Moore v. State

• Decision Date: 23 March 1977
• Docket Number: No. 49561,49561
• Citation: 344 So.2d 731
• Parties: Christopher Alvin MOORE v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 731

344 So.2d 731

Christopher Alvin MOORE v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 49561.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

March 23, 1977.

Rehearing Denied April 27, 1977.

Kennie E. Middleton, Hattiesburg, for appellant.

A. F. Summer, Atty. Gen., by John C. Ellis, Special Asst. Atty. Gen. and Karen A. Gilfoy, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

Before GILLESPIE, C.J., and SMITH and WALKER, JJ.

GILLESPIE, Chief Justice, for the Court.

Charged with capital murder, Christopher Alvin Moore was convicted and sentenced to suffer the death penalty. He was indicted in Jackson County and the trial was moved to Hancock County upon defendant's motion for a change of venue.

Mrs. Irene Hoffman was murdered in her home in Pascagoula, Mississippi. She was employed as a teacher at the Arlington Elementary School which is located across the street from her residence. On the day she was murdered, Mrs. Hoffman had a break in her teaching schedule between the hours of 9:45 and 10:45 A.M. During this break she went home as was her custom. She was murdered sometime between the hours of 10 and 11 A.M., while she was at home during the school recess. Her body was found at approximately 11:10 A.M. by two of her fellow teachers who came to her residence to inquire about her failure to resume her teaching duties at 10:45 A.M. After failing to get a response by knocking on the door, the two teachers entered the home by claimbing through a window. They found Mrs. Hoffman's body lying on the floor with her hands bound behind her and a gag in her mouth. The victim's clothes floor and walls were spattered with blood in more than one room and an overturned stool in another room gave indication that the victim and her attacker had struggled over a considerable area of the house. Mrs. Hoffman was fully dressed and had been stabbed a total of eleven times and there were lacerations on the head and scalp. The only manner in which the attacker could have entered was through a window. The screen was open. Several latent fingerprints were lifted from the screen at this window.

I.

Was defendant entitled to peremptory instruction?

The proof linking defendant with the crime consists of: (1) at some time near the hour of the murder a black male riding a dark ten-speed bicycle was seen stopped at a point near Mrs. Hoffman's house looking over the fence into her yard (defendant is a 22-year-old black male); (2) a latent fingerprint lifted from the frame of the window screen where the intruder entered the Hoffman residence matched identically with defendant's fingerprint; (3) two Negriod hairs were found on Mrs. Hoffman's public area that had the same characteristics as hairs from defendant's body, and the expert testified that although he could not testify that the hairs from the two sources came from the same person, it was a rare case when he could not find different characteristics in hairs from two different people, and (4) defendant lived in the immediate neighborhood of the Hoffman residence.

In our opinion the fingerprint is conclusive evidence that defendant was at the window where the murderer entered the house. The hair evidence is very convincing that defendant's hair was on Mrs. Hoffman's public area. The other evidence is consistent with defendant's guilt. His alibi evidence is weak and could readily be rejected by the jury. Defendant did not testify.

We are satisfied that the jury was justified in finding defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and to the exclusion of every reasonable hypothesis other than that of defendant's guilt. He was not entitled to the peremptory charge, nor was the verdict contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence.

II.

Was the fingerprint evidence admissible?

Appellant argues that his fingerprints were obtained as a result of his illegal detention and should have been excluded from the evidence. He contends that the principles laid down in Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721, 89 S.Ct. 1394, 22 L.Ed.2d 676 (1969), require the suppression of this evidence. After discovery of Mrs. Hoffman's body the police launched an intensive investigation in an effort to determine the identity of the perpetrator of the crime. About twenty-six people were questioned and fingerprinted. The circumstances under which defendant was fingerprinted are as follows. The officers received information during their investigation that a black male had been seen riding a dark ten-speed bicycle in the area of the victim's home on the morning of the murder and that this person stopped and looked over the fence surrounding Mrs. Hoffman's house. Several days after the murder, Detective Brooks, who was investigating the murder, saw defendant riding a blue ten-speed bicycle near his home. The officer stopped and questioned the defendant about the crime and the defendant's whereabouts on the date the crime was committed. Defendant was not detained. He told the officers that he had gone to the State Employment Office on the morning of the murder and that he did not go near the Hoffman house. Defendant lived about 100 yards from Mrs. Hoffman's house. He occupied an apartment or a room with Jessie Mitchell, Jr. Three or four days after the date of the murder, Jessie Mitchell, Jr. was taken by the police officers to the police station and interrogated regarding the murder. The same officer who interrogated Mitchell had previously encountered appellant on his bicycle. After Mitchell was fingerprinted and as he departed from the police station, Detective Brooks requested Mitchell to contact appellant and tell him to come in as the police officers wanted to see him. Later that same day, appellant appeared at the Pascagoula Police Station where he was recognized by Detective Brooks, who took him without asking any questions to the office of the fingerprint officer of the department. Mr. Thompson, the fingerprint officer, did not question appellant and in a routine manner fingerprinted the defendant and then the defendant went on his way. About eleven days later, it was learned that one of defendant's fingerprints matched the latent print found on the window screen where entrance was made to Mrs. Hoffman's residence. The defendant was arrested and charged with the crime.

The totality of the circumstances clearly shows that defendant was not under arrest and voluntarily went to the police department for the purpose of being fingerprinted. This is an entirely different set of facts from those involved in Davis. Davis was a fourteen-year old youth who was first brought into the Meridian Police Department on December 3, 1965, and released after being fingerprinted and routinely questioned. Between that date and December 7, Davis was interrogated by police on several different occasions at various places and at police headquarters. On December 12, Davis was arrested and taken 90 miles away for an overnight stay in jail in Jackson at a time when the police had neither a warrant nor probable cause for his arrest, and during this time he took a lie detector test. He was returned to the Meridian jail, and on December 14, while he was still confined under arrest, he was fingerprinted a second time. The facts in the present case are not similar to those involved in Davis, and the recent case of Oregon v. Mathiason, -- U.S. --, 97 S.Ct. 711, 50 L.Ed.2d 714 (1977), is authority for the proposition that the defendant in the present case was not under arrest after having voluntarily gone to the police station. In Mathiason the Court stated:

In the present case, however, there is no indication that the questioning took place in a context where respondent's freedom to depart was restricted in any way. He came voluntarily to the police station, where he was immediately informed that he was not under arrest. At the close of a one half-hour interview respondent did in fact leave the police...