Munson v. State, F-85-479

• Citation: 758 P.2d 324,1988 OK CR 124
• Decision Date: 24 June 1988
• Docket Number: No. F-85-479,F-85-479
• Parties: Adolph Honel MUNSON, Appellant, v. The STATE of Oklahoma, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma

Page 324

758 P.2d 324

Adolph Honel MUNSON, Appellant, v. The STATE of Oklahoma, Appellee.

No. F-85-479.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma.

June 24, 1988.

As Corrected June 29, 1988.

Rehearing Denied July 20, 1988.

An appeal from the District Court of Custer County; Gary McGinn, District Judge.

Adolph Honel Munson, appellant, was convicted of First Degree Murder (Count I), Kidnapping (Count II), and Robbery With Firearms (Count III), in the District Court of Custer County, Case No. CRF-84-129, sentenced respectively to death, ten (10) years, and forty (40) years imprisonment, and appeals. Counts I and II AFFIRMED. Count III REVERSED and REMANDED with instructions to DISMISS.

Thomas Purcell, Asst. Appellate Public Defender, Norman, for appellant.

Michael C. Turpen, Atty. Gen., M. Caroline Emerson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Oklahoma City, for appellee.

OPINION

PARKS, Judge:

Appellant, Adolph Honel Munson, was tried by jury in Custer County District Court, Case No. CRF-84-129, and convicted of First Degree Murder (21 O.S. 1981, § 701.7) (Count I), Kidnapping (21 O.S. 1981, § 741) (Count II), and Robbery With Firearms (21 O.S. 1981, § 801) (Count III), before the Honorable Gary McGinn, District Judge. The jury found the murder was committed to avoid a lawful arrest or prosecution, that appellant constituted a continuing threat to society, 21 O.S. 1981, § 701.12(5) & (7), and sentenced appellant to death on Count I, ten (10) years on Count II, and forty (40) years on Count III. Judgment and sentence was imposed in accordance with the jury's verdict. We affirm Counts I and II, and reverse Count III.

At 11:45 p.m. on June 27, 1984, Alma Hall left home to work the midnight to seven shift at Love's Country Store in Clinton, Oklahoma. Her husband, Ralph Hall, testified that when Mrs. Hall left she was wearing earrings, a wristwatch, and wedding rings, which he identified respectively as State Exhibits 9, 10 and 11. Mrs. Hall relieved Audrey Alexander, who worked from 4:00 p.m. to midnight. She said Ms. Hall was wearing a Love's smock and her name tag that night. At 1:40 a.m., Tracey Wilmeth and her cousin, Pam Nelson, stopped at Love's and spoke with Mrs. Hall until 1:50-1:55 a.m. Around 2:02 a.m., Daniel Adams stopped at the Love's store and, seeing no clerk in the store, checked the refrigerator and the restrooms finding them empty. When he noticed some change on the floor, and a coat and purse behind the registers, he called the police. Clinton Police Officer John Stout arrived about 2:10 a.m., and determined that Alma Hall was missing, as well as $330.00 from one of the registers.

On the weekend of June 23-24, 1984, appellant was on work release from the Jess Dunn Correctional Center in Taft, Oklahoma. His status was changed to escape on June 25, 1984, when he failed to return to the institution. On the evening of June 24, 1984, appellant visited his girlfriend, Linda Brown, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That same night, Ms. Brown and appellant had an argument, and appellant left in Brown's 1978 silver-gray Chevrolet Nova, which had a crease on the side and was trimmed with red stripes. Ms. Brown identified State Exhibit No. 22 as depicting her car. Ms. Brown reported the car stolen, and it was later recovered in Los Angeles, California, in August of 1984. On cross-examination, Ms. Brown said appellant had a set of keys to the Nova, that he drove it to his job on the work release program and on weekend passes, that he made some of the car payments, and that she did not drive. The car was registered in the name of Ms. Brown and her daughter.

At trial, seventeen-year-old Tina Zalud testified that on the afternoon of June 27, 1984, while she was working as a desk clerk at the Glancy Motel in Clinton, Oklahoma, she checked in the appellant who filled out a registration card under the name "Joe Johnson." Ms. Zalud assigned appellant to Room 103. She testified that the car appellant drove looked like a Nova with red stripes. Gordon Wells, Jr., who was a guest at the Glancy Motel during June, 1984, and stayed in Room 107, testified that he was approached by appellant in the motel parking lot on the afternoon of June 27, 1984. According to Mr. Wells, appellant was concerned about having enough money and gas to get to Dallas, Texas, and asked Mr. Wells to estimate the gas mileage on appellant's car. Mr. Wells said appellant's car was either a silver Nova or Buick with a red stripe, and a crease on the side. Wells identified State Exhibit No. 22 as depicting the car driven by appellant. David Thornburg, another guest at the Glancy Motel, testified at preliminary hearing that he saw the appellant in a silver Nova with a red stripe backing into the motel parking lot between 2:30-3:00 p.m. on June 27, 1984. He also identified State Exhibit No. 22 as depicting the car driven by appellant. Mr. Thornburg said that later that afternoon he saw appellant take a pistol out of the trunk of his car and then return to his motel room.

Between 2:00-2:30 a.m. on June 28, 1984, Martin Hytle, a guest in Room 104 of the Glancy Motel, was awakened by a loud high pitched scream, which sounded like a woman, and a heavy thump against the wall coming from Room 103. When he heard the door to Room 103 open and close, he looked out the window and saw an unidentified black man standing in front of a car backed into a parking space. When Mr. Hytle left the next morning around 5:30 a.m., the car was gone.

After 8:00 a.m. on June 28, 1984, Betty Miller, a maid at the Glancy Motel, was cleaning Room 103 when she observed what appeared to be bloodstains on the sheets and pillows, which were wadded up in the middle of the bed, on the mattress pad, and on some towels on the floor. She showed the stained linen to the owner-manager, Gerald Klimke. Mr. Klimke then examined Room 103, and he and Mrs. Miller found a gold earring near the door. Both Miller and Klimke identified State's Exhibit No. 8 as the earring they found in Room 103. Mr. Klimke turned the earring over to Lieutenant Tom Siler of the Clinton Police Department. Mr. Klimke identified appellant as the black man he saw on June 27, 1984, who checked into the Glancy Motel driving a gray '78 or '79 Chevy with a red stripe on the side.

While driving his tractor on June 28, 1984, Jackie Latimer, a farmer in Elk City, saw a lady's blue blouse and a Love's Country Store smock with Alma Hall's name tag on it in a ditch beside a dirt road. Both items were stained. Around 10:00 p.m. that night, Lt. Siler searched Room 103, found a spent .22 caliber slug under the television, and saw a skinned area on the wall where the bullet had apparently ricocheted.

On July 4, 1984, Jerrell Russell, Jr., found a woman's body some four and one-half (4 1/2) miles northeast of Interstate 40 between Shamrock and McClean, Texas, lying face down on a blanket in the brush, with a bloodsoaked white bath towel nearby. Lt. Siler went to Shamrock to investigate, and was given an earring taken from the body which matched the earring found in Room 103 at the Glancy Motel in Clinton, Oklahoma, and also a watch and wedding rings, which were identified as State Exhibits 9, 10 and 11. Siler found a label at the scene with the word "Dundee" on it, which was the brand of linen used at the Glancy Motel. He also obtained head hair samples from the decedent. The body was positively identified as Alma Hall through fingerprinting.

In August 1984, the 1978 Chevrolet Nova identified as the one stolen from Linda Brown in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was recovered in Los Angeles, California. On August 16, 1984, Lt. Siler and OSBI Agent David Sauls flew to Los Angeles to speak with appellant, who had been arrested on an Oklahoma warrant for escape. Prior to any questioning, appellant signed a written waiver of his Miranda rights. He told the officers he had an argument with his girlfriend, Linda Brown, on the evening of June 26, 1984, that he drove Ms. Brown's 1978 Nova to his sister's house where he switched tags, that he had a subsequent altercation with a black male at his girlfriend's house, that after everyone was gone he later obtained his clothes and ransacked his girlfriend's house, and that he left heading west for Los Angeles. Appellant could not remember what route he took, as he had been drinking heavily. He said he stopped at a motel somewhere, that he picked up two hitchhikers, one male and one female, before he reached Los Angeles, and that after he arrived in Los Angeles the Nova was stolen.

Lorna Umfleet, Assistant Director of Medical Records for Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City, testified that laboratory reports showed the decedent's blood type was A. Mary Long, an OSBI forensic serologist, examined State Exhibits 14, 14A and 19, respectively the most recent bloodstain sample from the mattress in Room 103, a bloodstain sample from the decedent's smock, and appellant's blood sample. She determined that the bloodstains on Exhibits 14 and 14A could have come from the same source, but that Exhibit 19 definitely came from a different source.

Ann Reed, an OSBI forensic serologist, examined State Exhibit 1, the decedent's smock, and found human blood group A stains on it. She testified that State Exhibit 19, appellant's blood sample, was also blood group A. She identified the most recent stain on State Exhibit 14, taken from the mattress in Room 103 at the Glancy Motel, as blood group A. She admitted that an older stain on the mattress might have been blood type O. She found a hair caught in a vent cover underneath the dash on the passenger side of the 1978 Nova, after it was recovered in California, that was microscopically consistent with a sample head hair taken from the decedent, Alma Hall. Ms. Reed further testified that a hair found in Room 103 of the Glancy Motel was consistent with a sample head hair taken from appellant. She examined State Exhibits 8 and 9, which consisted of two earrings found respectively in Room 103 of the...