Childs v. State

• Decision Date: 06 August 1979
• Citation: 584 S.W.2d 783
• Parties: Edward Richard CHILDS, Petitioner, v. STATE of Tennessee, Respondent. 584 S.W.2d 783
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 783

584 S.W.2d 783

Edward Richard CHILDS, Petitioner, v. STATE of Tennessee, Respondent.

584 S.W.2d 783

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

Aug. 6, 1979.

Joe B. Jones, Memphis, for petitioner.

Robert A. Grunow, Asst. Atty. Gen., Nashville, for respondent; William M. Leech, Jr., Atty. Gen., Nashville, of counsel.

OPINION

HARBISON, Justice.

Petitioner was convicted of murder in the second degree and sentenced to serve thirty years and one day in the state penitentiary. His conviction was affirmed by the Court of Criminal Appeals.

We granted certiorari to consider the admissibility of statements made by petitioner and of evidence discovered as a result thereof. As the case comes to this Court, these are the only questions presented, there being no challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence.

Charges against petitioner resulted from the homicide of Claudette Williams on Monday, April 4, 1977. Her body was not discovered until Wednesday, April 6 when a concerned relative went to her apartment. Her death was caused by manual strangulation. A stereo record player, some jewelry, a fur coat and other items of personal property were missing from the apartment. Descriptions of these were given to the police by a relative of decedent.

There were no immediate suspects known to the police or to relatives and friends of decedent. She lived alone in her apartment and had resided there only a short time. She was known to have been seen socially with several different persons. Photographs and names of a number of men were found in the apartment. Police began an extensive investigation into the homicide. Among those interviewed by them was Bessie Anderson, the sixteen-year-old daughter of a friend of the decedent. She told police that the deceased had stopped briefly at the home of the witness on the evening of April 4, 1977, accompanied by a male companion. Another friend of decedent told the police that decedent had a new boyfriend whose name she thought was "Giles." It was her understanding that the two had met in a bowling alley. Upon further investigation of decedent's apartment, the police found in a waste basket a piece of paper bearing the name "Eddie Childs" and a telephone number. The number was that of one Pat Brunson, with whom petitioner was then living. Police contacted petitioner at that telephone number and requested that he come to police headquarters for questioning. Petitioner did so but found when he arrived that the officers in charge of the investigation were in Mississippi interviewing two other persons previously associated with the decedent. Accordingly the petitioner was not questioned on that occasion and was not contacted again by the police for some time.

Following all possible leads, the police officers interviewed Ms. Brunson with whom petitioner was living and learned from her that he had done some volunteer work for a Boy Scout program. They also learned that he was working at a truck delivery service. Upon contacting the employer, however, they discovered that petitioner was using the name of Eddie Woods; apparently he used the name Childs in his Boy Scout work.

On the evening of April 13, 1977, approximately nine days after the homicide, Sergeants East and Wilson of the Memphis Homicide Division met petitioner and Ms. Brunson at the latter's apartment upon their return from work. They identified themselves to petitioner and requested him to enter the police car so that they could question him.

At no time during the development of the trial record, either during a suppression hearing or before the jury, did the petitioner testify or call any witnesses. ¹ Accordingly, the only evidence as to what occurred during the next several hours is the testimony of police officers, which was not impeached in any manner. Sergeant Wilson was not called as a witness by either side. The only evidence concerning the initial questioning of petitioner was that given by Sergeant East.

According to his testimony, petitioner voluntarily entered the police vehicle. He admitted knowing the decedent but inquired as to why he was being questioned. Sergeant East testified:

"We told him we were investigating a criminal homicide of Claudette Williams. And that we wanted to talk to him because we found his name and phone number in a garbage sack, in a garbage can in her apartment. And told him that we talked to everybody whose names come up in the investigation."

Petitioner told the officers that he sometimes used an alias and that he had previously served a prison term following a forgery conviction under the name "William Turner."

The officers then asked petitioner for some identification. He requested Ms. Brunson to bring his billfold to the police car and handed it to Sergeant East. East took the wallet into the front seat and took out a Boy Scout card to copy information from it. When he removed this card, he discovered a small piece of yellow paper beneath it. He recognized this as a pawn ticket, which he then removed from the billfold and found thereon the name "Eddie Woods" with the notation that an Olympic record player and speakers had been pawned for $50.00 on April 7, 1977. The address on the pawn ticket was not the address at which petitioner was being questioned, nor was there any identification of the property pawned to connect it with the decedent.

Petitioner admitted to the officers that he had used the name Woods previously, and they asked him if he had any further identification showing that name. He stated that he did and accompanied the officers into his apartment where he produced a driver's license issued in that name. Sergeant East then testified.

"We asked Mr. Childs if he would go downtown so that we might talk to him further about it and get his fingerprints and photograph so we could find out who he was. He had three names. He agreed to do so and we got in the car and drove down to headquarters."

The interview with petitioner at the police car began at about 5:15 p. m. and lasted some fifteen or twenty minutes. At that time Sergeant East testified that he considered the petitioner a possible witness, but not yet a suspect, and at that stage the interview was simply part of the general investigation being conducted into the homicide. He testified:

"Anytime there's a homicide we talk to everyone that we can find that knows the victim, has ever known her, in any way. We try to talk to them; maybe they have seen her. We try to establish the last time she was seen alive and of course we do that by talking to people that she knows and knows her that might have seen her at a club or might have seen her someplace."

At that time, the investigation involved the names of some five or six men whom the victim had known, and the officers were gathering information concerning all of them.

Both Sergeant East and other police officers who testified stated that the petitioner was cooperative at all times. East said that he readily agreed to go to the police station. As previously noted, this testimony is unrebutted and uncontradicted.

Arriving at the police station about six o'clock, petitioner accompanied East and Wilson to a room in the homicide office where he was questioned further. The only information given by him at that time was exculpatory. Petitioner told the officers that he had never dated the deceased, that he knew her only casually, having met her at a bowling alley, and that he had never been to her apartment or to the apartment complex where Bessie Anderson lived and where decedent was last seen on the evening of April 4.

Sergeant East testified that the investigation into the death of Ms. Williams was being coordinated under Sergeant Hester of the Homicide Division. When petitioner arrived at police headquarters, Sergeant Hester was notified and said that he would check police records concerning him. Petitioner had been questioned for a few minutes when Hester came to the door and advised Sergeant East that petitioner's fingerprints had been found to match some prints taken in the victim's apartment and also that an outstanding arrest warrant had been discovered in which petitioner was charged with forgery. This occurred at about 6:30 p. m. Petitioner was immediately placed under arrest and given Miranda warnings.

Subsequently, during the evening, petitioner made both an oral and a written confession to the homicide, stating that he had met the victim at a bowling alley, had later sold her some marijuana for which she did not pay, and that in a struggle in her apartment he had put his arm around her neck and knocked her to the floor. He said that he did not know that she was dead when he left her apartment. He admitted burglarizing the apartment and taking several items for the purpose of paying the persons who had supplied him with marijuana.

Subsequent investigation confirmed that petitioner had pawned a stereo record player, and this was identified as being the property of decedent. A thumbprint of the person pawning the property, taken at the pawn shop, matched the print of petitioner. Other witnesses at the trial testified that petitioner had admitted knowing the decedent and that he had exhibited to them some of the property which was taken from her apartment.

Petitioner challenges the admissibility of the statements which he gave to the police on the grounds that they resulted from an illegal arrest or detention and also that they resulted from a custodial interrogation occurring after suspicion had been focused upon him, in violation of the rules laid down in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).

The trial judge conducted a lengthy jury-out hearing and found that there had been neither an illegal arrest nor any violation of petitioner's constitutional rights prior to the time he was formally arrested and charged. The Court of Criminal Appeals concurred in these findings.

These issues, of course, are primarily factual in...