Hooks v. State

• Decision Date: 30 May 1980
• Citation: 416 A.2d 189
• Parties: Clarence HOOKS, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee. Sterling HOBBS, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee. Wilbur JOHNSON, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee. Robert GOLSON, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Delaware

Page 189

416 A.2d 189

Clarence HOOKS, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.

Sterling HOBBS, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.

Wilbur JOHNSON, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.

Robert GOLSON, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Submitted June 11, 1979.

Decided May 30, 1980.

Upon appeal from Superior Court. Affirmed.

J. Dallas Winslow, Jr., Chief Deputy Public Defender, and Richard E. Fairbanks, Jr., Asst. Public Defender, Wilmington, for defendants-appellants.

F. L. Peter Stone of Connolly, Bove & Lodge, Wilmington, for Clarence Hooks, Sterling Hobbs and Wilbur Johnson, defendants-appellants.

Bartholomew J. Dalton and Kathleen Molyneux, Deputy Attys. Gen., Wilmington, for plaintiff-appellee.

Before DUFFY, QUILLEN and HORSEY, JJ.

I

QUILLEN, Justice:

We initially state the nature of the proceedings with heavy reliance on the appellants' opening brief.

Robert Golson, Sterling Hobbs, Clarence Hooks and Wilbur Johnson were indicted by the Grand Jury and charged with Murder in the first degree, Robbery in the first degree, and Conspiracy in the second degree. Sterling Hobbs was also charged with Possession of a Deadly Weapon during the Commission of a Felony. Defendants Hobbs, Hooks and Johnson moved for severance. The Superior Court denied this request. Defendants were arraigned and jury selection began immediately thereafter. After a lengthy trial, all defendants were found guilty as charged. The defendants' motions for a new trial were denied.

Robert Golson was sentenced to death on the charge of Murder in the first degree. He was sentenced to thirty years in prison on the charge of Robbery in the first degree. He was sentenced to seven years on the charge of Conspiracy in the second degree.

Sterling Hobbs was sentenced to death on the charge of Murder in the first degree. He was sentenced to thirty years in prison on the charge of Robbery in the first degree. He was sentenced to seven years on the charge of Conspiracy in the second degree. He was sentenced to thirty years in prison on the charge of Possession of a Deadly Weapon during the Commission of a Felony.

Clarence Hooks was sentenced to death on the charge of Murder in the first degree. He was sentenced to thirty years in prison on the charge of Robbery in the first degree. He was sentenced to seven years in prison on the charge of Conspiracy in the second degree.

Wilbur Johnson was sentenced to death on the charge of Murder in the first degree. He was sentenced to thirty years in prison on the charge of Robbery in the first degree. He was sentenced to seven years on the charge of Conspiracy in the second degree.

This Court has heard an appeal regarding the sentence of death to be imposed for the charge of Murder in the first degree. In State v. Spence, Del.Supr., 367 A.2d 983 (1976), the Court ruled that, under standards established by the United States Supreme Court, the sentence of death as applied in these cases constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The Court ruled that the sentence to be imposed in this case for Murder in the first degree is life imprisonment without benefit of parole under 11 Del.C. § 4209(a) (1974). Id. at 989.

II

The event out of which these charges and convictions arose occurred on May 5, 1975. Ridge Liquors, located in Claymont, Delaware, was robbed of approximately $200. During the robbery, Philip Whiteman, a store clerk, was shot by a .22 caliber handgun and killed. Five men were arrested for this crime. Four of these men have been charged and convicted in this case; their appeals are currently before this Court. The fifth man, Gregory Payne, pled guilty to First Degree Robbery and received a twenty-year prison sentence. During the trial he testified for the State against the four defendants.

III

Defendants raise numerous issues in this appeal. We consider first the issues relating to matters prior to the taking of evidence and second the trial and related legal issues. We affirm the convictions.

IV

Appellants claim that the Trial Court committed reversible error in its conduct of the voir dire process. Appellants Hooks, Hobbs and Johnson, challenge the handling of the voir dire on the following grounds. They claim that the systematic exclusion of prospective jurors with conscientious scruples against the imposition of capital punishment led to the seating of an unrepresentative jury, in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. They also claim that the Trial Court showed insufficient concern in its questioning of prospective jurors as to whether they held a bias against Blacks and persons of the Black Muslim faith. Appellants further argue that even if taken separately these deficiencies in the voir dire process do not constitute reversible error, their cumulative effect was so prejudical to appellants as to mandate reversal.

The case of Parson v. State, Del.Supr., 275 A.2d 777 (1971), establishes that the Trial Judge has broad discretion in conducting the voir dire, and that reversible error exists only if this discretion has been abused, to appellants' prejudice.

In examining the Trial Court's questioning of prospective jurors to determine their attitude toward capital punishment, we note that the Delaware statute regarding voir dire in capital cases ¹ follows very closely the rule laid down in Witherspoon v. Illinios, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968) concerning when a juror should be challenged for cause on the basis of conscientious scruples against capital punishment. In Witherspoon, the defendant's sentence of death was overturned because all jurors who had expressed conscientious scruples against capital punishment were stricken from the panel. The resulting sentence was held constitutionally infirm as having been arrived at by a jury that was not impartial but rather heavily weighted in favor of the death sentence, in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Illinois statute in Witherspoon permitted this by allowing removal of all scrupled jurors for cause, and the Court noted that by excluding them Illinois had kept out even those who despite their scruples would be able to decide the issue of guilt fairly based on the evidence presented. Thus, the Witherspoon standard that only those jurors who would be unable to render an impartial verdict because of their opposition to capital punishment could be excused for cause, was developed. The standard was reaffirmed recently in Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978). Our similar statute was held constitutional in Steigler v. State, Del.Supr., 277 A.2d 662 (1971).

After a review of the voir dire questioning we have concluded that the Trial Court adhered painstakingly to the Witherspoon standard. He questioned each juror in such a way as to discover whether his attitude toward capital punishment would prevent him from reaching a verdict on the evidence. Jurors who said they could not return a guilty verdict in any case if they knew the penalty would be death were removed for cause. See Parson v. State, supra, 275 A.2d at 784-785. Some jurors whose answers were ambiguous became the subject of the State's peremptory challenges, but there was no impropriety in the State's exercise of its challenges in this way.

Appellants have asked this Court to go beyond the Witherspoon standard to consider a question that was left open in the Witherspoon decision. They claim that in the process of picking a jury where those with conscientious scruples against capital punishment are excluded a conviction-prone jury is inevitably formed. The Witherspoon Court refused to rule that the jury there was biased towards conviction even if the weeding out of capital punishment foes did make the resulting jury more likely to impose the death sentence. The Court said that evidence that this produced a conviction-prone jury was tentative and fragmentary. Appellants argue that the evidence is now stronger and more cohesive, thus the time is ripe for a re-evaluation of this claim.

Appellants have cited more recent studies than those that were before the Supreme Court in Witherspoon. ² Since that decision, many of these studies have been urged upon federal and state courts as a basis for finding that the juries selected were prosecution oriented. None of these studies were based on an actual trial proceeding; rather, they were based on individual questioning without the factors of group interaction and responsibility that accompany the operation of a jury. For this reason and others based on methodological matters these studies have been rejected as inconclusive. See, e. g., Spinkellink v. Wainwright, 5th Cir., 578 F.2d 582 (1978), reh. den. 441 U.S. 937, 99 S.Ct. 2064, 60 L.Ed.2d 667 (1979); United States ex rel. Clarke v. Fike, 7th Cir., 538 F.2d 750 (1976), cert. den. 429 U.S. 1064, 97 S.Ct. 791, 50 L.Ed.2d 781 (1977); Craig v. Wyse, D.Colo., 373 F.Supp. 1008 (1974). We decline to depart at this time from a decision that has stood up to these subsequent challenges. ³

Appellants' other grounds for challenging the Trial Court's conduct of the voir dire pertain to the Court's efforts to ferret out prospective jurors who maintained a bias against Blacks or Black Muslims. Appellants claim that the Trial Court's efforts in this regard were superficial and wholly inadequate.

While reasonable minds might draw the line differently, we find no abuse of discretion by the Trial Judge. The Trial Court's discretion on voir dire is restricted only by essential demands of fairness. Shields v. State, Del.Supr., 374 A.2d 816 (1977), cert.den. 434 U.S. 893, 98 S.Ct. 271, 54 L.Ed.2d 180 (1977). While this discretion is constrained by the requirement that a trial...