Dean v. State
| Citation | 295 S.E.2d 306,250 Ga. 77 |
| Decision Date | 28 September 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 38595,38595 |
| Parties | DEAN v. The STATE. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Georgia |
W. O'Neal Dettmering, Jr., Dollar & Dettmering, P. C., Douglasville, for Charles John Dean.
William A. Foster, III, Dist. Atty., Douglasville, Frank C. Wina, Asst. Dist. Atty., Michael J. Bowers, Atty. Gen., George M. Weaver, Asst. Atty. Gen., for The State.
This is a murder case. Charles John Dean appeals from a conviction and sentence of life imprisonment for the June 4, 1980 slaying of Elizabeth Jill Hudson. Appellant enumerates as error the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress, the admission into evidence of statements he made while in police custody, and a ruling by the trial judge restricting his cross-examination of the state's expert witness. We affirm.
Dean and the victim were friends. They shared a two-bedroom apartment, and both Dean and Ms. Hudson worked as cab drivers for an Atlanta cab company. Company records show that Ms. Hudson picked up a fare in the west Atlanta area at about 5:15 the afternoon of June 4, the date of her death. Later that evening, between 8:30 and 10:00 p. m., the victim visited a friend who lived in Smyrna. According to the friend, Ms. Hudson "appeared troubled and just wanted to talk like friends do." The victim then stopped by the cab company headquarters on her way home. She was last seen alive at around 10:45 p. m. in a Peachtree Road liquor store where she purchased two bottles of wine.
Sometime between 10:45 that night and 10:00 the following morning, Ms. Hudson was shot to death and dumped beside a dirt road near Sweetwater Creek in rural Douglas County. The victim's clothes and body were smeared with blood, her nose was broken, her face and chest were battered, and she had been shot three times in the head. An autopsy determined the gunshot wounds to be the cause of death.
Although Ms. Hudson's body was discovered in Douglas County, several key pieces of evidence indicated that she was killed in her Decatur apartment. Police found blood stains consistent with the blood type of the victim on her mattress, bedroom carpet, a clock, and cigarette butts discovered in an ashtray in her bedroom. Her cab was found abandoned in a shopping center parking lot only 150 yards from the apartment. The victim's wig, normally worn by her in public, was found in her apartment, as was a bottle of wine like the one she had purchased earlier in the evening.
Dean was first questioned by police at 4:30 p. m. on Thursday, June 4, the same day Ms. Hudson's body was discovered. Dean denied any knowledge of the crime, claiming that on June 3, the night of the murder, he went off duty at 11:00 p. m., bought some beer, and went home to bed. Dean denied seeing the victim at all that evening.
The state's theory at trial was that Dean killed Ms. Hudson in their apartment, put her in his cab, drove to Douglas County, and dumped her body. The evidence introduced at trial was wholly circumstantial. Ballistics tests established that the two bullets which were removed from the victim's head were fired from a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver which police found in the pocket of a coat hanging in Dean's closet. Dean later identified the coat as his, but claimed that the victim had placed the handgun in his coat for safekeeping. Blood stains found in the apartment and in Dean's cab were matched to the victim's blood type, and dried blood found on one of Dean's undershirts was proven by enzyme tests to be consistent with that of the victim and .9% of the general population. Mud found caked on the underside of Dean's cab was tested and found to be similar to soil samples taken from a mudhole near where the body was found, and tire tracks found near the mudhole were made by tires similar to the ones on Dean's cab.
Statements made by Dean to police were inconsistent with his alibi. Dean told police officers that he had never been to the Sweetwater Creek area where the victim's body was found, but an acquaintance testified that Dean often talked about going fishing in Sweetwater Creek and was once bitten by a snake while fishing there. In addition one witness testified that, contrary to Dean's story, he had seen Dean drinking on the night of the murder. There was also testimony that Dean was looking for the victim and trying to contact her on his cab radio that night.
1. After reviewing the record, we find that the evidence presented at trial authorized a rational trier of fact to find Dean guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).
2. Dean enumerates as error the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained in a July 9 warrantless search of his cab and apartment. Police searched Dean's apartment on three separate occasions in the course of their investigation into Ms. Hudson's death. At about 5:00 p. m. on June 6, prior to Dean's arrest, Douglas County Deputy Sheriff Goodwin and DeKalb County Investigator Dikes questioned Dean. After having Dean sign a waiver and consent to search form, the two officers made a casual walk-through search of the apartment, then briefly examined Dean's cab. Goodwin and Dikes noticed blood-like spots on an alarm clock and on cigarette butts in an ashtray in the victim's bedroom. They then walked outside to examine Dean's automobile, removing soil and fiber samples from the cab and photographing its tires. No arrest was made.
Acting on information he received later that afternoon, together with his observations while at Dean's apartment earlier that evening, Goodwin returned to arrest Dean at 11:30 that same night. At 11:45 p. m., while in the custody of DeKalb County police, Dean executed a written waiver and consent to search his apartment and automobile. This was the second such consent form signed by Dean within a 6-hour period.
After briefly interrogating Dean and obtaining the consent form, Goodwin, Dikes and two other policemen returned to the apartment at 2:00 a. m. on Saturday to perform what Goodwin later described as "a fairly preliminary search." The officers seized various items of clothing, shoes, the bloodstained cigarettes, a bottle of wine, a small quantity of marijuana, and an empty box for a .38 caliber revolver. Goodwin testified that a more thorough search was not attempted because of the late hour and because the officers were tired.
The final and most thorough search of Dean's apartment was made on Monday, June 9. Douglas County Sheriff Lee, who directed the search, testified at the suppression hearing that prior to searching Dean's apartment he again asked for and received his consent. Lee did not tape this exchange with Dean; nor was a written consent form executed. This final search unearthed much of the evidence subsequently used against Dean at trial, including bloodstains removed from the bedroom carpet, walls, mattress, and alarm clock; Dean's bloody underclothes; and the murder weapon, found in the pocket of a coat hanging in Dean's closet.
Dean contends that the June 9 warrantless search of his apartment was illegal because it was made without his consent and because he was illegally detained by police at the time of the search. We disagree, and hold that appellant's motion to suppress was properly denied by the court below.
(a) Where the state seeks to justify a warrantless search on grounds of consent, it "has the burden of proving that the consent was, in fact, freely and voluntarily given." Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, 548, 88 S.Ct. 1788, 1791, 1799, 20 L.Ed.2d 797 (1968). A valid consent eliminates the need for either probable cause or a search warrant. Hall v. State, 239 Ga. 832, 238 S.E.2d 912 (1977). The voluntariness of a consent to search is determined by looking to the "totality of the circumstances," Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 229, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2048-2049, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973), including such factors as the age of the accused, his education, his intelligence, the length of detention, whether the accused was advised of his constitutional rights, the prolonged nature of questioning, the use of physical punishment, and the psychological impact of all these factors on the accused. In determining...
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...has the burden of proving that the consent was freely and voluntarily given under the totality of the circumstances. Dean v. State, 250 Ga. 77(2a), 295 S.E.2d 306 (1982). See Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 229, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2048-2049, 36 L.Ed.2d (1973). See also State v. Davis, ......
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