Lanier v. State

• Decision Date: 02 November 1988
• Docket Number: No. DP-77,DP-77
• Parties: Johnny Rufus LANIER v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 473

533 So.2d 473

Johnny Rufus LANIER v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. DP-77.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Nov. 2, 1988.

Earl P. Jordan, Jr., Meridian, Raymond L. Falls, Jr., Marshall Cox, John G. Hutchinson, Cahill, Gordon & Reindel, New York City, for appellant.

Mike Moore, Atty. Gen. by Marvin L. White, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Felicia C. Adams and Donald G. Barlow, Sp. Asst. Attys. Gen., Jackson, Charles W. Wright, Dist. Atty., Meridian, for appellee.

En Banc.

ZUCCARO, Justice, for the Court:

Johnny Rufus Lanier was convicted of capital murder, and sentenced to death by lethal injection, by the Circuit Court of Covington County. Lanier appeals this verdict and sentence, assigning fourteen errors. After meticulous review of the record, we affirm as to the guilty verdict and reverse and remand for a new sentencing hearing.

FACTS

In the early morning hours of December 28, 1985, the Meridian, Mississippi Police Department received a domestic disturbance call from Catherine Smith. Smith indicated that she had become embroiled in a quarrel with her live-in companion, Johnny Rufus Lanier, and that he shoved or pushed her out of her house.

As a result of Smith's call, the Meridian Police Department dispatched Officer Alma Walters to the scene. Upon arrival, Officer Walters was met by Ms. Smith who indicated that Lanier was in a bedroom in the house. Officer Walters and Ms. Smith went into the house where they found Lanier passed out on a bed. Officer Walters awakened Lanier and told him to step outside to get some fresh air. Once outside, Officer Walters and Lanier became involved in an argument, and a scuffle ensued, in which Lanier was able to get Walters' .357 magnum service revolver away from her. Lanier marched Walters back into the house. Catherine Smith went to a telephone to call the police and advise them that Officer Walters was in trouble. Other neighbors who were witnesses to all or part of the incident also called the police. At this juncture two gunshots were heard inside of the house.

Responding to an officer in distress call, Officer K.D. Merchant was the first to arrive on the scene. As he approached the front door of the Smith house he yelled to see if Officer Walters was inside. Officer Walters screamed that Lanier had her gun and for Merchant not to enter the house. Almost immediately thereafter Merchant heard a gunshot within the house. He then radioed for backup and an ambulance. When other units arrived, Merchant and several officers entered the house. There they found Alma Walters' body lying face-up across a coffee table with her head on the corner of the couch. She had one gunshot wound to the head, and after a brief examination was determined to be dead. Her revolver was no where to be found, nor was Johnny Rufus Lanier.

Lanier had left the Smith house via the rear door. He traveled to his brother's residence in Meridian where Lanier told both his brother and his brother's girlfriend that he had just killed a police officer, that the police were after him, and that he needed someone to take him to his mother's house in Toomsuba, Mississippi. Lanier's brother agreed to transport Lanier to Toomsuba; however, en route they encountered a police roadblock and were taken into custody. A search of the automobile produced Officer Walters' service revolver with three "live" rounds and three empty cases in the cylinder.

An autopsy of Officer Walters, combined with an analysis of her revolver and its cartridges revealed that she had died from one "contact" shot to the head which entered behind the left ear and exited in front of the right ear. A "contact" shot is one in which the barrel of the weapon is placed against the skin.

Lanier was indicted, and after Lanier moved for a change of venue from Lauderdale County, tried and convicted of capital murder by the Circuit Court of Covington County. At the sentencing phase of the trial the jury found as aggravating circumstances that the murder was: 1) committed in order to avoid a lawful arrest; 2) committed to disrupt the exercise of the enforcement of laws; 3) especially heinous, atrocious and cruel; the mitigating circumstances were insufficient to outweigh the aggravating circumstances. Lanier was sentenced to death by lethal injection from which he now appeals. We separate this opinion into three parts, to-wit: (I) Guilt/Innocence Phase; (II) Guilt/Innocence

Phase and Sentencing Phase; and (III) Sentencing Phase.

I. GUILT/INNOCENCE PHASE

A. DID THE RACIAL COMPOSITION OF THE JURY VENIRE IN LANIER'S CASE VIOLATE HIS RIGHTS UNDER THE EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT AND THE IMPARTIAL JURY CLAUSE OF THE SIXTH AMENDMENT?

In the trial below, Lanier made a motion to quash the special venire called on the basis that the population of Covington County was at least forty percent black, and that only eight of the thirty-eight potential jurors remaining after the trial court excused jurors for cause were black. Appellant argues on appeal, as he did at trial, that the composition of the venire (twenty-one percent black) was a violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.

In support of his motion to quash, Lanier called the Circuit Clerk of Covington County, Maxine Williamson, to testify as to the percentage of blacks residing in the County. Williamson testified as follows:

Q. Can you tell me what percentage of blacks are in Covington County?

A. My estimate was forty to sixty--forty-five. I'm not sure. I have no figures on it.

Q. Okay. Would forty-five be a fair estimate?

A. I would think so.

Appellant offered no further proof concerning this matter.

The case of Davis v. Zant, 721 F.2d 1478, 1482 (11th Cir.1983) gives a concise statement of the applicable law pertaining to this assignment of error:

The prima facie tests for an equal protection claim and a fair-cross-section claim are almost identical. In Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U.S. 482, 494, 97 S.Ct. 1272, 1280, 51 L.Ed.2d 498 (1977), the Supreme Court summarized the requirements for proving an equal protection violation:

The first step is to establish that the group is one that is a recognizable, distinct class,.... Next, the degree of under representation must be proved, by comparing the proportion of the group in the total population to the proportion called to serve as grand jurors over a significant period of time.... Finally, ... a selection procedure that is susceptible of abuse or is not racially neutral supports the presumption of discrimination raised by the statistical showing.

In Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 364, 99 S.Ct. 664, 668, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979), the elements of a prima facie violation of the fair-cross-section requirement were set out:

[T]he defendant must show (1) that the group alleged to be excluded is a "distinctive" group in the community; (2) that the representation of this group in venires from which juries are selected is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community; and (3) that this under representation is due to systematic exclusion of the group in the jury-selection process. (emphasis added)

Even the most elementary analysis of Lanier's evidence, when measured against the above tests leads us to the conclusion, and we so hold, that the evidence offered by Lanier was totally insufficient to support his claim. There simply was no proof that Covington County's method of drawing veniremen was discriminatory. As the party claiming systematic discrimination in jury selection practices bears the burden of proof, Page v. State, 369 So.2d 757 (Miss.1979), the assignment of error is without merit.

B. DID THE PROSECUTORS' FAILURE TO PROVIDE DEFENSE COUNSEL WITH DETECTIVE JOHN NELSON'S NOTES IN DISCOVERY AND THEIR USE OF THE NOTES AT APPELLANT'S TRIAL VIOLATE MISS.UNIF.CRIM.R.CIR.CT.PRAC. 4.06(a)(2) AND CONSTITUTE REVERSIBLE ERROR?

Following his arrest, Lanier was taken to the Meridian Police Station where he was interrogated. There he provided a verbal statement to Detective John Nelson concerning the shooting of Officer Walters. Lanier, however, refused to sign a typewritten copy of the statement. Pursuant to a discovery request made by appellant prior to trial, the State provided Lanier with a copy of the typewritten statement. In the lower court, Detective Nelson testified as to the interrogation and as to the oral statement made by Lanier in the early morning hours of December 28, 1985. As a part of his testimony, Nelson utilized his "follow-up notes" made immediately after the interrogation of Lanier. The notes contained Nelson's observations as to the manner in which Lanier conducted himself during the questioning, particularly the way in which appellant bragged that he had beaten Walters with her nightstick when they were scuffling outside of the Smith house. Nelson's notes were never provided to appellant under his discovery request concerning statements that he had made. Lanier complains on appeal that the State's failure to provide the notes in discovery amounts to reversible error.

During the direct examination of Nelson, the State moved the court to have the notes marked for identification; the request was granted. Questioning of Nelson was resumed, wherein defense counsel made the following statement:

BY MR. JORDAN:

Your Honor, while Mr. Wright is questioning the witness could we see the exhibit that's been marked?

BY THE COURT:

Yes, sir.

BY MR. JORDAN:

We never have seen it.

BY MR. WRIGHT:

You've got a copy of it.

BY MR. JORDAN:

I don't have a copy of the notes.

(Mr. Wright shows item to opposing counsel.)

Questioning of the witness began anew. (id.)

As can be seen, counsel for appellant never objected to the State's use of Nelson's notes. "Where the state seeks to offer into evidence that which it ought to have disclosed pursuant to a discovery request but didn't, it is first incumbent upon the defendant to make timely objection." Nixon v....