Blake v. State
| Decision Date | 28 June 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. 31874,31874 |
| Parties | Joseph James BLAKE v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Andrew J. Ryan, III, Dist. Atty., William H. McAbee, II, Chief Asst. Dist. Atty., Savannah, Arthur K. Bolton, Atty. Gen., Susan V. Boleyn, Staff Asst. Atty. Gen., Atlanta, for appellee.
This is a death case. Appellant Joseph James Blake was indicted by a Chatham County grand jury on January 15, 1976, for the November 15, 1975, murder of Tiffany Loury, age two. He was tried by a jury on February 13 and 14, 1976, and convicted. The jury found aggravating circumstances and recommended the death penalty. The case is before this court on appeal of denial of a motion for new trial and for mandatory review of the death penalty.
Evidence was presented from which the jury was authorized to find the following: In November, 1975, Jacquelyn Loury and her two-year-old daughter Tiffany, the victim, were living with her mother, Florence Smith, and Jacquelyn's brothers and sisters. Jacquelyn and the defendant had dated each other for about nine months and planned to be married.
On the evening of November 14, 1975, the defendant asked Jacquelyn to go out with him but she told him that she planned to go out with her girlfriend, Denise Walker. The defendant persisted in asking Jacquelyn to go out with him instead. Jacquelyn went to Denise Walker's house where the defendant showed up and again asked if she was going out and whether he could take her somewhere. She told him that she wanted him to take her to the Silver Fox Lounge. Jacquelyn's mother kept Tiffany while Jacquelyn, the defendant, Denise Walker, and three others went first to one bar and then to another. They were drinking beer and the defendant was drinking vodka.
During the course of the evening the defendant told Jacquelyn he was ready to leave, an altercation occurred between them, and the defendant struck Jacquelyn on the side of the head with his fist. The lounge management ejected the defendant and when he returned he was ejected a second time around midnight.
Florence Smith testified that Tiffany and the other children had gone to bed shortly after 9:30 p.m. on November 14. Mrs Police Officer C. E. Williams responded to a homicide call in the vicinity of the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge. There he talked to the defendant who told him that he had just thrown a girl named Tiffany off the bridge, which is more than 100 feet high. The officer advised the defendant of his rights and began questioning him. The defendant described the events which had occurred and later gave a complete confession.
Smith left the house to visit friends at approximately 10:15, returning at about 12:15. She noticed that the window was up in the room in which Tiffany had been sleeping, and that the curtains were pulled back. At approximately 1 o'clock, the telephone rang and Mrs. Smith identified the voice of the defendant. He asked whether Jacquelyn was home and when told that she was not, the defendant told Mrs. Smith that he had Tiffany. She scolded the defendant for having the baby out in the cold at that time of night, but he hung up.
The pathologist who performed an autopsy on the child testified that the cause of death was drowning and noted that the victim had severe injuries which were consistent with injuries sustained as a result of a fall from an extreme height.
The defendant testified, admitting that he had in fact thrown the child from the bridge causing her death, but contending that he was insane. He testified that after having been put out of the bar the second time, he rode around for awhile and then went to Jacquelyn's home. When no one answered his knocking, he opened a window, reached inside and unlocked the door. On entering the house, he found everyone asleep, except Tiffany. The defendant testified that he asked Tiffany if she wanted to go with him and she said yes. They left by way of the back door.
The defendant testified that he intended to run away with the child because the mother did not deserve to have her. He admitted making the phone call for the purpose of telling Jacquelyn that she would never see him or her daughter again. He said that following the phone call he drove around until he came to the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge. He drove over the bridge to South Carolina but decided to turn around and return to Savannah. The defendant testified that about halfway back across the bridge he asked the child, "Would you like to go and stay with me forever?" She replied, "Yes." The defendant replied, He stopped the car.
The defendant and the child got out of the car and knelt down and prayed about going into another world. Then the defendant told the child, "I'll send you first and I'll be along shortly after." The defendant explained that the reason he was "going later" was because he wanted the child's mother to know they were leaving and why he was taking the baby with him.
The Director of the Forensic Psychiatric Center at Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia, testified that the defendant was admitted to that hospital on December 3, 1975, pursuant to court order for an examination and evaluation of his medical condition and his mental capacity to face charges of murder and kidnapping. The examination revealed that the defendant was in good physical health. His mental condition was determined to be "reactive-depressive." It was determined during his psychiatric examination that the defendant was not insane. The doctor stated that the defendant had no history of psychiatric problems.
The defendant has urged five enumerations of error.
1. In his first enumeration he urges that the trial court erred by permitting testimony during the guilt-innocence phase of the trial of a prior criminal act when the defendant's character was not in issue and when the only issue was his sanity at the time of the crime.
The prior criminal act objected to was related by defendant's former wife. She described an incident after they separated in which the defendant came to her house to talk to her about the two of them getting Evidence which is material and competent is not to be excluded merely because it is prejudicial. Fowler v. State, 111 Ga.App. 856, 143 S.E.2d 553 (1965). Mrs. Blake's testimony was both material and competent to show the state of mind, plan and motive of the defendant. It tended to rebut his claim of insanity by showing a course of conduct in threatening harm to small children as a way of imposing his will on their mothers, as contrasted to an act carried out while insane. Testimony relating to other crimes is admissible if such testimony aids in identification or shows the state of mind, plan, motive or scheme of the accused. Davis v. State, 233 Ga. 638, 639(2), 212 S.E.2d 814 (1974); McNeal v. State, 228 Ga. 633, 187 S.E.2d 271 (1972); Atkins v. State, 236 Ga. 624, 625, 225 S.E.2d 7 (1976); Moore v. State, 221 Ga. 636, 637, 146 S.E.2d 895 (1966); Cawthon v. State, 119 Ga. 395, 46 S.E. 897 (1904). The trial court limited testimony concerning the incident to that portion involving the child (the court prohibited the district attorney from bringing out during the guilt-innocence phase that the defendant stabbed Mrs. Blake after she grabbed her son). The trial court did not err in admitting the testimony.
back together. Mrs. Blake testified that they had been talking and she had sent her sister to get the mail. When she came back from the screen door, the defendant was holding her two-year-old son and he said, "I bet you will come back to me if I run this knife through his heart." She grabbed her child away from the defendant.
2. In Enumeration 2 the defendant alleges that the trial court erred by sentencing him to death in that the evidence does not support the jury's finding of aggravating circumstances ("outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim") and that the verdict is contrary to law in that it was imposed "under the influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor." Code Ann. § 27-2537(c)(1).
In support of this enumeration, the defendant urges that the The defendant further asserts that the age of the victim automatically triggered natural prejudices which were enhanced by the testimony of his former wife concerning threats to her child and his stabbing her while she was seven months pregnant.
In addressing Enumeration 1 we have held that the court did not err in admitting during the guilt-innocence phase of the trial the testimony of the former wife concerning defendant's threat to her child. The court did not err in admitting during the sentencing phase the testimony of the former wife that after she rescued her son from the defendant he stabbed her several times and that she was pregnant at the time. The defendant had been given notice that these charges would be used against him in aggravation.
The age of the child was not prejudicial in and of itself. If the fact that a two-year-old girl was the victim of an outrageous crime evoked sympathy, that was unavoidable. The defendant dropped this two-year-old child from a bridge at a point where the evidence shows it is in excess of 100 feet above the water. The pathologist testified that the body showed that it had received severe mechanical trauma in general and damage to the internal organs.
The evidence supports the jury's finding that the murder was " outrageously or wantonly vile,...
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