Bland v. State

Decision Date30 June 1992
Docket NumberCR-91-299
Citation601 So.2d 521
PartiesTerry BLAND v. STATE.
CourtAlabama Court of Criminal Appeals

Robert Turner, Montgomery, for appellant.

James H. Evans, Atty. Gen., and David Bjurberg, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

TAYLOR, Judge.

The opinion previously issued in this case is withdrawn and the following substituted therefor.

The appellant, Terry Bland, was convicted of murder, a violation of § 13A-6-2, Code of Alabama 1975. Pursuant to the Habitual Felony Offender Act, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

The appellant presents five issues on appeal.

I

Initially, the appellant contends that the guilty verdict was palpably contrary to the great weight of the evidence.

The state's evidence tended to show that at 10:43 a.m. on August 7, 1990, the appellant, a white male, telephoned 911 and stated that he had found his mother's body in their home on Rush Drive in Montgomery. The first Montgomery Police Department officer on the scene entered the house and found the victim, Jewel Bland, lying on a mattress in the den and covered by a quilt from the waist up. Firemedics pronounced the victim dead at the scene. The cause of death was later determined to be five stab wounds to the chest, three of which penetrated the left lung and heart. When the body was found, it was in full post-mortem rigor, which indicated that the time of death was between noon on August 5 and noon on August 6.

Corporal J.T. Hunt of the Montgomery Police Department testified that someone had attempted to make the victim's house appear as if it had been broken into. A screen on a window in the den had been torn off and the glass had been broken, yet items on the windowsill were undisturbed, the blinds were still down, dust on the inside of the blinds was unmarred, cobwebs remained across the sill, and fragments of glass that had scattered across the room lay on top of the quilt that covered the corpse. Further, nothing appeared to have been stolen and only two rooms in the house had been disturbed: the victim's and the appellant's. Hunt stated that, even though items were strewn across both rooms, it was obvious that the items had been carefully placed because not a single fragile object had been broken. In the victim's room, a cedar chest had been broken into, apparently with a ball-peen hammer that was found lying on the ground nearby. Two human hairs consistent with those of black persons were found at the scene (one on the victim's body, one on the sill of the broken window), but Hunt testified that these probably came from one of the firemedics, who was black.

At the scene, the appellant told the police that he and his girlfriend, Debbie Huebner, had been at her trailer in Hope Hull before coming to the victim's house and discovering the body. On August 14, the appellant, after being advised of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 1 stated that he had been with Huebner at her house trailer from approximately 3:30 p.m. on August 5 until around 10:15 a.m. on August 7, except for around 11:00 a.m. on August 6, when they briefly returned to his house to get his mail. At that time, though, the appellant did not enter the house and did not see the victim. The victim was last seen alive at 10:00 p.m. on August 5 by a neighbor. The appellant and Huebner discovered the victim's body at approximately 10:30 a.m. on August 7.

During his statement on August 14, the appellant indicated that he had his mother's maroon pick-up truck during the time he was away from the house from August 5 through 7. A neighbor, however, stated that she saw the pick-up in the victim's driveway at 5:45 p.m. on August 6, when the appellant was supposedly at Huebner's trailer.

Thereafter, the appellant recited different versions of the matricide; attributing the murdering of his mother to accident, drugs, other people, or to the devil.

Some time after August 14, Huebner drove the appellant to Mississippi. Upon returning to Montgomery on October 23, the appellant was picked up at the bus station by Ricky Glenn, a friend. While riding with Glenn, the appellant said that he had killed his mother when she accidentally "run into the knife" during an argument (R. 299). When Glenn suggested that he turn himself in, the appellant told him to drive to the police station. At the station, the appellant telephoned Corporal Hunt, who told him that they could not talk over the telephone. The appellant said that "he felt all along that [Hunt] knew that he had done it" (R. 141) and told Hunt that he would call him the next day.

On the morning of the 24th, the appellant again telephoned Hunt and asked him to pick him up. After meeting the appellant and driving him to the police station, Hunt advised him of his Miranda rights, and the appellant signed a waiver form. In a videotaped statement, the appellant confessed to killing his mother during an argument. He stated that he had been standing in her bedroom door with a knife in his hand when she came toward him and that "the next thing he knew ... the knife was stuck in her" (R. 143). After making the statement, the appellant was placed under arrest.

On October 28, the appellant, again after being advised of his rights, stated that he had the knife because he had wanted to run someone off who was in the driveway. When asked about the four other stab wounds, the appellant stated that he "must have gone berserk" (R. 160). Following his arrest, the appellant admitted to one of his brothers that he had killed their mother because he was "fixing to be busted for drugs" (R. 286).

On November 4, the appellant, after his rights were read to him, made a written statement in which he again admitted to killing his mother. This time, however, he stated that he had taken some sort of pills (two Xanax and one Flexeril) on the evening of August 5 and that, during the night, he and Huebner had gone to his house. The appellant could not recall, however, how they had gotten there. He also indicated that he could only remember segments of the time before and after he stabbed his mother, but that he did recall holding the knife and ordering a man to leave the house. The appellant also remembered arguing with his mother about her having a man over and about Huebner staying at the house. He also vaguely remembered driving back to Huebner's trailer after the stabbing.

The appellant included with his written statement a drawing of the knife that killed the victim. He labelled it as having a 5"' blade and a 3"'-4"' handle. He also admitted to removing the screen from the den window and breaking into the chest with the ball-peen hammer. Additionally, the appellant sent a letter to a friend of the victim's that was similar to his November 4 statement.

On June 20, 1991, the appellant mailed a letter to one of his brothers in which he admitted to killing their mother because "Satan had come into my body and ... took full control of me" and that "[t]he Lord had allowed it because someone was going to bring charges on me for the sale of dope" (R. 287). The appellant also wrote in the letter that God had told him what to do in dreams. He also wrote Ricky Glenn and told him that he was going to hell for taking him to the police station.

The appellant contends on appeal that the guilty verdict was contrary to the great weight of the evidence. At trial, the appellant denied the truth of everything he said in the statements, explaining that he had only dreamed that he killed his mother. Further, he contends that there is no direct evidence placing him at the scene of the crime during the estimated time of death. Instead, the appellant argues that the evidence tends to show that the victim was killed by a perpetrator who had broken into the house or that, in the alternative, her death was the result of a conspiracy between his girlfriend and one of his brothers.

In support of his argument that the murder was committed by an intruder, the appellant points to the evidence that the house had been broken into. Further, he argues that the two negroid hairs found at the scene indicate that someone else besides he and his girlfriend had been in the house. He also contends that the window in the den was low enough so that someone could have stepped over the sill without disturbing the objects on it, that the blinds could not have been down because glass was found across the room, and that a pile of magazines below the window had been disturbed. Finally, he notes that prowlers had been seen around the appellant's house during the weeks prior to the murder.

In support of the conspiracy theory, the appellant testified at trial that Huebner, who could not be located to testify, and one of his brothers, Ronnie, were good friends and used to smoke marijuana together. He contends that there was a lot of "bad blood" between Huebner and his mother, and that Ronnie was extremely jealous of the appellant's close relationship with their mother. He suggests that the two must have drugged him, driven the maroon truck to his mother's house, and killed her while he was unconscious. The appellant also argues that, if he is convicted of his mother's death, Ronnie stands to inherit a part of the appellant's sizeable share of their mother's estate.

The "weight of the evidence" refers to " 'a determination [by] the trier of fact that a greater amount of credible evidence supports one side of an issue or cause than the other.' " Tibbs v. Florida, 457 U.S. 31, 37-38, 102 S.Ct. 2211, 2216, 72 L.Ed.2d 652 (1982); R.B.N. v. State, 600 So.2d 409, 410 (Ala.Cr.App.1992); Johnson v. State, 555 So.2d 818, 820 (Ala.Cr.App.1989). Conflicting evidence presents a jury issue. Curry v. State, 601 So.2d 157 (Ala.Cr.App.1992); Smith v. State, 583 So.2d 990 (Ala.Cr.App.), writ denied, 583 So.2d 993 (Ala.1991). In reviewing a verdict based largely on circumstantial evidence, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution. Wilbourn v. State, 457...

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    ...issue or cause than the other." ' Tibbs v. Florida, 457 U.S. 31, 37-38, 102 S.Ct. 2211, 2216, 72 L.Ed.2d 652 (1982). Bland v. State, 601 So.2d 521, 524 (Ala.Cr.App.1992); Johnson v. State, 555 So.2d 818, 820 (Ala.Cr.App.1989). Conflicting evidence presents a jury issue. Smith v. State, 583 ......
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