Patterson v. Com., Record No. 001798.

• Decision Date: 14 September 2001
• Docket Number: Record No. 001798.
• Citation: 551 S.E.2d 332,262 Va. 301
• Parties: James Earl PATTERSON v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

551 S.E.2d 332

262 Va. 301

James Earl PATTERSON v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia.

Record No. 001798.

Supreme Court of Virginia.

September 14, 2001.

R. Clinton Clary, Jr. (Slayton, Bain & Clary, on brief), Lawrenceville, for appellant.

Robert O. Harris, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Mark L. Earley, Atty. Gen., on brief), for appellee.

Present: All the Justices.

LACY, Justice.

James Earl Patterson received a death sentence upon a plea of guilty to a charge of capital murder in the commission of a rape, Code § 18.2-31(5), in the death of Joyce Sneed Aldridge.¹ Although Patterson has waived his right of appeal, Code § 17.1-313 mandates that we review the imposition of the death sentence. We must consider and determine whether the sentence of death was imposed "under the influence of passion, prejudice or any other arbitrary factor," and whether the sentence is "excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the crime and the defendant." Code § 17.1-313(C)(1) and (C)(2).

BACKGROUND

On October 11, 1987, the Prince George County Police Department received a telephone call at approximately 11:35 p.m. from a person identifying herself as Joyce Aldridge. Ms. Aldridge stated that she had been raped and stabbed. When the police arrived at Ms. Aldridge's home, they found the front door ajar and a screen "knocked out" of the bathroom window at the rear of the house. The officers announced themselves and, when there was no reply, they entered the house. They found Ms. Aldridge's partially clothed body on the floor of the bathroom. Her dress had been ripped from the neck, and cloth ligatures, cut from bedding in the room, remained tied to her right wrist. She had been stabbed multiple times and could not be resuscitated by the emergency medical crew.

The police discovered signs of a struggle in the kitchen of the home with a chair knocked over, a drawer containing knives left open, and Ms. Aldridge's eyeglasses on the floor. The door to Ms. Aldridge's bedroom had been kicked open and footprints were found on the door. Footprints of the same type were found in the blood on the floor of the bedroom. The contents of Ms. Aldridge's purse had been dumped on the floor, dresser drawers were open and ransacked, and the nightstand had been knocked over. There was a large amount of blood on the bed and pillows and "[c]ast-off" blood spatters were on the wall next to the bathroom. The telephone cord had been pulled from the wall and the doorknob to the bathroom door had been pulled off the door. Ms. Aldridge's blood was found on the telephone, the bathroom doorknob, and the latch on the window screen found in the backyard. These conditions indicated that she had attempted to flee her attacker by escaping through the window in the bathroom.

The medical examiner found seventeen stab wounds. Eight of the wounds were to Ms. Aldridge's neck, four to her upper back, one in her chest and several clustered in her abdominal area. The wounds ranged in depth from two to six inches. Two stab wounds to her aorta were fatal. The medical examiner also found a number of defensive wounds.

Seminal fluid was recovered from the victim's rectum and vagina and a semen stain was found on the bed. This evidence was preserved for testing. However, the perpetrator of the crime was not identified until over ten years later, when in 1998, the evidence was resubmitted to the Virginia DNA Laboratory. The subsequent testing yielded a "cold hit" — a match with a DNA profile maintained by the Virginia DNA Data Bank. The tested DNA matched that of James Earl Patterson who was serving a twenty-five year sentence at the Greensville Correctional Center for a rape unrelated to the rape of Ms. Aldridge.

The police obtained a search warrant for a fresh sample of Patterson's blood and additional testing confirmed that the DNA material found at Ms. Aldridge's house and that of the defendant were consistent. The probability of finding someone else with the same DNA profile was less than 1 in 5.5 billion. When confronted with this information by the police, Patterson denied knowing Ms. Aldridge or ever being in her house.

In March 2000, Patterson agreed to discuss the crime with one of the police officers who had been involved in the Aldridge investigation if an agreement could be reached regarding his ability to see his family at the prison. After the family visit was arranged, Patterson confessed to raping and murdering Ms. Aldridge. Patterson said he knew Ms. Aldridge and went to her home on October 11, 1987 to steal money for drugs. He had planned to enter through a basement window but the window was locked. While he was looking for a utility knife he had dropped in the yard, Ms. Aldridge let her dog out in the yard. Patterson went to the door and asked Ms. Aldridge if he could borrow a flashlight on the pretext of needing it to search for lost car keys. When Ms. Aldridge opened the door, he forced his way into the house, kicked the door shut and demanded her pocketbook. He pushed her to the bedroom to get the purse. When the purse contained only coins, Patterson became "even more violent." After tying her hands behind her back with strips cut from the bed linen, he raped her.

Patterson went to the kitchen looking for a knife because he "wasn't going to leave any witnesses behind." He found a knife and stabbed Ms. Aldridge three times in the abdomen.

Patterson went back outside to find the lost utility knife, but reentered the house to make sure "she's gone." He kicked in the bedroom door which was shut and saw a telephone cord leading to the bathroom. He forced the bathroom door open and Ms. Aldridge came out. Patterson "hit[] her with the knife 4 or 5 times." After she "went down the wall," he left by way of the front door.

Prior to the entry of the guilty pleas, Patterson was examined by two psychologists, both of whom determined that Patterson was competent to tender a guilty plea and to make his own decisions in the case. Against the advice of counsel, Patterson entered the guilty plea. The trial court found Patterson guilty of capital murder and ordered a pre-sentence report.

At the sentencing hearing, the Commonwealth asserted that the killing of Ms. Aldridge was vile in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, and aggravated battery. In support of this contention, the Commonwealth relied on the testimony given at the guilt phase, that the victim did not die instantaneously, that the knife attack was carried out in a "savage[,] methodical manner," and that many more stab wounds were inflicted than necessary to accomplish the murder of the victim. Chabrol v. Commonwealth, 245 Va. 327, 335, 427 S.E.2d 374, 378 (1993); Hoke v. Commonwealth, 237 Va. 303, 316, 377 S.E.2d 595, 603,cert. denied, 491 U.S. 910, 109 S.Ct. 3201, 105 L.Ed.2d 709 (1989).

The Commonwealth also asserted that Patterson would be a future danger to society. In support of this position, the Commonwealth presented evidence of felony convictions for rape and grand larceny based on a 1988 incident in which Patterson asked two women for a ride home from a party. When the driver exited the car, Patterson shoved her to the ground, got back in the car, and broke the handle of the passenger door to trap the other woman in the car. Patterson "punched" the passenger in the face, drove the car to another location, and then raped her. According to the Commonwealth, these crimes, committed after the rape and murder of Ms. Aldridge, along with the defendant's extensive juvenile record and fourteen...