Edmonds v. Commonwealth, No. 2007-SC-000350-MR (Ky. 11/25/2009)
| Decision Date | 25 November 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 2007-SC-000350-MR.,No. 2007-SC-000359-MR.,2007-SC-000350-MR.,2007-SC-000359-MR. |
| Parties | Derek Rene EDMONDS Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky Appellee. Tyreese Hall Appellant, v. Commonwealth of Kentucky Appellee. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
On Appeal from Jefferson Circuit Court, Honorable Judith Mcdonald-Burkman, Judge, Nos. 04-CR-001179-001, 04-CR-002445-001, 04-CR-001179-002 AND 04-CR-002445-003.
Susan Jackson Balliet, Assistant Public Advocate Department of Public Advocacy, Frankfort, Kentucky, Counsel for Appellant, Derek Rene Edmond.
Kathleen Kallaher Schmidt, Appeals Branch Manager, Department of Public Advocacy, Frankfort, Kentucky, Counsel for Appellant, Tyreese Hall.
Jack Conway, Attorney General Samuel J. Floyd, Jr., Assistant Attorney General, Office of Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Frankfort, Kentucky, Counsel for Appellee.
Not to be Published
At a jury trial, Appellants Derek Rene Edmonds and Tyreese Hall were convicted of murder, first-degree sodomy, and first-degree robbery. Upon review of the record and Appellants' arguments, we affirm their convictions. However, with respect to Appellant Derek Edmonds, we reverse and remand for the limited purpose of entry of an amended judgment on his sodomy conviction.
Early in the morning of April 6, 2004, Clifton Agnew, a homeless man sleeping outside near the Salvation Army in Louisville, Kentucky, was beaten, hit with a crock pot, stabbed in the leg, and robbed. While unconscious, he was sodomized with a bottle and two sticks, which were shoved up his rectum, into his abdomen, and through his organs. A police officer saw someone flee the scene, but was unable to catch the suspect. Two police officers then discovered the victim bleeding from his head and rectum. He was barely alive, and EMS took him to the hospital, where he remained unresponsive and in a coma until his death.1
A twenty-seven-inch stick and a smaller fifteen-inch stick were recovered from the alley where the attack occurred; both sticks were covered in the victim's blood. A broken beer bottle with blood around the neck and a knife were also found, and police recovered a crock pot, which was dented, broken, and bloody.
Both Appellants were arrested that day. Hall had a swollen hand and blood spatters on his pants. Edmonds had blood-soaked pants and boots. DNA from the blood on both Appellants' clothing matched the DNA profile of the victim.
Hall gave a statement to police that day, claiming to have hit the victim on the leg with the crock pot and admitting to punching him and stabbing him in the leg with a knife. This statement was recorded and later played at trial.
At another time, Hall signed a statement confessing that he alone robbed and sodomized the victim, stating that Edmonds had only kicked the victim and then run away. He later testified that Edmonds pressured him to take the blame, which is why his original written statement only implicated himself.
Hall later gave a second statement to a detective over the phone wherein he implicated Edmonds' brother Dewayne in the violence. (He testified at trial that he did this only to get back at Edmonds, who he believed had gotten him arrested, and that the brother had not attacked the victim.) While on the phone, he also admitted to throwing the crock pot, hitting the victim's head, and claimed that Edmonds had sodomized the victim with a glass bottle. This statement was also recorded and played at trial.
Hall also testified at the trial, providing details of the attack. He claimed that Edmonds had been discussing robbing someone that day. Hall, Edmonds, and Edmonds' brother were walking down an alley on the day of the crime when a homeless man awoke and rose up. Hall testified that the man was reaching for something, so he attacked, punching the man in the face and knocking him down. He claimed he kicked the man and then picked up a crock pot and threw it down on the victim's leg so hard that the crock pot broke. Edmonds' brother picked up the victim's wallet, threw it down, and then left the alley. Edmonds then started punching and kicking the victim. Hall testified that he walked away and came back several times, eventually asking Edmonds to stop. At that point, the victim was unconscious. Hall claimed he then saw Edmonds drag the unconscious victim through the gate in a fence, beat him some more, and that he heard Edmonds say, "I'm going to do him like they did our people back in the day," which Hall claimed referred "to racial stuff."2 He testified that Edmonds then repeatedly sodomized the victim with a stick for about two minutes.
Edmonds denied having anything to do with harming Clifton Agnew when interrogated by police. He did not testify at trial, but did present multiple witnesses in his defense. Mark Murray and James Ford testified they heard Hall admit committing the crimes, specifically to robbing Agnew, sodomizing him with a bottle and stick, and hitting him with the crock pot. Another witness, Jeffrey Bryant, who had shared a holding cell with Hall, testified that all Hall claimed that Edmonds had done was come to Hall's rescue after the victim grabbed Hall, kicking the victim several times to get him off Hall. Yet another holding-cellmate testified that Hall had impliedly admitted to sodomizing the victim with a stick and hitting him in the head with the crock pot.
At trial, the victim's doctor arid the medical examiner testified about his injuries. Dr. Bill Smock treated the victim in the emergency room, and he testified that the victim was bleeding from several sites on his head, had two stab wounds in his leg, and had "very significant intra-abdominal injuries'' and a large amount of blood coming from his rectum. He testified, "Some object had been inserted forcefully into the rectum and beyond that into the abdominal cavity and beyond that up into the left lung area." He said that an object had been inserted into the victim's rectum at least twice. He used a chart to describe the injuries and he demonstrated with a prosecutor how long the stick was in comparison to a person's back. He identified eight photographs of the victim taken at the hospital the day he was admitted showing injuries to his face, eyes, ear, and anus.
Dr. Amy Burrows-Beckham performed the victim's autopsy. She testified that the cause of death was "the head injury he sustained when he was assaulted," with a contributing factor of loss of blood due to the extensive injuries to his abdomen and chest.
Appellants were convicted after a jury trial. Edmonds was sentenced to life without the benefit of parole or probation on the murder, life without parole on the sodomy,3 and twenty years on the robbery. Hall was sentenced to life without the benefit of parole or probation for twenty-five years on the murder, twenty-five years on the sodomy, and twenty years on the robbery. Their appeals to this Court, therefore, are a matter of right. Ky. Const. § 110(2)(b).
The Appellants were tried together and took their appeals together. Because several issues are common to both their cases, their appeals are addressed in a single opinion. Individual issues are addressed separately.
Appellants claim they were prejudiced by the testimony of Kaye Thomas, who visited a comatose Clifton Agnew in the hospital after hearing about his case on the news, and eventually became his legal guardian. Before trial, the prosecutors indicated they were going to call Thomas as their traditional "humanizing" witness as allowed under McQueen v. Commonwealth, 669 S.W. 2d 519 (Ky. 1984). Appellants made written pretrial motions in limine to exclude Thomas's testimony, arguing it would be mostly irrelevant and highly prejudicial, and any probative value would be substantially outweighed by the prejudicial effect. See KRE 403. Appellants' motions in limine were denied.
Before Thomas was called by the Commonwealth at trial, Appellants renewed their objections to the entirety of her testimony, and specifically objected to any testimony about Thomas's "card campaign," an e-mail campaign asking everyone who received it to send a card to the victim's hospital room and to forward the e-mail to their friends. Defense counsel conceded that traditional humanizing testimony would be permissible. The Commonwealth agreed that the cards and letters Thomas solicited on the victim's behalf should not be admitted into evidence, but argued Thomas should be able to testify about them.
The court ruled that the fact that Thomas read letters to the victim would be allowed, but that she would not be permitted to testify that this case garnered national attention or that people from around the nation sent letters to the victim. Specifically, the court said, "her testifying that this was national, and that everybody in the nation sent letters, that is where I'm gonna have to stop you." The Commonwealth then asked for the court to give it "a couple seconds just to tell [Thomasl where your cutoff is."
The defense further objected to any discussion of the quantity of the cards the victim received. The court concluded Thomas could testify about her observations of the victim's injuries and pain and suffering as a lay person could, and that she could testify about what she did with him, but she could not testify about what others did for him, including her card campaign and the number of cards the victim received.
Thomas began by describing how she came to hear about the attack on Clifton Agnew on the news, and how she decided to visit him in the hospital. She described the fact that his organs were still swollen outside of his body, and covered with clear surgical plastic.
The Commonwealth asked Thomas, "After you got back from the hospital that [first! day, what did you do?" She testified that she went home and...
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