Davis v. State, F--74--27

• Decision Date: 29 May 1974
• Docket Number: No. F--74--27,F--74--27
• Citation: 524 P.2d 46
• Parties: Daniel Richard DAVIS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Oklahoma, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma

Page 46

524 P.2d 46

Daniel Richard DAVIS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Oklahoma, Appellee.

No. F--74--27.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma.

May 29, 1974.

Stephen Jones, Mary E. Bane, Enid, for appellant.

Larry Derryberry, Atty. Gen., Fred H. Anderson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

OPINION

BRETT, Judge:

The appellant, Daniel Richard Davis, hereinafter referred to as defendant, was charged, tried and convicted in District Court, Comanche County, Case No. CRF--73--9, with the crime of Murder in violation of 21 O.S.1971, § 701 (repealed May 15, 1973). In accordance with the verdict of the jury, he was sentenced to serve a term of life imprisonment in the state penitentiary, and a timely appeal has been perfected to this Court.

The Information filed in the above case originally charged one John Leggett and one Arnold Beaudin as co-defendants with defendant Davis in the murder of Claudia 'Buttons' Crumpler. Both Leggett and Beaudin entered a plea of guilty to the lesser included offense of Manslaughter in the First Degree prior to defendant's trial. At that trial, the same John Leggett was the principle witness against the defendant. He testified that in the early morning hours of January 5, 1973, he, Beaudin, and the defendant drove from the City of Lawton to the City of Anadarko for the purpose of locating and burglarizing a certain automobile. They took with them a girl whom Beaudin testified he knew only as 'Buttons.' Leggett testified that after they located the automobile he, Beaudin, and the girl 'Buttons' waited together about three hundred yards away while the defendant burglarized that automobile and set fire to it. The witness testified that Beaudin was angry and upset that the car had been burned and that he himself was under the influence of the drug Mescaline. A conversation ensued in which the three men discussed the problem created by the presence of a witness to that incident. As a result of that conversation, Leggett stated '. . . we all agreed, you know, that we would leave no witnesses . . ..' (Tr 83) The defendant, Davis, immediately acted upon this decision by hitting the girl in the throat a number of times with what the witness described as 'karate chops.' Following that attack, Leggett handed the defendant an electrical cord from the back seat of the car in which they were riding Davis put in around the girl's neck and nulled one end of the cord while Beaudin, seated on the other side of the girl, pulled the other end. The three men left the girl's body in a drainage ditch by the side of the road.

The deputy sheriff of Comanche County testified that he was directed to the location of a body, later identified as that of Claudia Crumpler, by a telephone call from a citizen who discovered the body. The body was taken to Lawton Memorial Hospital where an autopsy was performed which disclosed that the cause of death was ligature strangulation. Deputy Sheriff Banks of Comanche County also testified that his investigation into the death of Claudia Crumpler led to the arrest of John Leggett and thereafter to the arrest of the defendant Davis. Following his arrest the defendant gave investigating officers a statement wherein he admitted strangling the girl with an electrical cord until she was unconscious and then hitting her in the throat three or four times to make sure she was dead. In that statement, however, the defendant contended that he had been forced by John Leggett to attack the girl. The defendant's statement, which had been transcribed, signed by him and notarized, was admitted into evidence and read to the jury following a hearing on its admissibility outside the presence of the jury.

The defendant's first proposition urges that the trial court erred in overruling defendant's motion to quash the jury panel for the reason that the method used to select that panel, while in substantial compliance with the statutes in force at the time, denied him a trial by an impartial jury as well as equal protection of the laws. This is so, he contends, because Ft. Sill, a military reservation located within Comanche County, has approximately 9,000 residents who are not listed on the State ad valorem tax records and not eligible for jury duty unless they affirmatively list their personal property on the tax roll. The defendant has not shown this Court how he was prejudiced by the method used to select the jury panel or how trial by a jury drawn from such a panel denied him the right to trial to an impartial jury. Further, he has shown no reason why we should now depart from prior decisions of this Court upholding the constitutionality of the former statutory method of jury selection. See e.g. Lee v. State, Okl.Cr., 513 P.2d 125 (1973); Stevenson v. State, Okl.Cr., 486 P.2d 646 (1971); Walls v. State, Okl.Cr., 485 P.2d 477 (1971); Porter v. District Court of Oklahoma County, Okl.Cr., 462 P.2d 338 (1969).

Absent such a showing, we are not persuaded to reconsider our decision in Lee v. State, supra, wherein we held that the de facto exclusion from selection for jury service of those residents of Ft. Sill who did not affirmatively list their personal property on the tax roll, did not deny the defendant a trial by impartial jury, nor deprive him of equal protection of the law.

We next consider defendant's contention that the trial court committed error in failing to suppress the extrajudicial statement made by the defendant and admitted into evidence against him. There is no error. It is uncontested that at the time of his arrest, at approximately 10:00 or 11:00 a.m. on January 8, 1973, the defendant was given his Miranda warnings by the arresting officers. He was taken to the Comanche County Sheriff's office and signed at that time a waiver of those rights. No attempt was made by the officers to question the defendant either immediately after his arrest or after the signing of the rights waiver at the sheriff's office. Later that same day at the initial appearance in the case, the defendant informed the court he did desire to have counsel appointed for him. Again, no attempt was made to question the defendant. Maybelle Frye, Deputy Sheriff of Comanche County and matron of the Comanche County Jail, testified that at some time prior to 9:00 a.m. the following morning, the defendant contacted her and stated that he wanted to go downstairs and talk to the deputies. As a result of that request, the defendant was taken down to the sheriff's office and was again fully advised of his Miranda rights. After he was so advised, the defendant gave the contested statement. The defendant contends, in essence, that once there has been a request for an attorney a subsequent intelligent waiver of the right to counsel is impossible and any statement obtained in the absence of counsel must be suppressed. We cannot agree. The officers here made no attempt to interrogate the defendant following his request for appointed counsel; the defendant himself initiated he contact with the officers; he did so within a short time after his request for counsel; prior to making the statement which resulted from that contact he was again advised of his rights including the right to have counsel appointed prior to questioning. We conclude that...