Minor v. State
| Decision Date | 27 August 2004 |
| Docket Number | CR-00-1300. |
| Citation | 914 So.2d 372 |
| Parties | Willie Dorrell MINOR v. STATE of Alabama. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Cynthia Helene Bockman, Tuscaloosa; and L. Dan Turberville, Mobile, for appellant.
William H. Pryor, Jr., and Troy King, attys. gen., and Anne C. Adams, asst. atty. gen., for appellee.
In July 1995, Willie Dorrell Minor was indicted for capital murder of a child less than 14 years of age, a violation of § 13A-5-40(a)(15), Ala.Code 1975. In June 1996, a jury found Minor guilty of capital murder as charged in the indictment, and in July 1996, that same jury, by a vote of 12-0, recommended that Minor be sentenced to death. The trial court accepted the jury's recommendation and sentenced Minor to death. On appeal, this Court affirmed Minor's conviction and sentence. See Minor v. State, 780 So.2d 707 (Ala.Crim.App.1999). However, the Alabama Supreme Court reversed our judgment, holding that the trial court's failure to instruct the jury that evidence of Minor's prior convictions could be used only for impeachment purposes and not as substantive evidence of Minor's guilt constituted plain error. See Ex parte Minor, 780 So.2d 796 (Ala.2000).
In January 2001, Minor was tried a second time. Once again, a jury found him guilty of capital murder as charged in the indictment. By a vote of 10-2, the jury recommended that Minor be sentenced to death, and the trial court again accepted the jury's recommendation and sentenced Minor to death. From this conviction and sentence, Minor appeals.
The evidence adduced at the second trial indicated the following. A few minutes after 11:00 p.m. on April 15, 1995, Minor and his then girlfriend, Lakeisha Jennings, brought their two-month-old son, Ebious Jennings, to the emergency room at Druid City Hospital ("DCH") in Tuscaloosa. Ebious was not breathing, and he had no pulse when he arrived. Resuscitation efforts began immediately and continued for over an hour. However, medical personnel were unable to maintain a heartbeat for more than a few seconds at a time and Ebious was pronounced dead at 12:34 a.m. on April 16, 1995.
Dr. Steve Lovelady and Dr. Perry Lovely, emergency physicians at DCH, and Dr. Ashley Evans, a pediatrician at DCH, treated Ebious when he was brought to the emergency room. Dr. Lovelady testified that when Ebious was first brought in, he initially thought that Ebious was septic or was the victim of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but that after taking X-rays and performing blood work and other medical procedures, he thought Ebious may have been the victim of abuse. Although there was no visible bruising on Ebious and he did not appear to be bleeding externally, he suffered multiple posterior rib fractures, i.e., on the back near the spine, on both sides of his body, as well as a skull fracture. According to Dr. Lovelady and Dr. Lovely, it would take a tremendous amount of force to fracture the bones of an infant because an infant's bones are malleable and pliable and would "tend to bend rather than break." (R. 886.) In addition, Ebious was bleeding into his abdomen because of injuries to his internal organs, and he had suffered a significant amount of blood loss. Ebious also had severe hemorrhaging in both retinas which, Dr. Lovelady testified, indicated that Ebious had been severely shaken and that he suffered from shaken baby syndrome.
Dr. Evans testified that, in her opinion, Ebious was the victim of shaken impact syndrome, i.e., a variant of shaken baby syndrome that is a combination of severe shaking and blunt force. According to Dr. Evans, Ebious had suffered three distinct traumas. First, Dr. Evans concurred with Dr. Lovelady's assessment that the hemorrhaging in Ebious's retinas and the rib fractures indicated that Ebious had been severely shaken. Second, Dr. Evans testified that the skull fracture was caused by some type of impact trauma to the head as a result of "extreme force." (R. 1295.) Finally, Dr. Evans testified that Ebious's abdominal bleeding was caused by a "forceful blow" to the abdomen. (R. 1293.)
Dr. Lovelady, Dr. Lovely, and Dr. Evans all described Ebious's injuries as severe. Dr. Lovelady testified that Ebious's injuries were the most severe he had ever seen in an infant. Dr. Lovely testified that such multiple bone fractures as were seen in Ebious would normally occur only if a child had been thrown a great distance from a motor vehicle as the result of a high-speed collision. Dr. Evans testified that the hemorrhaging in Ebious's retinas caused by shaking was the most severe she had ever seen. Dr. Lovelady and Dr. Lovely also rejected the idea that Ebious's injuries could have been caused by falling off a sofa or having his head accidentally hit on a doorframe as someone was carrying him through the doorway.
Dr. Kenneth Warner, a medical examiner with the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences in 1995, performed an autopsy on Ebious on April 17, 1995. Dr. Warner testified that Ebious had 24 rib fractures and a skull fracture; that his left lung, his spleen, and his liver had been lacerated; that he had blood in his chest and abdominal cavities as well as his testicles; and that there was "extensive" blood in his brain. (R. 1426.) Dr. Warner testified that the cause of Ebious's death was trauma to the head and chest. Dr. Richard Powers, a neuropathologist and professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham ("UAB"), examined Ebious's brain after his death. According to Dr. Powers, there was substantial bleeding and bruising of the brain, indicating that there had been "serious movement of the brain from side to side and perhaps also in the front to back." (R. 1166.) Dr. Powers described the injuries to Ebious's brain as "severe" and stated that, in his opinion those injuries could not have resulted from falling off a sofa. (R. 1167.)
There was no real dispute at trial that Ebious was the victim of shaken impact syndrome — that he had been severely shaken and beaten. There was also no dispute as to the extent of Ebious's injuries or that Ebious died as a result of those injuries. The only real issue was who had caused Ebious's injuries. The State's theory of the case was that Minor had shaken and beaten Ebious while Minor was alone with Ebious on the night of April 15, 1995. The defense theory was that Lakeisha had shaken and beaten Ebious while she was alone with him at some point during the day on April 15, 1995. Because both Minor and Lakeisha had been alone with Ebious at different points in time on the day of his death, the key question to determining who had inflicted the injuries was when Ebious sustained his injuries.
The State presented testimony indicating that Ebious was a healthy baby boy up until the night of his death. Dr. Elizabeth Cockrum, a pediatrician at Capstone Medical Center, testified that she examined Ebious approximately three to four hours after his birth on February 13, 1995, when he was one day old, and again when he was two days old. According to Dr. Cockrum, Ebious had a "positive Coombs" test, which indicated that he may develop jaundice, but everything else was normal in each examination. (R. 916.) At his two-week checkup on February 27, 1995, and at his two-month checkup on April 13, 1995, only three days before his death, Ebious was found to be healthy and developing normally; he was even described as "thriving." (R. 992.) Dorothy Jennings Richardson, Ebious's maternal great-grandmother and a former licensed practical nurse, testified that she saw Ebious between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. on the evening of April 15, 1995. Richardson said that she held Ebious at that time and that he appeared to be fine. Diana Pitts, Ebious's maternal grandmother, testified that she saw Ebious between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. on the night of April 15, 1995, and that he appeared to be fine at that time as well.
Lakeisha Jennings testified that she was at home in her apartment, which she shared with Minor, all day on April 15, 1995, with Ebious and her other two children; that Minor was gone most of the day; and that Minor returned home at approximately 6:30 p.m. Lakeisha testified that at some point during the day Ebious had fallen off the sofa, but that he did not appear to have been injured from the fall — she said that after the fall, she fed him and saw him smile. At approximately 9:30 p.m. on the night of April 15, 1995, Lakeisha said, she left her apartment and went to her mother's apartment in the same apartment complex. She left Minor alone with Ebious and her other two children. Lakeisha said that Ebious was fine when she left. It is not clear exactly what time Lakeisha returned home, but it appears that she returned sometime between 10:15 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. A few minutes after she returned home, Lakeisha said, she noticed that Ebious's eyes were half open and that he was not breathing. Lakeisha telephoned her mother, who then came over, and they took Ebious to DCH. Lakeisha said that, as she was walking out the front door to go to the hospital, she bumped her elbow on the door frame, but she denied that she bumped Ebious's head on the door frame.
The State presented testimony from several people who saw Minor and Lakeisha at the hospital the night of Ebious's death. Their testimony indicated that despite Ebious's critical condition, Minor was not crying and did not appear upset, while Lakeisha was crying uncontrollably to the point of being unable to speak. The State also presented evidence regarding three statements Minor made to police. In the first two statements, Minor denied any knowledge of the...
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