Johnson v. State

• Decision Date: 21 January 1992
• Docket Number: No. CR,CR
• Parties: David JOHNSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee. 91-121.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 800

823 S.W.2d 800

308 Ark. 7

David JOHNSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.

No. CR 91-121.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Jan. 21, 1992.

Robert H. Smith, Stuttgart, for appellant.

Olan W. Reeves, Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.

DUDLEY, Justice.

The appellant was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection. Upon review of the points assigned as error by the appellant, and upon our own comparative review of other death penalty cases, we affirm the judgment of conviction as well as the sentence imposed.

Even though the appellant does not contest the sufficiency of the evidence, we detail the facts for the purpose of making a comparative review of other cases in which we have affirmed the death penalty. We do so to be assured of the evenhandedness of the application of the death penalty. See Collins v. State, 261 Ark. 195, 548 S.W.2d 106 (1977) and Collins v. State, 280 Ark. 312, 657 S.W.2d 546 (1983) (Hickman, J., concurring). The victim in this case, Leon Brown, a sixty-seven-year-old male, first went to work for Little Rock Crate and Basket Company in 1967, worked there a few years, left, returned in 1982, and continued to work there until he was murdered. During the last few years he worked as a night watchman only on Friday and Saturday nights. On the evening of Saturday, September 2, 1989, while on duty, he wore a black leather John Brown type of police belt and holster to carry his .41 caliber Smith and Wesson pistol, and four (4) empty shell casings. He was known to carry the empty casings, although no one knew the reason. He also carried a watchman's clock, which is a device that looks something like an old-fashioned leather covered circular style canteen with a paper disc on the outside. As he made his rounds, he would stop at designated locations which had permanent station keys and insert one of the keys in his watchman's clock. It would punch a hole in the paper disc. That hole would reflect the time the watchman stopped at that particular station.

Little Rock Crate and Basket Company is located at 1623 East Fourteenth Street, which is at the end of Fourteenth Street in Little Rock. It manufactures fruit and vegetable containers, baskets, and wire bound crates. It consists of warehouses located on both sides of the street, a log yard, and an office which is located at the end of one of the warehouses. The office area, comprised of five (5) offices, is built of concrete blocks and has three (3) steel doors which were locked with dead bolt locks. It has windows which open into a lunchroom which is located at the end of the warehouses. The warehouses are built of corrugated steel, and on September afternoons, it gets hot inside them, so it was not unusual for the workers to open the warehouse doors to cool the building. The doors were so opened at 6:30 on the evening of September 2, 1989. Even so, one would not worry about security because Fourteenth Street at that location is a private street, owned by Little Rock Crate and Basket, with no through traffic, and the business is surrounded by a high chain link fence with barbed wire on top.

Leon Brown had a number of friends who worked at Little Rock Crate and Basket Company, and he enjoyed going to work a little early so he could visit with them. His night watchman's shift began at 4 p.m. on the 2nd. He went in early and visited with his friends and then, at work time, began his rounds.

Dudley Swann, the principal stockholder in Little Rock Crate and Basket, received a call from a customer at about 4:30 in the afternoon on the 2nd. The customer wanted some crates delivered immediately, and Swann had to find truck drivers who were willing to work on the Labor Day weekend. He was at his home when he received the customer's call and did not have the drivers' telephone numbers there, so he went to the plant to get the telephone numbers. As he drove up to the company office area at about 6:30 that evening, he saw a white Delta 88 Oldsmobile automobile stuck in the drainage ditch beside the private street. The rear wheels of the car were spinning, and the tires were smoking. Swann parked his car, walked over to the white Oldsmobile, and told the driver he was tearing up his car. He asked the driver to leave and come back the next day to get his car because he did not want the driver on the premises after dark. Swann later identified appellant as the driver of the white Oldsmobile.

Swann went into the building with the offices and there saw Leon Brown on duty. He told Brown about the white Oldsmobile and stated that he had asked the driver to leave and come back the next day to get his car. Swann went into his office and, over about a fifteen-minute period, got the telephone numbers. He left the office area and went into the lunchroom area and again saw Brown. He asked Brown if the driver had left, and Brown motioned toward a pay telephone located on the wall. Swann looked there and saw the appellant. He went over to him and said, "I thought I asked you to walk on out." The appellant replied, "Yes sir, I am in just a moment. I need to make one or two telephone calls to try to find some friends but they're all at work." Brown told Swann, "Don't worry about anything. Everything's all right." Swann made a note of the license plate number on the white Oldsmobile and left at 6:50 p.m.

The next morning, Sunday, the 3rd, at 7:15, George Wood, another part-time watchman, came to Little Rock Crate and Basket Company to check on Brown, as he usually did. He stood outside and called out for Leon Brown. There was no response and he waited ten (10) or fifteen (15) minutes for Brown to complete one of his rounds, but Brown did not appear. By then, Lawrence Sloan had come to work the day watch, and after about fifteen (15) minutes more, the two of them decided to go in the building. The gate was locked, but they went around to one of the doors that had been left open to cool the building the evening before. Just inside the building, in the lunchroom area, where Swann had last seen the appellant and Brown, they saw Brown's body. Lawrence Sloan's initial response graphically described the scene: "Ooh, somebody done beat Leon's brains out." Leon Brown's motionless body was lying face-down in a large pool of blood. He had been bludgeoned to death with a piece of 2"' X 4"' board that was found near his body. Three (3) of the blows to his head were made with such force that his skull was crushed, part of it was dislodged and rammed into his brain, and his brain was crushed. The medical examiner estimated that the blows to the head were so forceful that 300 to 400 pounds of pressure per square inch had been inflicted on his skull. An image of the extent of the damage to the victim's skull is created by the fact that upon arriving at the scene experienced detectives thought the victim had been shot in the head. His false teeth were found six feet away from his head, and his glasses were found past his feet.

The vending machines in the lunchroom area had been turned over and broken into. The windows into the office area had been forced open and the offices had been entered. Papers had been strewn about, desk drawers had been opened, and the pay telephone had been torn off the wall. Among the missing items were a typewriter, a Sharp brand calculator, two (2) cameras, tools, three (3) pistols, a fountain pen, a briefcase, a television set, three (3) Motorola brand handheld radios, and a battery charger.

The police were called; they quickly responded and immediately began their investigation. Among their procedures, officer Todd Vint was assigned to watch the white Delta 88 Oldsmobile automobile that was still stuck in the ditch. At about 11 o'clock that morning, the 3rd, a blue and white pickup stopped beside the white Oldsmobile, and three (3) people got out and began to try to get the Oldsmobile out of the ditch. The three (3) were Terrie Dickerson; her father, Elmer Richardson; and the appellant. Dudley Swann saw them and told officer Vint that appellant was the man he had seen the evening before, first trying to get the car out of the ditch and then later inside the building.

Police work developed many additional facts which were subsequently proven at trial. Steve Rowell told the police he was the manager of Lucky's Seafood in Little Rock and that appellant worked there and was supposed to report for work at either 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. on the 2nd but did not do so. At a few minutes after 7:00 p.m. on the 2nd, the Appellant had called Rowell and told him that he could not come to work because he was in jail. In fact, he was not in jail, and at that time, the police were not looking for him.

Robert Sanders told the police that he saw a low-slung black car parked in front of Little Rock Crate and Basket Company a little after 9:00 on the night of the 2nd.

Terrie Dickerson told the police that, at about 11:00 on the morning of the 2nd, before the murder, the appellant came to her house and told her that his car was out of gasoline. He asked to borrow her car. She stated that he owned a low-slung black Oldsmobile Cutlass automobile. She loaned him her white Oldsmobile Delta 88. He left in her car, came back about 2:30 that afternoon, and left again in her car at about 2:45. She did not see him again until about 9:00 that night, the 2nd, when he returned on foot and told her that the police had been chasing him and that he had gotten her car stuck in a ditch. In fact, the police were not chasing him. He left her house afoot, but later came back in his low-slung black car, and brought into her house three (3) Motorola brand handheld radios and a Sharp brand calculator. Later, she went with him when he drove his black car to Priscilla Marshall's house. At that time she saw some guns and tools in his car. He took the guns and tools into Priscilla's house. The next morning, September 3, Terrie and the appellant...