Dennis v. State
| Decision Date | 08 July 2022 |
| Docket Number | CR-18-1211 |
| Parties | Nathaniel Dennis v. State of Alabama |
| Court | Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals |
Nathaniel Dennis
v.
State of Alabama
No. CR-18-1211
Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals
July 8, 2022
Appeal from Houston Circuit Court (CC-12-163)
COLE, Judge.
Nathaniel Dennis appeals his conviction for murder made capital because it was committed during a burglary, a violation of § 13A-5-40(a)(4), Ala. Code 1975, and his resulting sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Dennis raises five issues on appeal: (1) that he was denied his right to a speedy trial in violation of the Sixth Amendment, (2) that the trial court improperly allowed the admission of an evidence label and forms from the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences ("ADFS") that, he says, were inadmissible hearsay evidence and admitted in violation of his right to confront witnesses, (3) that the victim's statement was improperly admitted into evidence as a dying declaration, (4) that the victim's death certificate was improperly admitted into evidence, and (5) that the trial court erred in denying Dennis's motion for a judgment of acquittal based upon the State's failure to prove the victim's cause of death.[1]
Facts
The evidence presented at trial established the following: Bruce Henderson, a retired officer with the Dothan Police Department, testified that he was the first officer to the scene of the crime, an Amoco gasoline station, at 11:45 p.m. on the night of September 26, 1981. A window of the gas station was broken out, the store was in "disarray," and Russell
Douglas was lying on the ground in the doorway. There was "a tremendous amount of blood" at the scene, and Douglas's "shirt was completely covered in blood" with holes in the front and back of the shirt. (R. 362-63, 371.) According to Officer Henderson, Douglas never raised his head or hand and he had difficulty speaking. Before losing consciousness, Douglas "told [Henderson] that a black male had done this, that he was wearing a stocking. And [that] he left running toward 431 in a southerly direction." (R. 369.)
Jackie Mendheim, a retired police officer, testified that in 1981 he was assigned to the criminal-investigation division with the Dothan Police Department. Mendheim identified photographs from the night in question and testified that "the only thing that seemed to be out of place would be the stocking that was hung on the brick wall with a black tuft of hair." (R. 380.)
According to Officer Mendheim, Officers Charlie Brooks, Larry Lynn, and Robert Jenkins were also at the scene with Mendheim, but they were all deceased at the time of the trial. In the early morning hours of September 27, 1981, Officer Mendheim observed Brooks take pictures
and place evidence in evidence bags being held by Mendheim. Brooks would then write a description of the contents on the outside of the bag.
Timothy Douglas ("Timothy"), the son of Russell Douglas, testified that he was 18 years old when the shooting occurred. His father had suffered a gunshot wound in the back of the neck that exited the left side of his chest. Over Dennis's Confrontation Clause objection, Russell Douglas's certificate of death was admitted into evidence. Timothy testified that his father "never recovered" from the incident and "succumbed" to the gunshot wound after he "went into shock" and his organs "shut down." (R. 428, 430.) Russell Douglas passed away on October 8, 1981. Douglas's medical records were also admitted into evidence.
Ray Owens, a former employee of the Dothan Police Department, testified that on June 24, 1996, he investigated Douglas's "cold case." He went to the evidence vault and obtained a box of evidence that had been collected from the murder that occurred in 1981. Craig Bailey, an ADFS employee for 37 years, examined some of the items for DNA analysis at Owens's request. Bailey testified that he examined the items submitted
to him and concluded that the hair samples were insufficient to do further testing.
William Joseph Lee, a forensic scientist with the ADFS in the Montgomery Regional Laboratory, testified that in 2010 Becky Edwards, with the Dothan Police Department, submitted a sealed envelope containing a stocking with hairs and folded papers with additional hairs. Although they were unable to generate a DNA profile from any of the hairs found in the stocking, there were two hairs found in the second manilla envelope, marked as State's Exhibit 8 and labeled as "hair from stocking," from which he was able to generate a DNA profile suitable for comparison. (R. 507-09.) He entered the DNA profile of the two hairs into the national database of DNA profiles, otherwise known as the "CODIS" system, and he was subsequently notified that there was a "hit" or a match "from one of the hairs to Nathaniel Dennis." (R. 510-512.) Investigators then traveled to Virginia, where Dennis was serving a life sentence on an unrelated charge, to obtain a sample from Dennis. The DNA profile from the two hairs matched the DNA profile of the known sample taken from Dennis. In 2013, Lee obtained the other exhibits and examined "upwards of 200 hairs" and he attempted to test some of those
hairs, but he was able to obtain a DNA profile on only one of those hairs. That hair, which was from Exhibit 8 and was "a hair from the stocking," also matched Dennis's DNA profile. None of the DNA tests excluded Dennis. (R. 522-24.)
After the State rested and Dennis's motion for a judgment of acquittal was denied, Doris Faine testified for the defense that she worked with Dennis at a nightclub called Free World in September of 1981. She and Dennis worked on Saturday nights typically from 8:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m. Saturday nights were busy and she did not know the wait staff, which included Dennis, to "ever leave in the middle of a Saturday night shift." (R. 589-90.) She remembered that she worked on the night of September 26, 1981.
Agatha Acree Lloyd and Frank Lloyd gave similar testimony that they worked with Dennis at Free World club in 1981. They worked on Saturday nights starting at 8:00 p.m. or 9:00 p.m. and worked past midnight and as late as 3:00 a.m. They did not ever leave the club in the middle of their shift, and they did not recall any other waiters leaving during their shift on a Saturday night.
T.J. Austin then testified that in 1981 he was the president and co-owner of Free World Enterprises. In 1981, Faine, Acree, Lloyd, and Dennis worked at the nightclub. Austin does not recall Dennis missing a Saturday night shift or "slipping away in the middle of a Saturday night shift." (R. 628-29.) Waiters could not have left the club without Austin and a lot of people noticing them leave. Mary Floyd, Marie Johnson, and James Vickers also worked at the nightclub in 1981, but they are now deceased. Austin could not answer whether they died between 2010 and the trial.
After all testimony was closed, the jury returned a verdict finding Dennis not guilty of capital murder to the charge outlined in Count One of the indictment, but it found him "guilty of capital murder during a burglary in the second degree as charged in [Count Two of] the indictment." (R. 815.) After the penalty phase was conducted, the jury recommended a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. (R. 935.) At the judicial-sentencing phase, the trial court accepted the jury's recommendation and imposed a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. (R. 974.) This appeal follows.
Procedural History
The first issue raised by Dennis, and the only issue to be addressed by this Court, is whether Dennis was denied his right to a speedy trial in violation of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. A detailed procedural history of the case is needed to address this issue. Although the offense in question occurred on September 26, 1981, Dennis was not developed as a suspect until 2010 or 2011, when hairs that had been obtained from the scene of the crime were retested for DNA and submitted to a national database, which resulted in a "match" to Dennis. On May 4, 2011, the Houston County Grand Jury indicted Dennis on two counts of capital murder. (C. 16.) At the time of his indictment, Dennis was in custody in Virginia serving a life sentence for an unrelated charge. (Dennis's brief, p. 5). He was transferred to the Houston County jail on January 25, 2012. (C. 19.) The case was initially assigned to Judge Brady Mendheim. On January 26, 2012, Dennis filed a motion seeking Judge Mendheim's recusal based upon Judge Mendheim's relationship to an investigator in the case. That motion was granted, over the State's objection, on May 8, 2012.
The case was reassigned to a circuit-court judge who presided over pretrial matters for almost seven years. (C. 96.) On August 13, 2013, a status conference was held and Dennis was given 60 days to file pretrial motions. At this hearing, the trial court indicated that the case could be set for "a preliminary trial date setting some time in the Fall of 2014," but he also explained that he had a full docket with six capital-murder cases that would prevent the case from going to trial earlier. (R2. 4.)[2]
On August 20, 2013, Dennis filed a document styled as the "Defendant's Assertion of Speedy Trial Right and Motion to Set a Trial Date." In this motion, Dennis stated that he "would prefer that this case be set for trial immediately," but he requested a trial date "by February 2014" to allow time for a pretrial hearing and briefs. (C. 100.) He also asserted that this was a "cold" case from 1981 with elderly witnesses, that a likely mitigation witness had died since the offense occurred, and that other witnesses could die before the anticipated trial date in 2014.
(C. 102.) On October 15, 2013, Dennis filed a Motion for Pretrial Hearing requesting that the trial court "hold as soon as possible a pretrial hearing to determine the admissibility of evidence...
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