Ex parte Land

• Decision Date: 01 March 1996
• Citation: 678 So.2d 224
• Parties: Ex parte Michael Jeffrey LAND. (In re Michael Jeffrey Land v. State). 1940896.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 224

678 So.2d 224

Ex parte Michael Jeffrey LAND.

(In re Michael Jeffrey Land v. State).

1940896.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

March 1, 1996.

Opinion Overruling Application for

Rehearing May 17, 1996.

Joseph T. Flood, Rochester, NY, for petitioner.

Jeff Sessions, Atty. Gen., and Beth Slate Poe, Asst. Atty. Gen., for Respondent.

BUTTS, Justice.

Michael Jeffrey Land was convicted of the capital murder of Candace Brown, and the trial judge sentenced him to death, following the jury's recommendation of that sentence. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed both his conviction and his death sentence. Land v. State, 678 So.2d 201 (Ala.Cr.App.1995). On certiorari review, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals.

On the evening of May 18, 1992, Candace Brown drove to her mother's home to pick up her two-year-old son. Because Ms. Brown's residence had been burglarized five days earlier, her mother and brother followed her home to make sure the house was safe. Ms. Brown's mother and brother left the house at approximately 9:00 p.m.

The following morning, May 19, Ms. Brown's landlord went to her residence to supervise the installation of a fence. The landlord observed that a window located near the rear entry to the house had been broken into, that the telephone wires to the house had been cut, and that the window on the driver's side of Ms. Brown's car had been shattered. After knocking on the front door and receiving no response, the landlord asked a neighbor to call the police and then returned to his own home in order to get a spare set of keys to Ms. Brown's house.

When officers from the Birmingham Police Department arrived at Ms. Brown's residence, they established that all doors to the house were locked, that a storm window located near a rear entry to the house had been removed, and that several panes of the interior window behind that storm window had been cut and removed. They saw on one of the removed panes of glass, which was lying on the ground, a shoe imprint with a distinctive tread design bearing the lettering "USA."

The landlord opened the house for the police officers, who found Ms. Brown's infant son alone and unharmed. The officers also found on a bulletin board a note with the name and telephone numbers of Michael Jeffrey Land and his mother, Gail M. Land.

After telephoning Ms. Land and learning from her where her son Jeffrey was working, Detectives Steve Corvin and Larry Fowler went to Riverchase Galleria, a shopping mall in Hoover, where Jeffrey Land was repairing the roof of the mall. The detectives informed Land that they were investigating the disappearance of Ms. Brown, and he agreed to accompany them to the police station to answer some questions. He was taken to an interrogation room and informed of his rights, pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). He signed a waiver of rights form and agreed to have his statement tape-recorded.

Land acknowledged in the tape-recorded statement that he knew Ms. Brown, but said that he had not seen her in about a week, that he had no idea where she was, and that he had no knowledge about the most recent break-in at her residence. However, Land later confessed that he had burglarized Ms. Brown's residence six days earlier and that during the course of that burglary he had cut the exterior telephone lines.

When the detectives inquired as to where he had been the night before, i.e., May 18, Land claimed that he had been visiting a girlfriend at her parents' apartment until approximately 11:30 p.m. Land said that after he left the apartment he fell asleep in his car in the parking lot at the apartments and that he awoke at approximately 4:15 a.m., May 19, and drove to his grandfather's house; he said he lived there with his grandfather. Land claimed that he reported to work at the Galleria before 6:00 a.m. that morning, that he had eaten lunch earlier that day with a second girlfriend, and that his car was parked at that second girlfriend's house.

During the interrogation, Detective Fowler noticed that the tread design on the bottom of Land's tennis shoes appeared to match the print the officers had seen on the window glass at Ms. Brown's house. At the completion of Land's interview, Detective Fowler asked to see Land's shoes and, upon closer observation, noticed what appeared to be bloodstains. The detectives asked Land to removes his shoes and clothes, and they gave him a jail uniform to wear. ¹ Meanwhile, Birmingham Police Lieutenant Carl Quinn telephoned Land's second girlfriend, who denied having eaten lunch with him that day and also stated that Land's car was not parked at her home.

After Lt. Quinn relayed that information to Detectives Fowler and Corvin, Corvin informed Land that his second girlfriend had denied eating lunch with him and had denied having his car. Detective Corvin then told Land that he needed to tell the truth about the disappearance of Ms. Brown. Confronted with this discrepancy in his statement, Land then agreed to make a second statement, but refused to allow it to be tape-recorded.

Once again, Land was informed of, and waived, his Miranda rights. In his second statement, Land stated that he had met two men, whom he named "Tony" and "Edward," at a gas station late the previous night and that these men had asked him if he knew an "easy mark" for a burglary. Land stated that he suggested Ms. Brown's house and that Tony and Edward had paid him $20 to cut and remove the glass to a window in Ms. Brown's house. Land said that the three of them entered the kitchen through this window.

Land said that after they entered the house Ms. Brown walked into the kitchen, where the three men were, and that either Tony or Edward slapped her, knocking her to the floor and causing her nose and mouth to bleed. According to Land, as Ms. Brown fell, she grabbed his hand and, he said, in doing so she may have gotten some blood on his gloves. When Detective Corvin told Land that no trace of blood was found in Ms. Brown's house, Land said that either Tony or Edward had cleaned the blood up with paper towels and then had placed the towels in his pants pocket. Land said that after Ms. Brown was injured he became frightened and left the house and that he did not know what happened to her after that.

In this second interview, Land admitted that his car was not parked at a girlfriend's house, but was instead parked in the parking deck at the mall where he had been working. When told by Detective Corvin that the police would need to look in his car, Land asked what would happen if they found something in his car that he was not supposed to have. Detective Corvin told Land that they were looking for evidence concerning Ms. Brown's disappearance and asked Land if he was referring to drugs. Land answered that he had a .45 caliber automatic handgun in his car and would consent to a search of the car only if the police agreed not to charge him with carrying a gun. Without agreeing to Land's conditions, Detective Corvin asked Land for his car keys. Land handed the keys to the detective.

Detective Fowler located Land's car, opened the trunk, and made a visual inventory of the trunk, without moving or touching the contents. He saw a .45 caliber semi-automatic handgun in the trunk, but did not seize it. Instead, the police had the car towed to a secure lot; it was searched two days later pursuant to a valid search warrant.

On the evening of May 19, after completing his second statement, Land was informed that he was under arrest. The next day, May 20, Ms. Brown's body was discovered by hikers in a rock quarry on Ruffner Mountain in Jefferson County. She had been shot once in the back of her head. Land was charged with capital murder.

At trial, the State's expert testimony showed that a pair of wire cutters found during the search of Land's car had made the cuts on the telephone wire leading into Ms. Brown's residence; that two types of glass fragments found on a pair of gloves seized from Land's car were consistent with the glass in the shattered window of Ms. Brown's car and with the glass in the broken window near the rear entry of Ms. Brown's house; that Land's tennis shoe sole had the same distinctive design as the shoe print found on a removed pane of glass at Ms. Brown's house; that the bullet recovered from Ms. Brown's head had been fired from a .45 caliber handgun and that it matched a bullet test-fired from the .45 caliber handgun found in Land's car; and that a DNA profile of a semen stain found on Ms. Brown's blouse matched Land's known blood sample, and that only one in 20,620,000 white males would have those same DNA characteristics (Land is white).

Land was convicted of two counts of capital murder for the death of Ms. Brown. The jury found him guilty of murder during a burglary, Ala.Code 1975, § 13A-5-40(a)(4), and guilty of murder during a kidnapping, Ala.Code 1975, § 13A-5-40(a)(1). By a vote of 11-1, the jury recommended that he be sentenced to death. The trial court followed the jury's recommendation and sentenced Land to die in the electric chair.

Land has raised for this Court's review 23 issues, some of which were also raised before the Court of Criminal Appeals and discussed in that court's lengthy opinion. We have thoroughly reviewed the issues raised before the Court of Criminal Appeals, and we find no error in the opinion of that court. We have also thoroughly reviewed the additional issues Land has raised for the first time before this Court and have found no reversible error. Moreover, we have carefully reviewed the record for "plain error," in accordance with Rule 39(k), Ala.R.App.P., and have found none. We discuss here the issues that Land did not raise before the Court of Criminal Appeals, and also 2 issues that were raised in that court, but which Land's appellate counsel emphasized in oral argument before this Court.

I.

At oral argument, Land argued,...