Pitts v. State, CR

• Decision Date: 29 June 1981
• Docket Number: No. CR,CR
• Citation: 273 Ark. 220,617 S.W.2d 849
• Parties: Eugene I. PITTS, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee. 80-40.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 849

617 S.W.2d 849

273 Ark. 220

Eugene I. PITTS, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.

No. CR 80-40.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

June 29, 1981.

William R. Simpson, Jr., Public Defender, and L. Gene Worsham, Little Rock, for appellant.

Steve Clark, Atty. Gen. by Jack W. Dickerson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.

GEORGE ROSE SMITH, Justice.

Pitts was convicted of the capital felony murder of Dr. Bernard Jones, committed in the course of kidnaping, and was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. For reversal he questions two rulings about the admissibility of evidence and, secondarily, the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict.

Before narrating some of the testimony we should explain that the appellant questions the credibility of Dr. Jones's widow, Benita Jones, who identified Gene Pitts as the person who kidnaped her husband, and also relies heavily upon the testimony of Linda Stanley, who said that the Toyota Land Cruiser in which the decedent's body was found the next morning was parked near her house at 6:07 p. m. In our opinion both those matters presented issues of credibility for the jury.

The three principals, Pitts and the Joneses, were all black persons. Mrs. Jones testified that she first knew Pitts for about a year and a half in the law school at Fayetteville. She said there were only from 15 to 20 black students, who went to the same places together and got to know each other. She had a car, and she and Pitts traveled in it together to Little Rock once or twice.

Benita married Bernard Jones, a veterinarian, in 1977. In January, 1978, Pitts, not concealing his identity, began to harass her with phone calls to the Legal Aid, where she worked. He seemed to just want to talk to her, but he also said she would have to belong to him and she would have to get rid of that "Goddamn nigger" she was married to. On Valentine's Day she received a dozen roses from a flower shop, with no identification of the sender. After the murder a search of Pitts's home produced a paid receipt from that shop for a dozen roses to be sent to Benita Terry at the Legal Aid. Also on Valentine's Day Dr. Jones received in the mail a package containing a bullet with "Bernard" scratched on it. A handwriting expert testified that it was highly probable that Pitts wrote the address on the package. Dr. and Mrs. Jones went to the prosecuting attorney's office and soon obtained an injunction prohibiting Pitts and the Joneses from harassing one another. Mrs. Jones saw Pitts in the course of that court proceeding.

The murder occurred on the evening of January 22, 1979. Dr. Jones left his office at about 5:40, dropped off an employee at about 5:50, and evidently went home. Mrs. Jones got home at about 6:00 and parked her car in the driveway next to her husband's Toyota Land Cruiser. These times are so well established by independent testimony that there is no doubt about their substantial accuracy.

The Jones house, in the Lakewood area of North Little Rock, appeared to be dark when Mrs. Jones got home. As she went in the open front door an intruder with a gun stepped from behind the door, stopped her, and made her go up some steps to a hallway, where the light was on. The intruder wore a beanie cap, pulled down, nothing over his eyes, and some sort of mask that concealed his nose and mouth. Dr. Jones was lying face down in the hallway, with his hands and feet tied and something tied around his head. In the hallway Christmas presents, checks, and other articles were scattered about on the floor.

The intruder refused her request to go to the bathroom and ordered her to lie down. She testified: "By this time I knew who he was and I said, 'It's you, isn't it, Gene?' And he said, 'Don't call me no more Goddamn names and just shut up and lie down.' " After she lay down Pitts tied her hands and feet, put a scarf in her mouth, gagged her, and tied something over her eyes. She testified that before she was tied up, Pitts said to her husband, "You lied, didn't you, Doc?" The witness continued: "That was when we were walking down the hall. He said: 'You lied, didn't you, Doc? You told me she had a class.' Then I said, 'No, no, he didn't lie. I had a class but I had to come home and get something.' He said, 'Doc, you're going to have to pay for that. You lied.' "

Mrs. Jones testified that after she was bound and blindfolded she could hear Pitts apparently taking things out of the front door. (Later she found that two small TV sets, three watches, a rifle, a shotgun, two cameras, and money were taken. The items were found in the Land Cruiser the next day.) She testified that before Pitts left with her husband, her husband said he could walk and also identified some keys. After the two men left she heard the Toyota Land Cruiser start up. That was 15 or 20 minutes after she got home, which would be about 6:15 or 6:20 p. m.

After Pitts left with her husband Mrs. Jones tried to leave her house, fearing that Pitts would return. Her departure took some time. She got the blindfold down by rubbing her face on the carpet. She also loosened the gag with her tongue. With her hands tied behind her back she was unable to free her feet with a butcher knife on the kitchen floor. She got outside by pushing a little sliding latch with her nose. She "scooted" across the grass to a gate to the neighbors' yard. The lock on the gate didn't work, and someone had removed the string the gate had been tied with. She pushed the gate open and reached the home of her neighbors, who let her in and untied her hands and feet. The neighbors testified that Mrs. Jones's hands were tied behind her back, her feet were tied, and she was partly gagged when she got to their house.

Mrs. Jones called the police, who recorded the time as 6:53. The police tape of the call shows that she said Gene Pitts had tied up her and her husband and had left with her husband in a Toyota Land Cruiser. Officer Montgomery arrived within a few minutes. There was evidence that the intruder had entered the Jones house through a kitchen window and had ransacked the house. Pitts's fingerprints were not found in the house; Mrs. Jones testified he was wearing gloves. She was positive in her identification of Pitts as the intruder.

Pitts was picked up at about 9:30 p. m. After having been warned of his rights he said that he had been trying to collect rent for his employer. The police asked for some addresses so they could interview the people, but Pitts said there had been so many that he didn't know any specific address. He did not testify at the trial.

The next morning the Land Cruiser was reported to the police as being parked on Arlington Drive, also in the Lakewood area. Dr. Jones's body was in a sitting position on the passenger side. He had been shot once in the side of the head and three times in the back of the head. His body was still tied up.

Dr. Jones's clothing was sent to the FBI laboratory for examination. An expert witness, Mike Malone, testified that he found several Caucasian hairs and a brown Negroid hair on the clothing. The Negroid hair, when examined with a microscope, had 20 different characteristics. Sample specimens of Pitts's hair had exactly the same 20 characteristics. Malone testified that as part of a test to qualify as an FBI examiner he was given 50 hairs from 50 different persons. He was also given another 50 hairs from the same persons, but they were all mixed up. He passed the test by matching all 50 pairs correctly, with no mistakes. He said that in his nine years' experience the only way he had seen hairs match the way they did in this instance was when in fact they came from the same person. He testified that his identification was not absolutely positive, like a fingerprint. The jury, however, could certainly have relied upon it in returning a verdict of guilty.

The time discrepancy argued by the appellant is not really serious when the proof is considered as a whole. Mrs. Jones's testimony puts the departure of Dr. Jones and Pitts in the Land Cruiser at 6:15 to 6:20. Linda Stanley testified that she turned into her driveway on Arlington Drive at 6:07 p. m. by her car clock. As she turned, her headlights shone on a Land Cruiser about a car length away, parked in front of the house next door. She saw two men standing by the vehicle who made an effort to duck away and conceal themselves. She had the impression they were white people, but she did not see their faces and was not certain. She said she may have thought they were white because it is an all-white neighborhood.

Mrs. Stanley had been with a woman friend who was going to meet her to go out to dinner. The friend drove up "right behind me." When Mrs. Stanley got in her house she found she needed milk and had to go to Skaggs to get it, about two minutes away. She and the friend went to Skaggs and got the milk. The cash register receipt fixed the time as 6:35.

Mrs. Stanley had not mentioned the time of her arrival, 6:07, in her written statements, but at the suggestion of the police and at the request of the defense she submitted to hypnosis, a deputy prosecutor being present. Under hypnosis she remembered the time as 6:07; that, she said, was where the 6:07 time came from. There is no testimony about the reliability of a hypnotically stimulated memory.

The jury could readily have disregarded Mrs. Stanley's timing, in view of other testimony. Mark Musgrave, then aged 15, testified he lived across the street from Mrs. Stanley. At about 6:30 he was standing at the window in his house, looking for a friend who was to pick him up between 6:30 and 7:00. He was interested in cars and especially liked Land Cruisers. He saw the Land Cruiser drive up and park at about 6:30. Either one or two men got out and ran past Mrs. Stanley's house toward a field behind it. He was under the impression the man or men were white, but it was dark and raining. He was not sure....