Reddix v. State

• Decision Date: 13 February 1980
• Docket Number: No. 50999,50999
• Citation: 381 So.2d 999
• Parties: Willie N. REDDIX v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 999

381 So.2d 999

Willie N. REDDIX v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 50999.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Feb. 13, 1980.

Hawkins & Henry, Joe Ben Hawkins, W. Eugene Henry, Biloxi, J. W. Miller, Rolling Fork, for appellant.

A. F. Summer, Atty. Gen. by Marvin L. White, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

Before the Court En Banc.

COFER, Justice, for the Court.

Appellant Willie N. Reddix, Larry Jones (Jones), and John Durango Reddix, Reddix' brother (J. D.) were indicted at the February 1975 term of Circuit Court of the Second Judicial District of Harrison County, of the capital murder of Arthur Weinberger, on December 2, 1974, then the owner and operator of "Art's Levis" (Art's) on Howard Avenue in Biloxi. The indictment charged that the crime was that denounced in Mississippi Code Annotated, Section 97-3-19(2)(e), (Supp.1979), which defines capital murder in this case in the following language:

(2) The killing of a human being without the authority of law by any means or in any manner shall be capital murder in the following cases:

(e) When done with or without any design to effect death, by any person engaged in the commission of the crime of rape, burglary, kidnapping, arson or robbery, or in any attempt to commit such felonies.

Appellant was tried on this indictment in 1975, and was convicted and sentenced to suffer the death penalty. He was eighteen years old at the occurrence. Heeding the shadows on the validity of our statutes on capital punishment as cast in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976), this Court rendered its opinion in Jackson v. State, 337 So.2d 1242 (Miss.1976), holding all persons under death sentence prior to the Jackson decision must be retried, and setting out guidelines therefor, including the holding of bifurcated trials, one on guilt of the indictee, and, if found guilty, another on the sentence to be imposed.

Under the Jackson case, the 1975 conviction of Reddix was reversed, by an unpublished opinion on March 2, 1977, and remanded for new trial. 342 So.2d 1306 (Miss.1977).

The cause went to trial again in December 1977 being tried in the two phases, resulting in conviction of capital murder and death sentence, and the case is now again before us.

The proof in the case is largely undisputed, but will be noticed here in appropriate detail.

During the later morning of December 2, 1974, Ovell McGee was engaged in a landscaping tractor-driving operation beside a mall on Magnolia Street, near a parking lot, to the south of Howard Street in Biloxi. He testified that a white Cadillac automobile occupied by three black males was driven into the parking lot. Two of the three occupants emerged from the vehicle, and went north along Magnolia Street to Howard Avenue, almost a block away. The third occupant, the driver, stayed in the car which remained parked there until the two others returned about twenty-five to thirty minutes later, one approaching from one way, carrying a footlocker, and wearing ragged-topped combat boots; the other one had a leather jacket coat on his shoulder when he returned. The bearer of the footlocker put it in the car, the two of them got in the car, and they drove away.

Raumond Real was employed in a jewelry store a few doors from Art's on Howard Avenue, and was returning from lunch, when he observed a black man carrying a footlocker, handling it as if it were heavy; the man turned left (southeast) off Howard on to Reynoir; Real drove around to park his automobile, and came across the man in an alley still with the footlocker.

Preston Sullivan had testified in the first trial, reversed and remanded, as above shown, but had become deceased since. His earlier testimony was read into the record (Mississippi Code Annotated, section 13-1-111 (1972)), wherein he said he had been in Art's before December 2, 1974, and went in it about 11:30 a. m. on that date, and as he was approaching the store, he observed on the street a black man, wearing a watchcap, and having a navy peacoat slung over his shoulder, and wearing army fatigue trousers. He entered the store and saw Arthur Weinberger lying in a doorway to an office; he was lying on his back; and there was blood in a puddle around his head. The witness went to another place of business and caused the police to be called; then, thinking of the man dressed as above coming out of the store, he went back across the street and all he could see "was that little green cap just for a second and then it disappeared."

Dr. Bazzone, a neurological surgeon, testified to the victim's condition when he had been brought to a hospital emergency room, a bruise over his eye, about four cross-shaped wounds on the left side of the back of his head, some bone fracture, and appeared to be alive but unconscious. The hospital record showed the victim was seventy-seven years old. It was the physician's medical opinion that the victim had died from head injuries which caused damage to his brain resulting in his decease. The victim died at 4:36 p. m. that day.

Having obtained a search warrant therefor, Robert Payne, in charge of the criminal investigation division of the Biloxi Police Department, searched the home of Annie Lee Reddix, appellant's mother, where appellant and J. D. also resided, and found a locked footlocker with merchandise in it, and also a pair of combat boots with ragged or fringed tops on them. On these boots were stains that appeared to be blood spots. Mrs. Lerline Blanq, on, and for three or more years preceding, December 2, 1974, was manager of Art's Levis Store, and possessing a very high degree of familiarity with the store's merchandise, returned to the store on that day, after her lunch break, about twelve noon, found the store and merchandise in a state of disarray, and the victim beaten and bleeding. She examined the footlocker and merchandise in it, when it had been taken on the search warrant, and identified them as having been taken from Art's; she testified to money on hand, in process of being prepared for deposit when she left for lunch, and its not being there when she returned.

Lula Bell, aunt of appellant, had testified for the state in the earlier reversed trial, as well as several other times in hearings on this case and its companion case or cases. When called as a witness, she undertook to invoke the protection of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Out of the presence of the jury, the state went over her former testimony and was met with denials or failure of memory as to her earlier proof. She was held by the court to be a hostile witness, whereupon her testimony was largely a confrontation with her answers in the earlier record. She had known appellant all his life; knew J. D.; had seen Larry Jones, the third co-indictee, about three times; she did not know where Art's Levis was located except that it was on Howard Avenue; and she had known the victim for a number of years and had traded with him. She was in the area of the store the morning of December 2, 1974, but did not remember saying it was between nine-thirty and ten a. m., nor that her first stop was Betty Gary's, a store across the street near Art's; nor that she entered that store by the side entrance. She did not remember how long she was in Penney's; but she came out on Howard Avenue; she did not remember having testified that she saw appellant when she came out of Penney's or that he was running east pretty fast on Howard Avenue, on the side where Art's was located, or that he had a dark coat on his shoulder. She did not remember her earlier testimony that there was no doubt in her mind about it being appellant whom she saw.

Appellant's confession signed by him, subject of one of the assignments of error, was admitted into evidence, as follows:

I, Willie Reddix, was at my home on the 2nd of December, 1974, and Larry Jones was at my home. Larry is also known as Catfish. J. D. Reddix was not there at this time. He did not know anything about the plan that Larry and I had in mind. When J. D. came home, we asked him to give us a ride uptown. He took us uptown and parked in the lot behind the place that used to be Bradley's Cleaners. Larry Jones and I got out of the car, but my brother, J. D. Reddix, did not get out of the car. This was about 10:45 a. m. Larry and I walked uptown for about five or ten minutes. Then I, Willie Reddix, went into Art's Levi Store, and I began to question the man about a coat. He showed me a couple of coats, and he had his back turned to the door. About this time, Larry Jones, came in the store. I kept talking to the man to keep him from seeing Larry. For about the next three seconds, Larry hit the man about three times with a Stilson wrench. Then I ran to the door to keep a watchout. I had no idea that the man was dead. Larry drug the man into the office. We gathered all the goodies. Larry took shirts and pants and hats and put them in a footlocker. I was at the door watching all the time. Larry said, "I can't get the cash register open." So I opened it for him. At this time I went in the office to see was Mr. Art dead, but he was still breathing, so I put his coat under his head, and then we left the scene. Larry carried the footlocker out of the store. Larry went to the left, on Croesus Street, and I went east on Howard Avenue. I was carrying a black jacket in my hand which I had took from the store. We met back at the car. J. D. was still in the car. Larry put the footlocker in the backseat of the car and he sat in the back seat. I got in the front seat. I gave the jacket to J. D. and told him, "Here is a jacket." J. D. did not ask us where we had been or where we got the things from. The only thing he said was "What you all got?" and I told him to just drive. We went home and parked the car in front of my house, and Larry took the footlocker into my house. When I opened the cash register, we both took the money out. I got about...