Ladner v. State

• Decision Date: 17 July 1991
• Docket Number: No. 89-DP-00855,89-DP-00855
• Citation: 584 So.2d 743
• Parties: Jeffrey Joseph LADNER v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 743

584 So.2d 743

Jeffrey Joseph LADNER v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 89-DP-00855.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

July 17, 1991.

Blewett W. Thomas, Gulfport, James W. Craig, Jackson, for appellant.

Mike C. Moore, Atty. Gen., Marvin L. White, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Charlene R. Pierce, Sp. Ass't Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

En Banc.

ROY NOBLE LEE, Chief Justice, for the Court:

Jeffrey Joseph Ladner was indicted as an habitual offender by the Hancock County Grand Jury in February of 1987 for capital murder committed during the commission of robbery and was extradited from Louisiana to Hancock County, Mississippi. Pre-trial motions to exclude the death penalty, to suppress physical evidence, and to suppress testimony were filed and heard in a four (4) day hearing. Trial commenced on October 19, 1987, and the jury returned a guilty verdict on October 23, 1987. After hearing evidence on aggravating and mitigating factors in the sentencing phase of the bifurcated trial, the jury imposed the sentence of death. Ladner has appealed to this Court and presents twenty-seven (27) issues for decision.

FACTS

THE CRIME

Mrs. Jeannette Holden, the victim in this case, was the owner of the Brass Anchor Lounge in Waveland, Mississippi, and lived next door to the Lounge in a trailer. On Monday, November 10, 1986, Holden's daughter, Tessie Barnes, stopped by her mother's home for a visit about 10:00 p.m. She noticed that her mother was wearing a particular ring with a diamond in a dome-shaped mounting along with numerous other rings.

Sometime after Tessie left, Jeffrey Ladner, who had been seen in the Lounge on several occasions, rang the doorbell at Holden's trailer and the door was opened by Mrs. Holden's elderly mother, Dorothy Tassin, who was spending the night there. Ladner shot Mrs. Tassin in the head, killing her and causing her false teeth to break and to be partially ejected from her mouth. She fell in the hall with her walking cane by her side.

Ladner went to the master bedroom where Jeannette Holden was screaming for her life and killed her by shooting her in the head at close range. Ladner then went to the kitchen and dumped bay leaves out of a sack in order to use the sack as a container for Holden's jewelry.

On Tuesday, November 11, 1986, Tessie Barnes went by Holden's trailer to pick her up for an appointment they had made to go to a jewelry show. Barnes found the bodies of her mother and grandmother and found a pile of bay leaves on the kitchen floor. There were no rings on Holden's body and other pieces of her jewelry were missing.

THE INVESTIGATION

Delbert Seay, Chief Criminal Investigator of the Hancock County Sheriff's Office, was in charge of the investigation. His team found no useful fingerprints at the scene or other such evidence which would aid the investigation. His first break came on November 25, 1986, from information provided by Sergeant Larry Antoine of the Louisiana State Police that some of the jewelry from the robbery might be at Alpine Jewelry Store in Metairie, Louisiana. Tessie Barnes and her brother, Dennis Grabert, went to Alpine Jewelry Store in Metairie and identified Holden's dome shaped mounting from which the stone had been removed. Louisiana and Mississippi law enforcement officials met the victim's son and daughter at the jewelry store, interviewed store personnel, and conducted a photo lineup. The officers learned from the jewelry store personnel that the ring had been brought in by Jeff Ladner. The jewelry store records also contained Ladner's The search warrant was executed at Ladner's apartment in River Ridge, Louisiana, by Louisiana and Mississippi officers in the late night hours of November 26 and early morning hours of November 27, 1986. Tessie Barnes and Dennis Grabert waited in a car outside the Ladner residence and Seay took jewelry from the Ladner house for them to determine whether any of it belonged to their mother. Barnes was able to identify some of the jewelry as belonging to her mother and was able to definitely say that some did not belong to her.

address and telephone number. On the basis of this information, the officers obtained a warrant to search Ladner's residence for other stolen jewelry and for the murder weapon, a .32 revolver.

Ladner's wife, Candace, informed officers that her husband kept a gun at the home of her parents, the Schwankharts. The officers went to the Schwankhart home and the Schwankharts turned over a .32 revolver which they said Ladner had left with them. They said that Ladner came for the revolver, ostensibly to go rabbit hunting, on November 9, 1986, and returned it to the Schwankhart house on November 11th or 12th. The revolver was later identified as the weapon that fired the bullet which had killed Dorothy Tassin. (The bullet which killed Holden had fragmented and was not useful for an identification test.)

While they were still at the Schwankhart home, Sylvia Stewart, Candace's sister, also turned over to the police Holden's gold nugget watch which she had purchased from Ladner on Tuesday afternoon following the murder.

The jewelry identified as Holden's was seized and Ladner was arrested by Louisiana authorities in connection with the stolen jewelry and was taken to the Gretna, Louisiana, jail for a few days before being jailed in the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center. Detective Sergeant Don English of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office was informed by Eddie Prevost, an inmate, that Ladner had told Prevost about committing the two murders in Mississippi. Until he talked with Prevost, Sergeant English did not know about the Hancock County crime. Prevost was a third floor "hall man," who had informed in the past and had testified against fellow inmates on two prior occasions, but who was promised nothing and given no reward for testifying in Ladner's case.

There is no showing in the record that police directed Prevost to question Ladner. Ladner's being on the same "pod" with Prevost for a time was apparently fortuitous. Ladner was first placed in a third floor "pod" and, when he requested a change, he was moved to Prevost's "pod." The Louisiana authorities told the Hancock County authorities of Ladner's admissions to Prevost and the Mississippi authorities went to Louisiana and took a statement from Prevost.

PART I

GUILT PHASE

1. A SEARCH WARRANT WAS OBTAINED FOR THE APPELLANT'S RESIDENCE AS A RESULT OF AN UNDULY SUGGESTIVE PHOTO LINEUP, WITH ALL EVIDENCE OBTAINED AS A DIRECT RESULT OF THIS WRONG-DOING BEING POISONOUS FRUIT.

Ladner challenges probable cause for the issuance of the warrant to search his residence, claiming that the warrant was issued, at least in part, on the basis of identification which was made after the witness was shown an impermissibly suggestive photo array. He refers to the occasion when Louisiana officers conducted a photographic lineup with one of the owners of Alpine Jewelry Store, Mrs. Brignac, and with Mrs. Majeau, a clerk.

The photographic lineup was not a necessary part of the determination for probable cause to issue the search warrant of Ladner's residence. The Louisiana authorities had received word from an informant that Ladner had taken jewelry from the Hancock County crime to the jewelry store; they had the victim's son and daughter identify the jewelry at the store and describe their mother's ring; the store's

records showed that the ring had been brought in by Ladner and reflected Ladner's address and telephone number. Those facts were sufficient to warrant the belief of persons of reasonable caution that the officers had reasonable cause to search the premises. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238-39, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 2332, 76 L.Ed.2d 527, 548 (1983); Bevill v. State, 556 So.2d 699, 712 (Miss.1990); Stokes v. State, 548 So.2d 118, 123 (Miss.1989), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 742, 107 L.Ed.2d 759 (1990); Hall v. State, 455 So.2d 1303, 1304 (Miss.1984).

2. THE APPELLANT'S WIFE WAS COERCED BY LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS TO PROVIDE PRIVILEGED INFORMATION ON HER HUSBAND IN DISREGARD FOR HIS SPOUSAL PRIVILEGE.

When the defense sought to suppress the gun and the watch, the lower court conducted a lengthy suppression hearing at which testimony was taken from Officers Donald English, Larry Antoine, Walter Wolf and James Wong, all from Louisiana; and from Delbert Seay, Sheriff Ronnie Peterson, and Glen Strong, all Mississippi law enforcement officers; and from the Schwankharts, Sylvia Stewart, Candace Ladner, and Jeffrey Ladner, the appellant. Candace Ladner, wife of the appellant, told the police that Ladner kept a gun at the home of her parents, the Schwankharts. She telephoned her parents and told them the police wanted to come and get the gun. The police went to the Schwankhart's home where the gun had been set out by the door. Candace Ladner also went to her parent's house and, while there, telephoned her sister, Sylvia Stewart, who lived next door to the Schwankharts to come over and bring the watch she had purchased from Ladner. The police spent a long period at the Schwankhart's home, talking with them, Candace Ladner, and Sylvia Stewart. The Schwankharts and Stewart gave testimony which indicated that the atmosphere in the Schwankhart home was anything but coercive.

The trial judge found that no coercion was used against Candace Ladner and that there was no violation of spousal privilege. This Court cannot say that finding was manifestly wrong. Lockett v. State, 517 So.2d 1317, 1328 (Miss.1987), (citing Frost v. State, 483 So.2d 1345, 1350 (Miss.1986)), cert. denied, 487 U.S. 1210, 108 S.Ct. 2858, 101 L.Ed.2d 895 (1988).

We have been cited to no case in which this Court has extended the spousal privilege to require suppression of physical evidence which has been obtained by law enforcement officers as a result of their conversations with a spouse. We do not find in this case a violation either of the statute concerning spousal competency, ...