Minnick v. State

• Decision Date: 02 October 1989
• Docket Number: No. 47S00-8603-CR-314,47S00-8603-CR-314
• Citation: 544 N.E.2d 471
• Parties: William A. MINNICK, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 471

544 N.E.2d 471

William A. MINNICK, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.

No. 47S00-8603-CR-314.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Oct. 2, 1989.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 13, 1989.

Woodrow S. Nasser, Public Defender for Appeal, Terre Haute, for appellant.

Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen. and Joseph N. Stevenson, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.

GIVAN, Justice.

A Clay Circuit Court jury trial in 1982 resulted in the conviction of appellant of Murder, Rape, and Robbery. The jury recommended, and the trial court imposed, a sentence of death. Upon direct appeal, we found appellant's right to counsel had been impinged and thus an inculpatory statement made to police several hours after his arrest and introduced at trial was inadmissible. We reversed and remanded for a new trial. Minnick v. State (1984), Ind., 467 N.E.2d 754, cert. denied, Indiana v. Minnick (1985), 472 U.S. 1032, 105 S.Ct. 3512, 87 L.Ed.2d 642. Upon a retrial in the Lawrence Circuit Court in 1985, appellant was again found guilty of Murder, Rape, and Robbery and sentenced to death.

The facts are: On the afternoon of October 26, 1981, James D. Payne returned from work to his home in Greencastle, Indiana. He discovered his wife's body on the bedroom floor. He immediately called police. The ensuing investigation revealed Martha Payne had been raped, anally sodomized, stabbed in the right rear shoulder, and struck on the head with a table lamp. In addition, ligature marks on her neck indicated she had been strangled, and burn marks on her ankles showed the perpetrator had attempted to electrocute her as well. The cause of death was determined to be the knife wound in her upper back, which penetrated her lung and severed her pulmonary artery.

That night Sergeant Rodney Cline became aware that a "Dukes of Hazzard"-type car had been observed parked in a college fraternity's lot near the victim's home around the time of her death. Cline confirmed the driver's description matched that of appellant, who had spoken to Cline outside the victim's house that afternoon to apologize for a dispute the two had engaged in a week earlier concerning the involuntary towing of appellant's distinctive orange Dodge Charger.

Appellant was subsequently arrested and search warrants were obtained for his car and for specimens of his blood and hair for comparison with samples taken at the crime scene. A strand of hair found adhering to a length of electrical wire in appellant's car was determined to be of common origin with hair samples taken from the victim. Laboratory tests revealed the victim's blood was type B and matched blood specimens found on a broken table lamp and kitchen knife found at the crime scene. Semen specimens recovered from the carpet underneath the victim turned out to be from two separate donors: one a type O secretor, i.e., one who secretes the antigens used in typing blood in other body fluids, and the other a non-secretor of unknown type. The victim's husband and appellant were each determined to have type O blood--the husband a secretor, appellant a non-secretor. Thus appellant was neither positively identified nor definitively ruled out as a donor of the semen found under the victim's body.

Appellant's alibi witnesses testified as to his whereabouts at various times the afternoon of the murder. Due to technical oversights following discovery of the victim's body, however, authorities were unable to pin down her time of death with any precision. Appellant admitted to Sergeant Cline that he had been in the victim's home that afternoon to see about doing some remodeling work for the Paynes. In addition, two witnesses testified at trial that appellant had made inculpatory admissions relating certain details of the murder while incarcerated.

After hearing oral argument in this cause, we remanded to the trial court for the limited purpose of hearing appellant's motion for new trial based upon two issues: 1) a misstatement by an expert witness for the State detected by appellant only after the filing of appellee's brief, and 2) newly-discovered evidence relating to blood group test results from samples taken from appellant and from the crime scene.

After hearing evidence, the trial court found that appellant had not been prejudiced by the misstatement and that the new evidence would not change the outcome upon retrial. The motion for new trial was denied, and appellant appeals.

Appellant contends the trial court erred in finding that the erroneous testimony of Michael Oliver had no effect on the outcome of the trial. The original brief of appellee included in its statement of facts that Sergeant Michael Oliver, a laboratory technician for the Indiana State Police, testified that he found seventeen hairs from the victim's pubic combing which were sufficiently similar to the suspect's pubic hair standard to be of common origin. The State included this testimony in its brief as evidence linking appellant to the crime.

In his reply brief, appellant strenuously maintained that the State had misrepresented the record. After consulting with the trial prosecutor, who could recall no such evidence at trial, counsel for appellee obtained the transcript and verified the statement. The witness was contacted and stated he did not remember so testifying, and that if he did so testify, he misspoke and what he meant to say was that the only pubic hair found on the person of the victim was her own hair. The court reporter was then contacted; she verified from the audio tape of the trial that the transcript was correct. Subsequently, the parties stipulated it was a misstatement.

Appellant argues that this misstatement, which "verified direct contact between the pubic areas of the Decedent and Appellant," undoubtedly influenced the jury and led to his conviction. In support, he maintains that absent the misstatement, the State had only a weak circumstantial case against him, devoid of any direct physical evidence linking him to the crime. He claims that since the experienced counsel for appellee was misled by the misstatement, the jury must have been misled also.

However, the record reveals there was in fact other physical evidence to link appellant to the crime. State's Exhibit 37-A, a strand of hair adhering to a length of electrical wire found in appellant's car, was determined to be of common origin with hair samples taken from the victim. We further note that the misstatement was made as part of a very lengthy response to a single question, in essence listing the results of all of the witness' hair sample tests and to the effect that aside from the test on Exhibit 37-A, none of the tests yielded material results.

A trial court's denial of a motion for a new trial will be reversed only upon abuse of the trial court's discretion. Moredock v. State (1982), Ind., 441 N.E.2d 1372. Such an abuse must be shown by prejudice to the accused. Winker v. State (1977), 174 Ind.App. 258, 367 N.E.2d 26. In this instance, we agree with the trial court's finding that in light of its overwhelmingly contradictory context and the absence of any emphasis upon the misstated "fact," it likely failed to influence the jury and had no effect on the outcome of the trial.

Appellant contends the trial court erred in denying his motion for new trial based on newly-discovered evidence relating to blood type and secretor status. Due to refinements in laboratory testing procedures, it was discovered just before retrial that a Type O secretor semen stain found on the carpet beneath the victim was actually two stains, the second being from a non-secretor donor of unknown type. Subsequent to retrial it was determined that appellant was not a Type O secretor, but was instead a non-secretor. Appellant argues this new evidence is so exculpatory that it warrants a new trial.

To justify a new trial, newly-discovered evidence must, among other things, be likely to produce a different result upon retrial. Smith v. State (1982), Ind., 429 N.E.2d 956. In the case at bar, the jury was told that both appellant and the victim's husband were Type O secretors and that semen found in and beneath the victim was from a Type O secretor donor. Upon retrial, a new jury would be told that appellant was instead a Type O non-secretor and that the semen found beneath the victim came from two donors, one a Type O secretor, the other a non-secretor of unknown type. The trial court on remand decided this new evidence did not warrant a new trial because appellant was not ruled out as a possible donor of semen found on the carpet.

Appellant argues the trial court erred in concluding the non-secretor semen stain could have been deposited at the time of the murder. In support, he maintains that the reason the non-secretor semen was not detected when the carpet sample was first tested is because the non-secretor semen was already dried and not as fresh as the secretor semen and thus could not have been deposited when the victim was murdered.

The record, however, fails to bear out appellant on this point. Both expert witnesses testifying at the hearing on remand stated there was no method by which to compute the age of the semen stains, and neither was able to advance an opinion as to when either sample was deposited. We find no evidence in this record which rules out appellant as a potential donor. The newly-discovered serological evidence would not, therefore, be likely to produce a different result upon retrial.

The denial on remand of appellant's motion for a new trial was not error.

Appellant contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the charging information, which he contends subjected him to "double jeopardy" because it failed to specify whether he was charged with intentional murder or felony murder. Appellant argues that by failing to specify whether he was charged with felony murder with rape and robbery as the underlying felonies, or with intentional murder committed...