Brunson v. State

Decision Date13 June 2002
Docket NumberNo. CR 01-1172.,CR 01-1172.
Citation79 S.W.3d 304,349 Ark. 300
PartiesLarry Darnell BRUNSON v. STATE of Arkansas.
CourtArkansas Supreme Court

Montgomery, Adams & Wyatt, PLLC, by Dale E. Adams, Little Rock, for appellant.

Mark Pryor, Att'y Gen., by Clayton K. Hodges, Ass't Att'y Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.

ROBERT L. BROWN, Justice.

Appellant Larry Darnell Brunson was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced to two life terms, to run consecutively. His appeal consists of three allegations of error relating to the testimony of Barbara. Ann Neiss: (1) that he was not sufficiently advised that Ms. Neiss would be an expert witness, in violation of Ark. R.Crim. P. 17.1; (2) that Ms. Neiss was not qualified to render an opinion on his proclivity to murder; and (3) that Ms. Neiss's opinion embraced the ultimate issue for the jury to decide and was unduly prejudicial. The trial court qualified Ms. Neiss as an expert on profiling batterers and determining when they are likely to murder victims they have previously abused. In her testimony at trial, Ms. Neiss's profile identified Brunson as one who met eight of ten risk factors for a batterer who will turn murderer. Brunson contends that Ms. Neiss was not qualified to render an opinion on the likelihood that he would murder his wife and her lover and that profiling him was unduly prejudicial. We agree that the trial court abused its discretion in permitting Ms. Neiss to offer her opinion. We reverse the judgment of conviction and remand for further proceedings.

Appellant Larry Brunson and his wife, Gloria Brunson, were married and had two children, Latisha Brunson and Larry Brunson, Jr. The Brunson family lived in Pine Bluff where Gloria Brunson worked for the Social Security Administration from 1979 until her death in 1999. In the late 1990s, Larry and Gloria Brunson became estranged and separated. After the separation, Larry Brunson began harassing his wife. For three years leading up to the shootings in 1999, Gloria Brunson was romantically involved with another man, Frankie Shaw, who was Larry Jr.'s basketball coach.

During the years that Larry and Gloria Brunson were estranged, Larry Brunson called his wife numerous times during the day at her office in the federal building in Pine Bluff and at home. In addition to this behavior, Brunson was physically violent to his wife on a number of occasions. Because of this behavior, Gloria Brunson obtained a permanent protective order against her husband on July 21, 1998. The permanent order was continued on December 29, 1998 and expanded to include her children who sought protection against their father. Despite the protective order, Brunson's harassment of his wife continued.

On multiple occasions, Gloria Brunson filed for divorce from her husband. Her most recent attempt at divorce occurred in November 1998, just before she went to Dallas, Texas, to begin a three-month job-training session. From November 16, 1998, to February 4, 1999, she lived in Dallas. She asked that her co-workers with the Social Security Administration not disclose her whereabouts or any contact information about her. Her co-workers resisted Brunson's repeated requests for the information. Brunson eventually learned where she was and traveled to Dallas where he found her hotel room. He appeared unannounced at the training center, and as a result of his appearance Gloria Brunson changed her hotel room number and took copies of her protective orders and her husband's photograph to Social Security Administration security personnel.

When Brunson was in Dallas, he stayed with a friend, Dennis Wayne Dilworth, for four days. Dilworth described Brunson at trial as obsessed with his estranged wife. Dilworth also testified that Brunson had a handgun with him during his time in Dallas but that he never heard Brunson make threatening comments about his wife.

In December 1998, Gloria Brunson took a three-week break from her training in Dallas and returned to Pine Bluff for the holiday season. On December 19, 1998, Brunson allegedly planted crack cocaine in his wife's car and then called the Arkansas State Highway Police anonymously. He told them that a white vehicle with a particular license plate number was transporting drugs and possibly a murder weapon. A state trooper pulled Gloria over and found crack cocaine in a brown paper bag that had been wedged underneath the dashboard of the car. Gloria Brunson was extremely upset and told the trooper that she had been framed by her husband. The trooper believed her story and allowed her to leave without arrest.

At trial, the Brunsons' daughter, Latisha, testified for the State. She described constant phone calls from her father to her mother at their residence. She stated that when her mother would change the telephone number, her father would find a way to get the number by fabricating a story about why he needed it. She also testified that during the spring of 1999, she went to her mother's house and found her father there with a locksmith attempting to gain entry into the house. She also saw him on a number of occasions walking around the perimeter of the house.

She related one incident in 1998 when her father had threatened to commit suicide. She and her mother were at home, and her mother and father had been fighting. He told her that he had a gun and was going to kill himself. He locked himself in a bedroom, and Latisha and her mother heard a gunshot. As it turned out, he had shot a bullet through the window and did not harm himself. Latisha testified that also in 1998, her mother found sugar spread over the engine of her car. She attributed this act of vandalism to her husband. Latisha also testified that during 1998, her father burned some of her mother's clothing, and a neighbor had to call the fire department. Latisha further testified that she heard her father threaten to kill Frankie Shaw.

There were several State witnesses who testified that they had gradually come to understand that Gloria Brunson was romantically involved with Frankie Shaw, although she took steps to prevent this fact from becoming common knowledge. There was testimony that Shaw had visited her in Dallas. Also, Brunson had begun questioning his wife's friends and co-workers about the nature of her relationship with Shaw. According to their testimony, none of Gloria Brunson's friends or co-workers told Brunson that Gloria Brunson and Shaw were romantically linked.

At about 8 a.m. on April 25, 1999, Pine Bluff Police Officer Gregory Shapiro was dispatched to Frankie Shaw's home. When he arrived, he found two shooting victims on the driveway of his home. Both were deceased. The victims were identified as Gloria Brunson and Frankie Shaw. Officer Shapiro called the homicide unit to the scene. The associate medical examiner, Charles Paul Kokes, testified at trial that Gloria Brunson had been shot in the head four times, with one of the shots having been fired at close range. Shaw had been shot three times in the head, and two of his wounds were apparently sustained as he lay on the ground. There was also a bullet hole in the driver's side of Shaw's car that was consistent with the height of a driver's head. There was blood in Shaw's car. The bodies had apparently been left on the driveway overnight, because they were rainsoaked and rigor mortis had set in. Money had been left in Shaw's wallet, and Shaw's house did not appear to have been entered or ransacked.

A witness for the State, Erica Waddell, testified that Brunson appeared at his parent's house on the night of the murders. She was there visiting her boyfriend, and she saw Brunson enter the house. He changed clothes and then left the house with the bag in which he kept his gun. He returned about an hour later without the bag. He then went to sleep.

Homicide detectives began talking to Gloria Brunson's friends and relatives, and they developed Brunson as a suspect based on those conversations. Before they could locate Brunson, he called the Pine Bluff police station. Police officers next went to his home and requested that he accompany them to the police station. He told the police officers that his .45 caliber pistol, which was consistent with that used as the murder weapon, had been stolen from his car some days earlier. Brunson gave his consent for the police officers to search his home and vehicle, but the murder weapon was never found.

On May 17, 1999, Brunson was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder for the shooting deaths of Gloria Brunson and Frankie Shaw. The criminal information was later amended to change the charges to two counts of first-degree murder. On April 3, 2000, a three-day trial ensued.

At trial, the State presented the testimony of law enforcement officers as well as Gloria. Brunson's friends, co-workers, and children. They testified to the events already related, as well as to their individual encounters with Brunson and the fact that Brunson kept a gun and shells in a bag at his residence. One witness, Jennie Green, testified that she saw an encounter between the victims and a black man who appeared to be armed on the day of the killings. The man threatened Gloria Brunson, but Ms. Green could not positively identify Brunson as the man involved.

The State's last witness at trial was the State's proposed expert, Barbara Ann Neiss. She gave her qualifications as having a bachelor's degree in political science and journalism; a master's degree in public administration; work towards a master's degree in social work; one year's employment with the Arkansas Commission on Child Abuse, Rape and Domestic Violence; Executive Director for Advocates for Battered Women, now called Women and Children First, in Little Rock for just under three years; volunteer work for the Battered Women's Shelter and in assisting women to get protective orders for about ten years; work as a facilitator for an educational group for men...

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19 cases
  • Flowers v. State
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Arkansas
    • May 5, 2005
    ...has knowledge of the subject beyond that of ordinary knowledge, the evidence is admissible as expert testimony. Brunson v. State, 349 Ark. 300, 79 S.W.3d 304 (2002). Whether a witness qualifies as an expert in a particular field is a matter within the trial court's discretion, and we will n......
  • Saul v. State
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Arkansas
    • January 26, 2006
    ...has knowledge of the subject beyond that of ordinary knowledge, the evidence is admissible as expert testimony. Brunson v. State, 349 Ark. 300, 79 S.W.3d 304 (2002). Whether a witness qualifies as an expert in a particular field is a matter within the trial court's discretion, and we will n......
  • Jackson v. State
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Arkansas
    • November 4, 2004
    ...fact finding. He concludes that his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated. a. Standard of Review In Brunson v. State, 349 Ark. 300, 79 S.W.3d 304 (2002), this court summarized its standard of review for the qualification of Whether a witness qualifies as an expert in a particu......
  • Burnette v. Commonwealth
    • United States
    • Court of Appeals of Virginia
    • July 31, 2012
    ...expressing an opinion on the guilt or innocence of the defendant), and that such evidence is highly prejudicial, see Brunson v. State, 349 Ark. 300, 79 S.W.3d 304 (2002). ...
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