Etheridge v. Johnson
| Decision Date | 19 May 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. Civ.A. H-98-3910.,Civ.A. H-98-3910. |
| Citation | 49 F.Supp.2d 963 |
| Parties | Gary Wayne ETHERIDGE, Petitioner, v. Gary L. JOHNSON, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas |
Mandy Jo Welch, Burr & Welch, Houston, TX, Jack B. Zimmermann, Zimmermann & Lavine, Houston, TX, Patrick F. McCann, Law Offices of Patrick F. McCann, Houston, TX, Nicholas J. Trenticosta, New Orleans, LA, Terri R. Jacobs, Attorney at Law, Houston, TX, for Gary Wayne Etheridge, petitioner.
Margaret P. Griffey, Office of Attorney General, Austin, TX, Christina Thompson, Office of Atty General, Austin, TX, for Gary Johnson, Director/TDCJ-ID, respondent.
Six days after she turned fifteen, Christie Chauviere was robbed, sexually assaulted, and stabbed to death in her home. A jury in the 23rd District Court of Brazoria County found Gary Wayne Etheridge guilty of her capital murder and concluded that he had deliberately killed Christie and that he posed a continuing threat to society. As a result, Etheridge was sentenced to death. Etheridge seeks a writ of habeas corpus from this court, arguing that his conviction and sentence violate the Constitution of the United States. Pending before the court is Respondent, Gary L. Johnson's, Motion for Summary Judgment (Docket Entry No. 16). The court will grant Johnson's motion and dismiss the petition for writ of habeas corpus.
Christie Chauviere was the youngest of four children. She and her twenty year-old brother, Charles,1 lived with their mother, Gail Chauviere, in a two-story house in Lake Jackson, Texas. Christie's father had died in July of 1989. Gail Chauviere described her daughter as a normal fifteen year-old girl. A 4-H member, Christie liked to ride horses. She played sports and enjoyed painting, drawing, and reading. On the night of February 2, 1990, Gail was going to take Christie shopping after work.2
Gail Chauviere was a project manager at a townhouse-condominium complex in San Luis Pass. Etheridge had begun working at the complex about a week before the murder. A few days after he began working at the complex, he visited the Chauviere home to pick up a stray dog, Bo, that Gail had found at the complex. Etheridge wanted the dog, and Gail told him to come by and get it.3
On February 2 Gail arrived home from work around 5:40 p.m. A dark car sat in her driveway. Gail regularly brought a bag of cash from the apartment complex home with her at the end of the day, and February 2 was no different. As she got out of her car, Bo came running around the vehicle to greet her. At this point she assumed (correctly) that the dark car belonged to Etheridge.4 Etheridge was already inside when Gail arrived home. He wanted money.5
The exact details of what happened next are not absolutely clear. According to Gail's testimony at trial, Etheridge ordered Gail to come into the house with him. She put her purse and the money bag on a chair. Christie, looking upset, was sitting on the arm of a love seat in the den area. Etheridge asked Gail if she was expecting any visitors, to which she replied that her father was coming over. He then asked, 6
She told him the money was in the bank bag.7 Petitioner asked, "The money is in there?"
Gail responded, 8
As she said this to Etheridge, she reached for her daughter, who was moving off the love seat towards her mother. Just as Gail's fingertips brushed Christie's shoulders, Etheridge jerked Christie to him by her hair. Christie screamed. Etheridge told her to shut up and threatened to slit her throat. He then pulled a knife from behind his back and began stabbing Gail. He stabbed Gail two or three times on her left side, then he started striking her head. One blow was so severe that Gail thought she heard an explosion within her head. She blacked out by the fireplace in the den.9
At trial Gail only had intermittent memories of what happened after the explosive stab to her head. She remembered being stabbed in the back and in the lower abdomen. She remembered trying to push away from Etheridge and begging him, "No, no. Please don't do this!" She remembered seeing Etheridge hold a knife to Christie's throat and threaten to slit her throat if she did not shut up. She never heard any other intruders in her house and never heard Etheridge speak to anyone other than her and Christie. Etheridge said nothing to indicate that anyone else was there.10 Gail did not see Etheridge stab Christie.11
Etheridge gave a written statement to Brazoria County sheriff's deputies the day of his arrest describing his version of what happened. According to Etheridge, on February 2 his boss, Bob Murray, had given Etheridge the afternoon off and had given him a $50 draw from his paycheck to buy a new car battery. Etheridge used the money to buy drugs. After a few hours of shooting up by himself and with friends at various locations, he drove over to Gail's house.
Gail was not at home when Etheridge arrived at the house. When Etheridge knocked on the door, Christie answered. Etheridge was still on the porch when Gail drove up. As Gail walked to the door, Etheridge told her that he did not have some tax papers she had asked him to bring her. She walked in the door, and Etheridge followed, closing the door behind them. Christie had been on the telephone when Etheridge knocked, but she hung up when Etheridge and Gail walked in the door. Etheridge then told Gail that he needed some money. Gail, clutching her purse and the money bag, looked worried. Etheridge grabbed for the money bag, causing both women to panic. Etheridge ordered the women to sit on the couch and shut up as he pulled out a knife.
Though hysterical, Gail and Christie complied. Etheridge told them all he wanted was the money. He said, "Gail, I like you, but I have a drug problem, and I have got to have the money," and showed them needle marks on his arms. Gail replied that all he had to do was tell her and she would give him more money.
Etheridge then decided to tie the women up. He told Christie to remove her pants and socks, intending to tie the women up with the pants and gag them with the socks. This did not work, so he decided to tie one woman up with a rope belt and the other with a telephone cord; he did not remember which restraint he used on which woman. The women were still acting hysterical, so petitioner told Christie to stay on the couch while he locked Gail in a closet.
Etheridge took Gail by the arm to the kitchen. Gail grabbed a sharp object, swung around, and cut petitioner on his left index finger. This set him off. He grabbed Gail by the hair and threw her down in the hallway. They fought in what petitioner described as a garden room. Christie began screaming and rushed over to join the fight. Etheridge then recited in his written statement: "The next thing I remember is I was running outside and I had my pocket knife in my hand and it was all bloody...." After his own car would not start, Etheridge took Gail's car and fled.12
Lorene McCreight, the Chauvieres' next-door neighbor, was the first to suspect something was amiss. She went to the Chauviere home at about 5:50 p.m. to see if Christie could babysit the next evening. She knocked on the door, but no one answered. The lights were on and she could hear the television, so she assumed someone was home. Then she heard a voice cry from inside, She tried to open the front door, but it was locked. She ran home and got her husband, Stan, to come back over with her. They tried the back door, but it was also locked. Through the window, they could see a lamp knocked over.13 Stan told Lorene to go get his gun. One of the garage doors was open, so they entered the garage. Stan entered the house through a door in the garage. He found Gail, so covered in blood he could not recognize her, in the entrance hall. Then he saw Christie, her hands bound together and her left side pierced several times, lying lifeless on the other side of the hall. The McCreights called the police.14
John Rhyne, a Richwood police officer,15 responded to the call. He first discovered Christie, nude from the waist down, lying on her right side in the entrance way. Her hands were tied in front of her with a telephone cord, and she had been gagged with a towel. He saw the remnants of a tear rolling down her cheek. He then saw Gail, moaning for help, lying in an adjacent room.16 Paramedics took Gail to Brazosport Memorial Hospital,17 which transferred her to Hermann Hospital in Houston, where Dr. James H. "Red" Duke treated her. Dr. Duke testified that Gail arrived at Hermann with multiple penetrating wounds to her neck, face, chest, upper abdomen, and arms.18 She had a severe wound to her right eye, which required reconstructive surgery, and a gaping slash wound to her neck. The neck wound went down to, but did not sever, Gail's internal jugular vein.19 Gail survived.
Christie was dead at the scene. She suffered four fatal stab wounds — two to her left front chest between 4 and 7 centimeters deep and two more further on the left side of her chest, also about 7 centimeters deep. One of the front-chest wounds pierced her pericardial sac,20 but not the heart itself, while the other penetrated her ascending thoracic aorta.21 The two side wounds pierced her left lung and hemidiaphragm. Christie's attacker also stabbed her in the face between her nose and right eye. She also had several defensive wounds on both of her forearms.22
Christie's attacker did not...
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