Douglas v. State

• Decision Date: 27 April 1988
• Docket Number: No. 57414,57414
• Parties: Tommie James DOUGLAS (Spates) v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 1312

525 So.2d 1312

Tommie James DOUGLAS (Spates) v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 57414.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

April 27, 1988.

Rehearing Denied May 25, 1988.

William B. Jacob, Daniel P. Self, Jr., Meridian, for appellant.

Edwin Lloyd Pittman and Mike Moore, Attys. Gen. by John H. Emfinger, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

Before DAN M. LEE, P.J., and ROBERTSON and GRIFFIN, JJ.

DAN M. LEE, Presiding Justice, for the Court:

Tommie James Douglas (Spates) was charged with the murder of Lesia Little and was indicted by a grand jury in Noxubee County, Mississippi, on September 11, 1985, and was arraigned on that date in the Circuit Court of Noxubee County. The case went to trial in March of 1986 in the Circuit Court of Noxubee County where the jury returned a verdict of guilty and the Circuit Court imposed a life sentence. From this conviction and sentence Mr. Douglas appeals, assigning three errors. We discuss at length one assignment of error, but do not find it necessary to reach the other two. We affirm.

FACTS

In the early morning hours of July 7, 1985, Lesia Little was shot to death in her home in Shuqualak, Mississippi. There were two men in her home that evening, one of them her ex-live-in partner and father of her children, the defendant Tommie Douglas. The other was Eric Grady, her current boyfriend. Although Tommie Douglas was indicted for Lesia's murder, the factual issue at trial was which one of the two actually shot her. That factual question depended to a great extent upon the physical fact of whether Douglas broke the window pane while entering the house, thereby corroborating Grady's story, or whether the window pane was broken while the appellant and Grady were fighting, as testified to by appellant, thereby corroborating appellant's story that Grady shot Lesia. The appellant put on expert witness James Hall, who testified that Douglas could not have crawled through the broken window pane without being seriously cut. The Sheriff remained in the courtroom during all of this testimony and was then called in rebuttal. He stated that the window was raised, which would refute appellant's testimony and that of his expert. In this context M.R.E. 615 was called into play. The facts in more detail are as follows.

The state's key witness at trial was Grady, whose version of the events that night are as follows. He had known Lesia about eight months before she was killed and they had been dating for about four weeks before the incident. He was aware that Mr. Douglas used to live with her. On July 6, 1985, Mr. Grady travelled from Macon to Shuqualak to visit Lesia, arriving there about 4:00 p.m. At around 9:00 p.m. he left her with her friend, Brenda Naylor and went back to Macon. Later that night he saw Lesia in Macon, at which time Lesia invited him to come back to her house. When he returned to her house at 1:00 or 1:30 a.m. on July 7, Brenda Naylor's car was parked in the road in front of Lesia's house and he parked in the carport. Ms. Naylor was not in the house, but Lesia and her two children were. No lights were on in the house. As he and Lesia sat on the couch in the living room talking, with the radio on, a car pulled up into the driveway. Lesia looked out the window and told Grady that it was Douglas, whereupon she turned off the radio, went to the bedroom and turned off the fan, and then went to the kitchen, while Grady remained on the couch in the living room. Someone knocked on the door twice; neither he nor Lesia said anything. This person then went to the window at the back of the house and called Lesia's name three times, after which he broke the window. Shortly, Douglas entered the living room and turned on the light, and faced Grady with a gun. Douglas told Grady to get up and they started walking toward the kitchen. At this point Lesia was sitting in a chair in the living room by the kitchen doorway. Grady took about four steps past the chair when he heard gunshots. He turned back and saw Douglas shoot again towards Lesia. Douglas turned towards Grady and said, "let's go." Grady had stepped out into the carport and stopped when Douglas said, "you want to die, too?" Grady asked, "Are you going to let me out?" Douglas moved his car from behind Grady's and allowed Grady to leave.

Mr. Grady went to the police station in Shuqualak, and could not find a law officer. He then drove to Macon where he made contact with Deputy Sheriff Billy Lee. Both of them went to Lesia's house and found that Mr. Douglas' car was gone. At this point in the trial, Mr. Grady gave a courtroom identification of Tommie Douglas as the person in Lesia's house that night. Mr. Grady testified that he had never seen Mr. Douglas before July 7.

Annie White, another of the state's witness, claims that she saw Tommie Douglas at a disco on the night of July 6, 1985. She and four of her friends got a ride home with Douglas. When they started dropping folks off at their houses, they drove by Lesia's house and saw a car parked in the carport. Upon seeing the car, Douglas supposedly said, "Da-ha," twice and then became very quiet. Ms. White was the last person Douglas dropped off, letting her out at her house at the foot of the hill. When she got up to her door, she heard a loud "bam." She did not know what it was, nor did she see the car, but she testified that the noise sounded like a car door or a trunk slamming. This took place at about 1:30 or 2:00 a.m. on July 7.

Mr. Douglas testified in his own defense, saying that he lived with Lesia from 1982 until May of 1985, and that they were the parents of two children, Tiki and Eric. He also testified that he had never owned a gun. He said Lesia invited him to dinner on July 4, 1985, and at the close of the evening asked him to come back to visit her on Saturday, July 6, at midnight. Douglas worked that Saturday, July 6, from 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon, after which he went to a Mr. Dancey's house to watch the VCR and stayed there until midnight. When he went to Lesia's house about 1:00 a.m., July 7, he saw a car in the carport, but thought it belonged to Lesia's girlfriend. He knocked on the door and called "Lesia" several times, but no one answered, so he opened the door (which he claimed was unlocked) and went in. He called again and walked through the house turning on lights, but still no one answered. He went down the hall and kept calling until he reached Lesia's bedroom, where he turned on the lights. At that point, Grady jumped out of bed, grabbed Douglas and threw him into the window, causing it to break. Then Grady grabbed for his pants, pulled a gun out of a pocket, and pursued Douglas who was running for the kitchen door. Lesia got in between them in the kitchen. As Douglas ran out of the door he heard two gunshots. He got into his car and left, never turning back. He went to his home in Scooba, remaining there all day Sunday. On Monday morning he called his boss, who advised him that Lesia was dead. Later that morning his father came by and questioned him about the incident, subsequently advising him to stay put. Later that Monday afternoon, he and his father went to Meridian and talked to his lawyer. On advice of counsel he turned himself in to the Sheriff of Noxubee County on Tuesday morning. He does not know how Lesia met her death because he did not actually see Grady shoot her.

The first rebuttal witness called by the state was Henry Little, Lesia's brother, who testified, inter alia, that he had seen Douglas at the disco on the night of July 6 and that he had seen Douglas with two weapons in October of 1984--a .357 magnum and a Colt semi-automatic .25. This particular testimony is significant in that the bullets retrieved from Lesia's body at the autopsy were from a .357 magnum. On cross-examination, Mr. Little stated that the district attorney related to him that Douglas testified that he was watching a VCR at Dancey's house on July 6, that Douglas testified that he never owned a gun, and that Douglas testified that he was not at the disco on Saturday night. At the close of Mr. Little's testimony, Douglas moved to exclude any rebuttal witnesses on the grounds that the district attorney had told them about Douglas' testimony in violation of M.R.E. 615, the sequestration rule. This motion was overruled.

The state then offered Jerry Hyde as a rebuttal witness who testified he saw Douglas at the disco on Saturday night and got a ride home with him. He testified that he lives on Lesia's street, and that when they drove by Lesia's house and saw Grady's car parked in the carport, Douglas said, "Da-ha." On cross-examination Mr. Hyde stated that he had talked to Annie White, the state's earlier witness, about her testimony. Again, the defendant moved to exclude this testimony because it was a violation of the sequestration rule. This motion was also overruled.

Deputy Sheriff Billy Lee took the stand on rebuttal and testified about the window. He claims that when he first went into Lesia's house early Sunday morning the bedroom window was raised. He then stated the district attorney first asked him if the window was up or down right before he testified in rebuttal. His earlier direct testimony made no mention of whether the window was up or down.

The rebuttal testimony of Sheriff Cecil Russell also centered on the window. Before he began to testify, the defendant raised an objection to his testifying because he had been sitting in the courtroom during all of the testimony. The defendant claimed this was a violation of the sequestration rule. The judge overruled the motion, reasoning that the sheriff is allowed to remain in the courtroom at all times, even under the sequestration rule. The sheriff then testified that he told the district attorney right before his testimony that the window was up when he went back to investigate the house at 10:00 o'clock on Sunday morning. He claimed that he took his pocket knife and stuck it in the...