Davis v. State

• Decision Date: 09 October 1984
• Docket Number: 5 Div. 538
• Citation: 554 So.2d 1094
• Parties: Timothy Charles DAVIS v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 1094

554 So.2d 1094

Timothy Charles DAVIS v. STATE.

5 Div. 538.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama.

Oct. 9, 1984.

Bruce M. Green and James C. Pino of Mitchell, Green, Pino & Medaris, Alabaster, for appellant.

Charles A. Graddick, Atty. Gen., and Rivard Melson and Edward Carnes, Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellee.

HARRIS, Judge.

Timothy Charles Davis, the appellant herein, was convicted of the capital murder, the intentional killing during a robbery, of Avis F. Alford and the jury, pursuant to § 13-11-2(a), Code of Alabama 1975, fixed his punishment at death by electrocution. The trial court, pursuant to §§ 13-11-3 and -4, Code of Alabama 1975, held a separate sentencing hearing and sentenced the appellant to death by electrocution.

This cause was, originally, reversed on appeal and remanded for a new trial on the authority of Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 100 S.Ct. 2382, 65 L.Ed.2d 392 (1980). Davis v. State, 408 So.2d 532 (Ala.Crim.App.1981), cert. denied, 408 So.2d 533 (Ala.1982). However, the United States Supreme Court vacated this decision and remanded this cause to us for further consideration in light of Hopper v. Evans, 456 U.S. 605, 102 S.Ct. 2049, 72 L.Ed.2d 367 (1982). Alabama v. Davis, 457 U.S. 1114, 102 S.Ct. 2912, 73 L.Ed.2d 1326 (1982). For the reasons herein noted appellant's capital murder conviction must be affirmed.

On July 20, 1978, between 4:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., at Alford's Grocery in Coosa County, Alabama, 68-year-old Avis F. Alford was robbed, sodomized, and brutally murdered with a common steak knife. Her An autopsy revealed that Mrs. Alford had, indeed, died from the combination of knife wounds in her back, wounds which punctured her lungs and lacerated her aorta. She had lost a large volume of type "A positive" blood. Further analysis of samples taken during the autopsy revealed the presence of human sperm in the victim's rectum.

nude body was discovered at approximately 5:30 p.m. inside her store next to the cash drawer counter, where she had been assaulted and stabbed in the back 17 times. The cash drawer was found open. The drawer contained no paper currency, but it did contain a few coins. Other coins were "scattered about" on the floor behind the counter.

Shortly after the murder, the appellant, accompanied by his wife and his mother, appeared at the murder scene and told the authorities that he had discovered Mrs. Alford's body inside the store. He explained that when he realized she was dead, he "got scared and ran." He later explained that in lifting the body he had "gotten blood all over" himself and that he had changed clothes at home before returning to report what he had seen. He also told the officers that on his way home after discovering the body he had seen two black men walking down the highway away from Alford's store. However, when asked for a description of the two black men, the appellant "hemmed and hawed," and could only state that one was tall and one was short.

Mrs. Alford was last seen alive inside the store at 4:30 p.m. A young white male on a motorcycle was seen riding into the parking lot at Alford's Grocery at 5:05 p.m. The description of the motorcycle rider and the motorcycle generally matched the appearance of the appellant and his motorcycle on the day of the murder.

Curtis Smith identified the appellant in court. He testified that on the day of the murder, at approximately 5:30 p.m., he saw the appellant riding his motorcycle at the Covered Bridge a few miles from Alford's store. He saw the appellant ride past the bridge, and he heard the motorcycle stop and "quiet down" for several minutes before the appellant returned to the bridge. The appellant stopped and told Smith that he, the appellant, had "taken a spill" on his motorcycle. The appellant was wearing a brown T-shirt and blue jeans and had blood on his right hand and arm and on his jogging shoes. He was bleeding from underneath one of his fingernails. He "pulled down to the rocks" beside the creek, washed off the blood, and rode away.

During the investigation immediately following the murder, Mrs. Alford's wallet, which had been taken during the robbery-murder, was found in the woods a short distance past the Covered Bridge where Smith had seen the appellant. The investigating officers testified that, after talking with Smith, they drove slowly down the road and found, at the entrance to an old logging road, a disturbance in the dirt of the type a motorcycle would make "spinning out." They searched the area and found the wallet.

Using metal detectors, the investigating officers also found, in the field across the highway from Alford's Grocery, the murder weapon, a steak knife covered with type "A" human blood. Similar knives were seen in the kitchen of appellant's residence.

The results of physical examinations and chemical analyses of the clothes the appellant was wearing at the time Mrs. Alford was murdered, including his motorcycle helmet, were particularly incriminating. Splattered blood was found on his motorcycle helmet and smeared and splattered blood was found on his blue jeans and shoes. Blood was smeared on and around the button and the button hole used to fasten the jeans at the waist. Blood stains were found on the outside and on the inside of the jeans in the waist area. Bloodstains were also found in the area of the right knee and the lower leg. All of the stains of sufficient size to permit typing were type "A" human blood, whereas appellant's blood type is type "O."

A small bloodstain was found on the inside of appellant's undershorts. On the outside of his undershorts in the area of In addition to this overwhelming circumstantial evidence against the appellant, the state presented evidence of an alleged confession by the appellant to Tracy Bignault, a fellow inmate of the appellant during appellant's incarceration prior to trial. Bignault testified that the appellant admitted robbing and killing Mrs. Alford. Bignault related to the jury a detailed account of the crime as it was, allegedly, confessed to him by the appellant. Bignault's testimony was consistent with the state's circumstantial evidence. On cross-examination, however, Bignault admitted that in his original statement to the authorities he had left out many of the details. He explained that he did not tell the authorities the whole truth at that time because he was scared.

the crotch there was a large yellowish-brown stain. This stain was a combination of human sperm mixed with fecal matter and human tissue of the type found inside the rectum.

Appellant's apparent motive for the crime was presented through the testimony of Steve Colvin. Colvin had sold the appellant the motorcycle the appellant was riding on the day of the murder, but the appellant had not made timely payments for it. At work on the morning of the murder, Colvin told the appellant that he, Colvin, needed some of the money the next day.

The appellant presented a defense in the nature of an alibi. On the day of the murder he was living in his grandmother's home with his wife, his mother, and his grandmother. He had been living there for approximately five weeks. His mother testified that the appellant came home from work at 4:00 p.m. and ate supper with the family as usual. James Richardson, a young black boy in the neighborhood, borrowed appellant's motorcycle shortly after the appellant came home from work and did not return it until 5:15 p.m. The appellant, then, took Richardson home and returned at 5:17 p.m. The appellant left again and returned at 5:40 p.m. He told his mother to call the police because he had found a dead woman inside Alford's Grocery. After she had changed clothes, she immediately drove the appellant back to the store, where the appellant told the authorities what he had seen. On cross-examination appellant's mother admitted that she had never told the authorities about James Richardson, and she could not remember the appellant saying anything about going down to the Covered Bridge before returning home from Alford's Grocery. She also admitted that the family had some knives similar in appearance to the murder weapon, but stated that their knives were not the same size. Some were larger and some were smaller than the murder weapon.

Appellant's theory in defense was that someone else robbed and killed Mrs. Alford, that he got blood on himself when he found her body, and that Bignault was lying and had fabricated appellant's alleged confession in order to "make a deal" with the authorities.

After the jurors had been thoroughly instructed by the trial court, to the satisfaction of both parties, they deliberated for only forty-five minutes before returning a verdict of "guilty as charged." The sufficiency of the evidence to support this verdict is not contested on appeal.

The district court judge who handled several of the preliminary proceedings in this case, including appellant's juvenile transfer hearing, was a brother of one of the assistant district attorneys who participated in some of the same proceedings against the appellant. The appellant contends that the district judge should have disqualified himself in order to protect appellant's rights to "due process and an impartial hearing" and that his failure to recuse himself constituted reversible error. We disagree.

The district court judge's brother, acting in his official capacity as an assistant district attorney, did not have "an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceedings[s]," see, Canon 3 C. (1)(d)(ii), Canons of Judicial Ethics, and he was not a "party," see, § 12-1-12, Code of Alabama 1975. Therefore, neither Canon 3 C. (1)(d)(ii), nor § 12-1-12, nor Alabama common law mandated In Ex parte Clanahan, the Alabama Supreme Court determined that a circuit court judge was not disqualified in a case where his son-in-law was an attorney for one of the parties in the litigation. The court reasoned that...