 2:30 in the morning and stayed approximately fifteen to thirty minutes. The Baldwins spoke with Bryan Dill during this visit. Darnell returned to the Shack around 4:30 a.m. and stayed for a few minutes but never got out of his car.

¶ 7. Continuing to seek interviews with persons who attended the party at the Shack, deputies went to Darnell's home on April 9 to talk with him about the night of Liz's disappearance. The deputies noted that during the interview Darnell was visibly upset-his hands shaking as he chainsmoked, his voice trembling as he spoke. He repeatedly refused their invitations to come to the Sheriffs Department for an interview, as well as, their request to examine the inside of the Monte Carlo. Believing Darnell's actions to be suspicious, the deputies left the house to arrange surveillance of the vehicle. Upon their return, the Monte Carlo was gone. It was found over four months later near the state line in Alabama. The car had been completely destroyed-burned from the hood to the trunk.

¶ 8. Dr. Steven Hayne, a pathologist with the Department of Public Safety and Medical Examiner's Office, performed an autopsy on Liz Dill's body. Dr. Hayne concluded that Liz died from a gunshot in the back of the head with a high-velocity bullet from a rifle. Liz's fingers, hands, and arms showed signs of defensive posturing, indicating that she had attempted to protect herself from blows to her face, neck, and chest prior to her death. Liz's skin was removed over most of her face, neck, and chest area, from below the left breast, which was completely removed. Dr. Hayne testified that this "skinning" was performed with a sharp object following Liz's death.

¶ 9. Dr. Hayne collected seminal fluid from Liz's vagina. The seminal fluid and a blood sample drawn from Darnell Baldwin were sent to a New Orleans laboratory known as GenTest (now called Reliagene Technologies) for DNA testing. At trial, Anne Montgomery, Reliagene's forensic laboratory director, was qualified as an expert in molecular biology and DNA analysis. She testified that the DNA profile from the seminal fluid matched the DNA profile from Darnell's blood sample.

¶ 10. In July, 1996, deputies took a statement from Clint Baldwin's lifelong friend Stanley Abrams. The statement was made after Abrams was arrested, along with Clint Baldwin, for intimidating a witness. (At trial Abrams recanted the statement, testifying that the detectives had written it and made him sign it, but did not allow him to read what he had signed.) The statement described a meeting between Abrams and Clint Baldwin in June, 1996. At that meeting Clint admitted to Abrams his involvement in the murder of Liz Dill and related the events surrounding it. According to Abrams' statement, Clint and Darnell met Bryan Dill at the camp house where he told them that Liz was at home by herself and instructed them to go "take care of business." The two followed Bryan's instructions and went to the house. Clint knocked on the door; Liz answered; Clint pushed his way in; and Liz fell. Darnell then grabbed her and put a rag in her mouth while Clint took a gun and a machete from the bedroom. Clint drove the car to a gravel pit while Darnell held Liz in the back seat. At the gravel pit Clint watched Darnell rape Liz. They pulled her from the car, knocked her out, and returned to the camp house. Bryan told them to return to the gravel pit and kill her. According to the statement, the brothers drove back to the gravel pit; Darnell cut Liz's throat with the machete; they wrapped her body, put it in the trunk of the Monte Carlo, and dropped it in a hog pen on a gravel road off U.S. Highway 82.

¶ 11. The statement also revealed that Clint had taken Abrams to see the gravel pit where Liz Dill was murdered. Shortly after giving the statement, Abrams directed the deputies to the gravel pit. While there, the deputies discovered a pair of black shorts, a .270 caliber rifle shell casing, and some clear plastic sheeting resembling some they had previously seen at Darnell Baldwin's home.

¶ 12. In September, 1996, both Clint Baldwin and his brother, Darnell Baldwin, were arrested for the capital murder of Liz Dill. Darnell was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. That conviction was affirmed by this Court. See Baldwin v. State, 757 So.2d 227 (Miss.2000)

.

¶ 13. While awaiting trial, Clint was incarcerated with an inmate named Michael Ball. Ball testified that Clint had discussed Liz Dill's murder with him. According to Ball's report of Clint's admissions, Clint and his brother Darnell were hired for $5,000 to dispose of a body. When they arrived to get the body, however, the woman was alive. They killed her, placed her body in the trunk of Darnell's car, carried the body to a deserted area in the county, and disposed of it.

¶ 14. Clint was tried and convicted of capital murder before a jury chosen in Jackson County pursuant to a motion for change of venue. He was sentenced to a term of life imprisonment. He now appeals to this Court.

ANALYSIS

I. WHETHER BALDWIN WAS DENIED HIS RIGHT TO A FAIR AND IMPARTIAL JURY BECAUSE VENUE WAS CHANGED TO A COUNTY WITH A LOWER PERCENTAGE OF BLACK CITIZENS.

¶ 15. Baldwin contends that the trial court erred in failing to quash the venire on change of venue since Jackson County, where the jury was chosen, has a lower percentage of black citizens (22.3% potential black jurors) than Lowndes County (36-38% potential black jurors), where the crime occurred. He asserts that, in essence, he was forced to choose between his right to an impartial jury and his right to a jury of his peers.

¶ 16. This issue is controlled by our holding in Simon v. State, 688 So.2d 791 (Miss.1997). There we held that a defendant has no right to a change of venue to a county with a percentage of black citizens similar to that of the county where the offense occurred. Id. at 804. Prior to his first trial, Simon was granted a change of venue from Quitman County (where 53.6% of the registered voters were black) to Jones County (where 21% of the registered voters were black). Id. at 803. Prior to his second trial, Simon moved for a change of venue from Jones County. The motion was granted, and the case was moved to DeSoto County (where blacks comprised 15.2% of the population). As part of his appeal in Simon v. State, 633 So.2d 407 (Miss.1993), vacated on other grounds, Simon v. Mississippi, 513 U.S. 956, 115 S.Ct. 413, 130 L.Ed.2d 329 (1994) (hereinafter referred to as Simon I), Simon cited as error the trial court's decision to move the case to a county with fewer black citizens than the original forum.

¶ 17. We held:

Although the defendant does have a right to be tried by a jury whose members were selected pursuant to a nondiscriminatory criteria, the Batson court noted that the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States has never been held to require that petit juries actually chosen must mirror the community and reflect the various distinctive groups in the populations.

Simon I, 633 So.2d at 412 (quoting Britt v. State, 520 So.2d 1377, 1379 (Miss.1988)). In Simon II, quoting Chief Justice Hawkins' language from Simon I, we found:

Simon cites no cases to support his contention he was entitled to a second change of venue to a county with a population similar to Quitman County. Indeed the United States Supreme Court declined to make such a requirement incumbent on the states in the case of Mallett v. Missouri, 769 S.W.2d 77 (Mo.1989), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1009, 110 S.Ct. 1308, 108 L.Ed.2d 484 (1990).

Simon II, 688 So.2d at 803-04. Baldwin likewise fails to cite any...