Campbell v. State, No. 1999-KA-01345-SCT.

• Decision Date: 25 October 2001
• Docket Number: No. 1999-KA-01345-SCT.
• Citation: 798 So.2d 524
• Parties: Rodney CAMPBELL v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

798 So.2d 524

Rodney CAMPBELL v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 1999-KA-01345-SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

October 25, 2001.

Thomas Henry Freeland, IV, Oxford, Attorney for Appellant.

Office of the Attorney General by Charles W. Maris, Jr., Attorney for Appellee.

Before PITTMAN, C.J., COBB and DIAZ, JJ.

PITTMAN, Chief Justice, for the court:

¶ 1. Rodney Campbell appeals his conviction from the Circuit Court of Lafayette County, Mississippi for the crime of murder and sentence of life imprisonment in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. On April 14, 1999, Campbell was tried and convicted of the murder of Charlotte Simpson by a Lafayette County jury, the Honorable R. Kenneth Coleman presiding. On April 27, 1999, Campbell filed a Motion for Judgment of Acquittal Notwithstanding the Verdict or in the Alternative, for New Trial. On July 21, 1999, the trial court denied Campbell's motion. Campbell filed a timely appeal to this Court on August 10, 1999. For the reasons stated in this opinion, the judgment of the circuit court must be reversed and this case remanded for a new trial.

FACTS

¶ 2. Charlotte Simpson's murdered body was found behind Rodney Campbell's trailer on August 11, 1997. The coroner placed the time of death between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m. Campbell was home alone with Charlotte at approximately 4:15 to 4:30 p.m. on the day of the murder. He subsequently left the trailer. When he returned to his trailer at about 7:00 p.m., accompanied by Jerome Henry, the two men found the front door to be locked, and after rounding the corner to the back of the trailer, they discovered Charlotte's body.

¶ 3. On discovering Charlotte's body, Campbell and Henry ran to tell James Burt, who is Campbell's grandfather and a city policeman. Burt instructed Campbell to call the police, and law enforcement officers subsequently arrived at Campbell's trailer. Both Campbell and Henry were then placed in a police car and taken to jail where they were held overnight.

STATEMENT OF ISSUES

¶ 4. Campbell raises seven issues on appeal which are forth below; however, because we find error in the first two issues which require that the conviction be reversed and this case remanded for a new trial, it is not necessary for this Court to address Campbell's remaining issues. The issues raised are:

I. Whether the trial court erred in refusing to suppress both a post-arrest statement and Campbell's clothes, which were seized after Campbell was arrested.

II. Whether there was insufficient evidence to convict Campbell of murder.

III. Whether the trial court erred in allowing an expert to testify that stains on Campbell's clothes were "possible" human blood.

IV. Whether the trial court erred in allowing testimony from a forensic scientist who testified about DNA tests that she did not perform.

V. Whether the trial court erred in allowing a law enforcement officer to testify to hearsay statements learned during his investigation.

VI. Whether the trial court erred in denying a Two-theory/circumstantial evidence jury instruction.

VII. Whether the trial court erred in denying a jury instruction on proof or lack of proof of motive.

DISCUSSION

I. Whether the trial court erred in refusing to suppress both a post-arrest statement and Campbell's clothes, which were seized after Campbell was arrested.

¶ 5. After Campbell was taken into custody, about 7:30 p.m., he and Henry were taken to the jail and held. Following Campbell's and Henry's arrival at the jail, at about 1:00 a.m. on the morning following their arrest, officers seized their clothing after noticing suspicious stains on Henry's which turned out to be ketchup. Campbell, later in that day, while he was still in custody, was Mirandized and interviewed by deputy sheriff Terry Prestige and highway patrol investigator David Shaw. Campbell was asked to estimate the length of time between when he last saw Charlotte and when he discovered her body. Campbell initially said that was unable to do so, and, when pressed, he said that six to eight hours had passed. This statement contradicted State's evidence that Campbell had been present at the trailer at approximately 4:15 to 4:30 p.m. on the day of the murder, approximately three hours before the body was discovered. Campbell's statement and evidence of Charlotte Simpson's blood staining his pants and shoe were admitted at trial over defense counsel's objection.

¶ 6. Campbell contends that the sole basis for his arrest was his presence at the crime scene and that consequently his arrest was unlawful. He argues from this premise that the seizure of his clothes after his arrest was therefore illegal, and that the trial court committed reversible error by allowing his clothing and his statement to be introduced into evidence.

¶ 7. Both Campbell and the State agree that an arrest occurs when a person "is in custody and not free to leave." Thomas v. State, 645 So.2d 1345, 1347 (Miss.1994). Likewise, both agree that an arrest must be based on probable cause, which is defined as "reasonable cause to believe that a felony has been committed [and] reasonable cause to believe that the person proposed to be arrested is the one who committed it." Floyd v. State, 500 So.2d 989, 991 (Miss.1986). They also stipulate that the only significant facts known to the authorities at the time of the arrest were as follows: "that Campbell and Henry had discovered the body and that it was found behind Campbell's trailer." Finally, the State concedes that Campbell was arrested without probable cause at the point when he and Henry were taken and held at the jail on the day of the murder.

¶ 8. The State contends, however, that probable cause arose after Campbell and Henry arrived at the jail. After Officer Terry Prestige had completed his investigation at the scene, he proceeded to the jail and was then told that one of the deputies had seen "red spots that looked like blood on Jerome Henry's clothes." Only then were Campbell's and Henry's clothes taken for testing purposes. DNA tests later revealed that Campbell's pants cuff and a shoe contained two small spots of blood that matched the victim's blood.¹ The State argues that, at the point when the police noticed the red spots on Henry's clothes, they had sufficient probable cause to justify Campbell's arrest and thus the taking of his clothes. The essence of the State's argument is that Campbell underwent a second "constructive" arrest at the point when the police developed probable cause.

¶ 9. In support of this second arrest theory, the State relies on Brewer v. State, 725 So.2d 106 (Miss.1998), which involved the capital murder of a child. Brewer, however, did not involve a constructive arrest. In Brewer, after recognizing that the initial arrest was invalid, and before eliciting some of the questioned evidence, the State obtained a warrant which was served on Brewer in jail. The clothes and sexual assault kit taken following Brewer's first arrest were held to be improperly admitted into evidence; however, because they did not turn out to be inculpatory, the error was found to be harmless. Brewer, however, distinguished this evidence from evidence obtained after the arrest warrant was served on Brewer in jail. While Brewer was in jail, the murdered child's body was found with indications of a rape. This fact completed the necessary probable cause, and the State then obtained and served the arrest warrant. The Court stated:

As such, we conclude that when the arrest warrant was obtained on May 6 this marked a "second arrest," properly founded upon probable cause which was not obtained through any exploitation of the initial illegal arrest.

Id. at 129-30. Thus, evidence obtained from Brewer after the second arrest was admissible.

¶ 10. The holding in Brewer does not support a constructive arrest under the circumstances of Campbell's case because in Brewer an actual warrant was obtained and served. Nor does the State cite any authority for the concept that once evidence is gathered sufficient to justify an arrest, a second arrest occurs with no action by the State.² Here, to say that at the instant of the officer's noticing stains on Henry's clothes, a constructive arrest automatically took place—without any other action by the State—would be to condone investigatory arrests and to allow an after-the-fact assertion by the State to bootstrap illegally obtained evidence on appeal.

¶ 11. For these reasons, we hold that Campbell was unlawfully arrested and that at no time was this failing corrected by a new or second arrest. Hence, the admission of both Campbell's statement and the evidence of blood on his clothing were obtained pursuant to an unlawful arrest and should have been suppressed. See Shell v. State, 554 So.2d 887, 896 (Miss. 1989),

reversed in part on other grounds sub. nom, Shell v. Mississippi, 498 U.S. 1, 111 S.Ct. 313, 112 L.Ed.2d 1 (1990) (holding that pursuant to a lawful arrest, law enforcement officials may seize personal effects and clothing from one who has been arrested); Penick v. State, 440 So.2d 547, 558 (Miss.1983); Bayse v. State, 420 So.2d 1050, 1052 (Miss.1982); Canning v. State, 226 So.2d 747 (Miss.1969),

overruled on other grounds, White v. State, 571 So.2d 956 (Miss.1990); Smith v. State, 228 Miss. 476, 87 So.2d 917 (1956).

II. Whether there was insufficient evidence to convict of murder.

¶ 12. Campbell argues that because the prosecution presented insufficient evidence upon which a jury could convict, this Court must now reverse and render. He asserts that the State's case is based solely on circumstantial evidence as there was neither direct evidence of guilt nor a statement by the defendant that could have been taken as an admission of guilt. This Court has repeatedly held that "[D]irect evidence is unnecessary to support a conviction so long as sufficient circumstantial evidence exists to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." Underwood v. State, ...