Broadnax v. State, CR-10-1481

• Decision Date: 14 December 2012
• Docket Number: CR-10-1481
• Parties: Donald Broadnax v. State of Alabama
• Court: Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals

Donald Broadnax

v.State of Alabama

CR-10-1481

ALABAMA COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS

OCTOBER TERM, 2012-2013

Dated: December 14, 2012

Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern Reporter. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0649), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is printed in Southern Reporter.

Appeal from Jefferson Circuit Court

(CC-96-5162.82)

KELLUM, Judge.

Donald Broadnax appeals the circuit court's denial of his petition for postconviction relief filed pursuant to Rule 32, Ala. R. Crim. P.

In 1997, Broadnax was convicted of four counts of capital murder for the beating deaths of his wife, Hector Jan Stamps Broadnax, and her four-year-old grandson, DeAngelo Stamps. The murders were made capital (1) because two or more persons were murdered pursuant to one scheme or course of conduct, see § 13A-5-40(a)(10), Ala. Code 1975; (2) because Broadnax had been convicted of another murder in the 20 years preceding those murders, see § 13A-5-40(a)(13), Ala. Code 1975; (3) because the murders were committed during the course of a kidnapping, see § 13A-5-40(a)(1), Ala. Code 1975; and (4) because DeAngelo Stamps was under 14 years of age at the time of his death, see § 13A-5-40(a)(15), Ala. Code 1975. The jury unanimously recommended that Broadnax be sentenced to death for his convictions, and the trial court followed the jury's recommendation and sentenced Broadnax to death. This Court affirmed Broadnax's convictions and sentence on appeal, Broadnax v. State, 825 So. 2d 134 (Ala. Crim. App. 2000),¹ and the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed this Court's judgment, Ex parte Broadnax, 825 So. 2d 233 (Ala. 2001). This Court issueda certificate of judgment on January 16, 2002. The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari review on June 28, 2002. Broadnax v. Alabama, 536 U.S. 964 (2002).

In this Court's opinion affirming Broadnax's convictions and sentence, we set out the facts of the crimes as follows:

"The evidence tended to show the following. In April 1996, Donald Broadnax, who had been convicted in 1978 for murder and who was serving a sentence of 99 years' imprisonment, was residing at a work release center in Alexander City and working at Welborn Forest Products in Alexander City. In 1995 Broadnax married Hector Jan Stamps Broadnax, who at the time of the marriage had a three-year-old grandson, DeAngelo Stamps. Broadnax and Jan were having marital problems and Broadnax believed that Jan was partially responsible for a recent denial of parole. The evidence indicated that after 6:00 p.m. on April 25, 1996, Jan and DeAngelo delivered food to Broadnax at his workplace. Johnny Baker, an inmate at the work release center and Broadnax's coworker at Welborn, testified that he saw Broadnax driving Jan's car at Welborn that evening.[² ] According to Baker, Broadnax stopped to talk with him and he saw a child in a child's safety seat in the backseat. Baker testified that he was 'pretty sure' the child was alive when he talked with Broadnax.[³ ]"At approximately 10:45 p.m. that same night, Mark Chastain, a [supervisor] at Welborn, found Broadnax inside a building while securing the building for the night. Chastain testified that he told Broadnax that the alarm had been set and that they had to exit the building. According to Chastain, when he asked Broadnax why he was still in the building, Broadnax stated that the work release van had dropped him off. ...[⁴ ]

"Kathy Chastain, Mark Chastain's wife, testified that while she was outside the building waiting for her husband to secure the building, she saw an individual matching Broadnax's description get out of a [white King-cab pickup truck] and run into the building.

"On April 25, 1996, Robert Williams and his wife were living across the street from a house in Birmingham that had in the past been used as a 'crack-house' and for prostitution. On that evening as Williams and his wife left their house at approximately 8:20 p.m., they noticed no cars were parked at the house across the street. When they returned at approximately 8:50 p.m., they saw a white Dodge Aries automobile parked behind the house. Because of the previous illegal activities occurring at the house, Williams telephoned the police and reported the presence of the car.

"Alondo McCurdy and Donna Smith, officers for the Birmingham Police Department, responded to the call and arrived at the residence at approximately 9:00 p.m. When they approached the parked car, they noticed blood on the ground behind the car and on the bumper. Based on their observations, they immediately radioed their supervisor and theparamedics, and secured the scene. It was later determined that the car belonged to Jan Broadnax.

"When the paramedics arrived, they opened the locked trunk and found the bodies of Jan and DeAngelo in the trunk. Both Jan and DeAngelo had been beaten. According to Dr. Robert Brissie, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsies on the victims, blunt-force trauma, which could have been caused by the use of a piece of lumber such as the one found in the trunk with the bodies, caused the deaths of Jan and DeAngelo.[⁵ ]

"On April 27, 1996, Lawrence Hardnette, an inmate resident at the work release center in Alexander City, found a work uniform that did not belong to him stuffed under his bunk. At about the same time, James Smith, another inmate resident of the work release center, found a pair of Red Wing brand work boots under his bunk. The uniform and the boots were turned over to the supervisors and were later identified as belonging to Broadnax. Broadnax was the only one at the work center who wore Red Wing work boots; there were also identifying marks on the work uniforms indicating that the uniforms had been issued to Broadnax. When the work uniform and the boots were examined, bloodstains were found on the uniform [and the boots]. The analysis of the bloodstains [on the uniform] indicated that the deoxyribonucleic acid ('DNA') in these bloodstains matched the DNA of Jan and DeAngelo.[⁶ ]

"On the grounds at Welborn near a finishing products storage facility, employees found an earring that matched an earring found on the rearfloorboard of Jan's car. The evidence appeared to indicate that Jan was killed at Broadnax's workplace in Alexander City, that her body was placed in the trunk of the car, and that the car was driven to Birmingham. Officer Vince Cunningham of the Birmingham Police Department testified that while conducting the investigation, he traveled from the location where the bodies were found in Birmingham to Broadnax's workplace in Alexander City [several times and determined that the drive time was no more than one and one-half hours]. [Thus, a]ccording to Cunningham, Broadnax could have easily traveled the distance between the two locations within the time frame set out by the evidence."

825 So. 2d at 150-51.

In addition to the above, the State presented evidence at trial indicating that the piece of lumber found in the trunk of the vehicle with the victims was similar to the lumber used at Welborn, and that a blue cloth similar to cloth used at Welborn was also found in the trunk of the vehicle. The State also presented evidence indicating that the blood spatter on the rear of the vehicle was consistent with a beating. The State presented testimony that a few days before the murders Broadnax had told a fellow employee at Welborn that he was upset with Jan regarding the denial of his parole, which had occurred on April 15, 1996, and that he was planning to kill Jan. The State also presented testimony regarding two statements made by Broadnax to the police. In his statements,Broadnax said that Jan had brought him dinner at Welborn the night of the murders and that she had left Welborn at approximately 8:20 p.m. Broadnax also said that he had been at Welborn the entire day and evening of the murders, until approximately 10:45 p.m., and that he had telephoned his brother from Welborn at approximately 9:00 p.m. However, the State introduced telephone records indicating that no telephone call had been made to Broadnax's brother's house the night of April 25, 1996. When questioned specifically about the bloody boots and the Welborn work uniform belonging to him that were found in the work-release facility, Broadnax stated that he had sold the boots to another inmate, although he could not identify that inmate, approximately a year earlier and that the uniform had been stolen about two months earlier. Broadnax also said that he had reported the theft of his uniform to the company who made and rented the uniforms to Welborn; however, the State presented testimony at trial that no report of a stolen uniform had been made to the uniform company.

The State's theory of the case was that between approximately 6:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. the night of April 25,1996, Broadnax brutally beat to death his wife, Jan, at Welborn; put Jan's body in the trunk of her car; drove the car with Jan's grandson, DeAngelo, in the backseat, to Birmingham to a location near Elyton Village where Broadnax had grown up and presumably had friends; brutally beat DeAngelo to death in that location; placed DeAngelo's body in the trunk of the car with Jan's body; and found someone to drive him back to Welborn, where Mark and Kathy Chastain saw Broadnax around 10:30 p.m.

The defense's theory of the case was that Broadnax had been at Welborn all day and all evening on April 25, 1996 -- as Broadnax had said in his statements to police -- and that the State's evidence was insufficient to prove that Broadnax had committed the murders. Although the defense called no witnesses, they vigorously cross-examined the State's witnesses and called into question the State's time line of events as well as the credibility of the State's...