Jackson v. State

• Decision Date: 31 March 2000
• Parties: Jeremiah JACKSON v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals

791 So.2d 979

Jeremiah JACKSON v. STATE.

CR-97-0998.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama.

March 31, 2000.

Rehearing Denied June 2, 2000.

Shirley Trivett Chapin, Tuscaloosa; and Ellen L. Wiesner, Brookfield, Wisconsin, for appellant.

Bill Pryor, atty. gen.; and Jeremy W. Armstrong and James R. Houts, asst. attys. gen., for appellee.

LONG, Presiding Judge.

The appellant, Jeremiah Jackson, was convicted of murder made capital because it was committed during the course of a robbery in the first degree. See § 13A-5-40(a)(2), Ala.Code 1975. The jury, by a vote of 10-2, recommended that Jackson be sentenced to death. The trial court accepted the jury's recommendation and sentenced Jackson to death. The State's evidence tended to show the following. On April 15, 1996, at approximately 1:45 p.m., Jackson and Alfred Reed, Jackson's codefendant,¹ robbed the Hillview Grocery Store on County Road 24 in Bibb County. Jackson was armed with a 12-gauge shotgun. The clerk and owner of the store, Vicki Carroll, was talking on the telephone with her husband, Jerry Carroll, when Jackson and Reed entered the store. Jerry Carroll testified that while he was talking with his wife, he heard her scream, "Take it. Take it all. Take all of it." (R. 389.) Mr. Carroll immediately asked his wife if she was being robbed, and she said that she was. Mr. Carroll then hung up and telephoned 911 to report the robbery.

Testimony showed that Vicki Carroll was killed during the robbery by a closerange shotgun blast to her forehead. Photographs of the scene showed fragments of Carroll's skull and brain tissue scattered throughout the store. Bloodstains found in the bottom of the empty drawer of the cash register indicated that the shooting occurred after all the cash had been removed from the register. Pellets from a 12-gauge shotgun shell were found in the store. John R. McDuffy, a forensic scientist with the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, testified that the splatter of blood and tissue throughout the store and the location of the shotgun pellets indicated that the fatal shot was fired from behind the counter, within a few feet of Carroll.

Larry Sanders, an acquaintance of Jackson's, testified that he was driving home from work at approximately 4:00 p.m. on April 15, 1996, when Jackson and another individual flagged him down. Sanders stated that he gave Jackson and the other individual a ride to Chris Dobyne's house in Brent. Sanders testified that Jackson did not appear intoxicated at the time.

Angela Smith testified that she was living with Chris Dobyne, Alfred Reed, and John Martin in April 1996. On the morning of April 15, 1996, she and Dobyne were at Dobyne's mother's house when Reed and Martin came over. Smith testified that Reed, Martin, and Dobyne went outside and engaged in a conversation, during which she saw Dobyne continually shaking his head in the negative. Reed and Martin then left, she said. Later that day, at approximately 4:00 p.m., according to Smith, Martin arrived at Dobyne's house and stated that a woman had been murdered. Approximately 15 minutes later, Reed and Jackson arrived, and Jackson, Reed, Martin, and Dobyne began talking. According to Smith, Jackson stated that he had killed a woman, that he had "blowed her brains out." (R. 578.) In addition, Smith testified that she heard someone say that he had thrown the gun in the river; she did not identify who made that statement. Smith also stated that Jackson did not appear to be intoxicated or on drugs on April 15. The next afternoon, Jackson again came over to Dobyne's house. This time, Jackson had a newspaper containing an article about the robbery and murder at the Hillview Grocery Store. According to Smith, Jackson stated that "he [had] made [the] news." (R. 578.)

In his statement to police, Jackson admitted shooting Vicki Carroll during the robbery of the Hillview Grocery Store, but he claimed that the shooting was accidental. Jackson told police that at approximately 8:30 a.m. on the day of the murder, Martin and Reed picked him up in Martin's car on Bear Creek Road. The three of them then drove around Bibb County for several hours, drinking beer and smoking marijuana, before Martin came up with the idea of robbing the store. According to Jackson, they then drove to Marion, where Reed retrieved a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun from under the hood of his car. Reed gave the gun to Jackson. Jackson told police that after they got the gun from Reed's car, they drove by the Hillview Grocery Store five or six times (they even stopped at the store to buy beer at one point) before they robbed it. Jackson said that the last time they drove by the store, there were no cars in sight, so Martin stopped and let Jackson and Reed out of the car. Martin arranged to pick Jackson and Reed up at a cemetery down the road after the robbery. Jackson told police that when he entered the store, the female clerk was talking on the telephone. He then went behind the counter, pulled out the shotgun, and told the clerk, several times, to lie on the floor. Jackson said that he heard the woman say, "Yeah" into the telephone and that he believed she was telling someone she was being robbed. He said that he was "nervous and shaking" and that he then heard a shot; however, he said he did not remember pulling the trigger of the shotgun. According to Jackson, Reed did not take the money from the cash register until after the shot had been fired. Reed and Jackson then fled the scene. Jackson stated that when they got outside the store, he gave the shotgun to Reed and then ran into the woods. When he later met Reed at the cemetery, Reed did not have the shotgun. Jackson said that Reed told him that he had "got rid of the shotgun." Because Martin did not meet them at the cemetery as planned, Jackson and Reed walked to Chris Dobyne's house in Brent. There, Jackson, Reed, Martin, and Dobyne split the money from the robbery. The total amount of money taken from the store was approximately $200.

On appeal, Jackson raises 28 issues, many of which he did not raise by objection in the trial court. Because Jackson was sentenced to death, his failure to object at trial does not bar our review of these issues; however, it does weigh against any claim of prejudice he now makes on appeal. See Dill v. State, 600 So.2d 343 (Ala.Cr.App.1991), aff'd, 600 So.2d 372 (Ala.1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 924, 113 S.Ct. 1293, 122 L.Ed.2d 684 (1993); Kuenzel v. State, 577 So.2d 474 (Ala.Cr.App.1990), aff'd, 577 So.2d 531 (Ala.), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 886, 112 S.Ct. 242, 116 L.Ed.2d 197 (1991).

Rule 45A, Ala.R.App.P., provides:

"In all cases in which the death penalty has been imposed, the Court of Criminal Appeals shall notice any plain error or defect in the proceedings under review, whether or not brought to the attention of the trial court, and take appropriate appellate action by reason thereof, whenever such error has or probably has adversely affected the substantial right of the appellant."

"Plain error" has been defined as error "so obvious that the failure to notice it would seriously affect the fairness or integrity of the judicial proceedings." Ex parte Womack, 435 So.2d 766, 769 (Ala.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 986, 104 S.Ct. 436, 78 L.Ed.2d 367 (1983), quoting United States v. Chaney, 662 F.2d 1148 1152 (5th Cir. 1981). "To rise to the level of plain error, the claimed error must not only seriously affect a defendant's `substantial rights,' but it must also have an unfair prejudicial impact on the jury's deliberations." Hyde v. State, 778 So.2d 199, 209 (Ala.Cr.App. 1998). This court has recognized that "`the plain error exception to the contemporaneous-objection rule is to be "used sparingly, solely in those circumstances in which a miscarriage of justice would otherwise result."'" Burton v. State, 651 So.2d 641, 645 (Ala.Cr.App.1993), aff'd, 651 So.2d 659 (Ala.1994), cert. denied, 514 U.S. 1115, 115 S.Ct. 1973, 131 L.Ed.2d 862 (1995), quoting United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 15, 105 S.Ct. 1038, 1046, 84 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985) (quoting, in turn, United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 163, 102 S.Ct. 1584, 1592, 71 L.Ed.2d 816 (1982)). Accordingly, we now address each of the 28 issues Jackson raises.

I.

Jackson contends that the trial court erred in failing to conduct a competency hearing because, he says, his pretrial mental evaluation "raise[d] serious questions as to [his] competenc[y]" to stand trial. (Issue XIII in Jackson's brief to this court, p. 77.) Because this claim was never presented to the trial court, our review will be under the plain-error rule. See Rule 45A, Ala.R.App.P.

The record reflects that Jackson initially pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.² Based on Jackson's plea and on the State's motion requesting that Jackson be ordered to submit to a mental evaluation, the trial court ordered a psychological examination to determine whether Jackson was competent to stand trial and also to determine his mental state at the time of the murder. Dr. Vonciel C. Smith, a forensic examiner at the Taylor Hardin Secure Medical Facility, evaluated Jackson on September 24, 1996. In his evaluation report, Dr. Smith made the following findings relevant to Jackson's competency to stand trial:

"[T]he available data is inconsistent with formal thought disorder, major affective disturbance, or severe cognitive impairment. However, the defendant appears to function in the borderline range of intelligence. This intellectual functioning appears to be cultural familial in origin and of long-standing duration. Despite these limited cognitive abilities, Mr. Jackson was able to profit from concrete educational efforts on my part during the formal competency evaluation....

"Jeremiah Jackson was administered the Competency to Stand Trial Assessment Instrument (CAI) as part of the evaluation of his ability to assume the role of a defendant. The CAI is a semistructured interview

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