Edmonds v. Com.
| Decision Date | 26 April 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 841249,841249 |
| Citation | 229 Va. 303,329 S.E.2d 807 |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
| Parties | Dana Ray EDMONDS v. COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA. Record |
J. Patterson Rogers, III, for appellant.
Thomas D. Bagwell, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Gerald L. Baliles, Atty. Gen., on brief), for appellee.
Present: All the Justices.
In a bench trial, conducted in two stages as required by Code §§ 19.2-264.3, -264.4, the trial court convicted Dana Ray Edmonds under a two-count indictment charging capital murder in the commission of robbery while armed with a deadly weapon and robbery. After hearing evidence adduced at the penalty stage, the court entered an order on December 12, 1983 imposing the death penalty on the first count and life imprisonment on the second. By order dated January 3, 1984, the court vacated the earlier order and directed the probation officer to prepare the report required by Code § 19.2-264.5. Thereafter, the court granted the defendant's request to be examined by a private psychiatrist. Upon consideration of the probation report, the psychiatric evidence, and testimony in mitigation, the court entered orders in May 1984 confirming the penalties originally imposed. Pursuant to Code §§ 17-110.1, -110.2, we have consolidated Edmonds' appeal of the capital murder conviction with the automatic review of the death penalty and accorded the case priority on our docket. Edmonds assigns no error to his robbery conviction, and the judgment on that count has become final.
By way of preface, Edmonds argues that the capital-murder statutes are unconstitutional, both facially and as applied. He acknowledges, however, that "[a]lmost every argument raised by Appellant has already been decided against him in prior cases." He points to no exceptions, we have found none, and, applying unbroken precedent, we reject his constitutional complaints.
Mounting a two-fold attack on the sufficiency of the evidence, Edmonds contends that the Commonwealth failed to prove (1) that the killing was premeditated and (2) that the killing occurred in the commission of robbery. We will summarize the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth and then consider these contentions separately.
John Elliott, the victim of this crime, operated a small, one-man grocery store in the City of Danville. Elliott, 62 years of age, was five feet, seven inches tall, weighed less than 120 pounds, and suffered with tuberculosis, emphysema, scarring of the pancreas, hardening of the arteries, and constricted pericarditis. Yet, acquaintances described him as "feisty", "outspoken", and given to the use of vulgar language, and customers believed that he kept a revolver on a shelf beneath the cash register.
About 2:30 p.m. on Friday, July 22, 1983, Kenneth Richardson entered the store, stayed a few minutes, and left. During his visit, Elliott was sitting in a wooden chair in an open space near a "meat case" located at the rear of the store. At 2:35 p.m., Margaret Clark saw Edmonds walking toward the store. Shortly before 2:45 p.m., Leonard McDaniel, a wholesale egg distributor, arrived at the store. A stool was wedged against the door, the only entrance, but he succeeded in pushing the door ajar. When he entered, he saw Elliott's empty chair overturned on the floor. Blood was spattered on the floor, the meat cooler, and the counter where the cash register was kept. On the floor behind the meat cooler, McDaniel found Elliott's body lying in a pool of blood.
McDaniel turned and saw Edmonds and another man standing at the front door. He told them to stay where they were, that Elliott had been murdered, and that he was going to call the police. Edmonds disregarded the admonition and walked to the rear of the store to look at Elliott's body. He then returned to the front of the store, put on a glove, and placed his hand on a brick lying on a soft-drink cooler. McDaniel was "sure he was going to hit me with it", but he persuaded Edmonds to go outside. McDaniel observed "quite a bit" of blood on the tops and sides of Edmonds' tennis shoes but could not identify any blood on his clothes.
Responding to McDaniel's call, the police arrived at 2:47 p.m. Edmonds fled when he heard the sirens approaching. Police Sergeant David Stowe took numerous photographs of the crime scene and the corpse. A handkerchief "was pulled through the mouth and secured in the back." Stowe seized two butcher knives, each stained with blood; a glove; a brick containing strands of human hair; Elliott's false teeth "fairly well soaked" in blood; and several other items. Droplets of blood were on the chair and on the floor leading to the front door. Bloody footprints, apparently made by tennis shoes, led from the pool of blood behind the meat cooler to the floor behind the cash register counter. Sitting on the counter was "a chocolate drink bottle still cold". Under that counter, Stowe found a toy cap pistol, but a search disclosed no firearms in the store. Except for a few pennies, the cash register was empty.
Approximately 15 minutes before the police arrived, Kenneth Richardson had noticed "a stack of ones in the register" which he estimated to be "about $40.00 or a little more than that." Allen Dix, 12 years old, arrived at the store just before McDaniel got there, was unable to open the door, and looked in a window. Dix testified that he saw a man he later identified as Edmonds "stooping below the cash register." A witness who saw Edmonds about an hour after the killing testified that his pockets were "bulging out." Shortly thereafter, Edmonds gave three dollars to each of three children, and later he was seen spending money at a convenience store. Edmonds was using only one-dollar bills.
Anita Curley, who lived across the street from the store, testified that Elliott had told her that Edmonds had stolen some watches from his store and was no longer welcome as a customer. Lisa Clark, another neighbor, testified that Edmonds had told her some time before the killing that Elliott had accused him of the theft and that he had responded, "What if I did?" According to Clark, Edmonds "said he was going to get John."
Dowin Dalton, a soft-drink salesman, testified that Elliott had told him he was having "trouble" with "a black guy that lived on Ivy Street". When Dalton made his regular delivery on Wednesday, Elliott tried to persuade him to return on Friday because, he said, "That damn nigger down yonder is coming back Friday and kill me." Laverne Coles, Edmonds' girlfriend, testified that he asked her on Saturday, "Baby ... do you know how serious a murder charge is?" That night, Edmonds was arrested near the bus station. He gave his address as 228 Ivy Street.
Dr. William Massello performed the autopsy on Elliott's body. Elliott sustained "a large laceration" above the hairline of the scalp and a corresponding "circular fracture of the skull." These injuries, which resulted from a blow by a blunt instrument such as the "corner of a brick", did not "necessarily" cause the victim to lose consciousness. The blood droplets on the chair and those on the floor leading to the front door came from the scalp wound. A bruise was found "on the right side of the neck ... behind the ear." The arms contained bruises and abrasions, consistent with those made by the "grip" of human hands. The "most serious injury ... was a cutting wound to the right side of the neck". A sharp instrument had been inserted in "a vertical direction" into "the muscles of the neck", and "there was some twisting motion of the object" as it moved "upward in ... a left to right direction." Bleeding from this wound, which cut the carotid artery, was "rapid and massive". Although the victim expired in less than five minutes, he remained able to talk because the larynx was intact.
The pumping of the heart caused blood from the neck wound to "spurt" and collect on the lower part of a refrigerator located near the spot where the body was found. In the examiner's opinion, the pattern of blood indicated that the victim was not standing erect when the wound was inflicted. He also agreed that if the assailant and the victim had been facing each other in a standing position when the artery was severed, the assailant "would have been hit with a spurt of blood."
Edmonds, 21 years of age, was six feet, four inches tall and weighed 179 pounds. In the first of three interviews, Edmonds told Detective Claude Slayton that he had not been in the store but had seen "a black guy with a beard ... run into the store". In a second statement admitting he had entered the store, he said that a James Fuller had been with him and that Fuller had "hit [Elliott] in the head with something" and then cut his throat. Confronted with Fuller's alibi, Edmonds told Slayton that he "would go ahead and tell ... the truth this time."
His final account of events is contained in the transcript of a tape-recorded interview and a typed statement bearing his signature. Edmonds went to the store alone to buy a cold drink. Elliott pointed a pistol at his head and asked about the two missing watches. Edmonds protested that he had paid Elliott $3.00 apiece for those watches. Elliott cursed him and threatened to shoot him. Edmonds picked up a brick from the floor and threw it, striking Elliott on the head. Elliott dropped the gun but retrieved it; Edmonds grabbed a butcher knife, and "[t]he man got cut." Edmonds tried to telephone the police but was unable to complete the call. Because he did not "want [anybody] to come, to know that this had happened", he placed a stool against the door. Seeing "some young guy" at the window, he "ducked down" and hid behind the cash register counter. At this time, Elliott was still alive and calling for help. Edmonds said that he had picked up a handkerchief and a bag of candy as he left the store, but he denied that he had taken a gun or stolen the bills from the cash register. W...
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