Roberts v. State
| Decision Date | 10 April 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. CR 02-22.,CR 02-22. |
| Citation | 102 S.W.3d 482 |
| Parties | Karl Douglas ROBERTS v. STATE of Arkansas. |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Buckley & McLemore, P.A., by: Tim Buckley, Fayetteville, for appellant.
Mike Beebe, Att'y Gen., by: Jeffrey A. Weber, Ass't Att'y Gen., for appellee.
Karl Douglas Roberts was convicted in the Polk County Circuit Court of the capital murder of twelve-year-old Andria Brewer, for which he was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Roberts filed a waiver of his rights to appeal and to pursue postconviction remedies. Following a hearing on the waiver, the trial court determined that Roberts had the capacity to knowingly and intelligently waive his appeal rights. This is an automatic review of the entire record pursuant to our holding in State v. Robbins, 339 Ark. 379, 5 S.W.3d 51 (1999).1 We find no error and affirm both the conviction and sentence.
The record reflects that on May 15, 1999, Andria Brewer was reported missing from her home, near Mena. She was last seen leaving her house in a small red pickup truck. Police initially thought that Andria may have run away from home. After a day or so, however, they decided that was unlikely, and they called in the FBI and the Arkansas State Police to help investigate. They first looked for people known to the family that drove small red pickup trucks. The only two people who fit that description were Roberts and Bobby Stone. Both men agreed to voluntarily go to the police station to be interviewed on May 17, and both submitted to polygraph examinations.
Roberts's polygraph exam was conducted by Corporal Ocie Rateliff of the Arkansas State Police. Rateliff read Roberts his Miranda rights prior to the exam and explained to him how the polygraph test worked. At the conclusion of the exam, Rateliff allowed Roberts to go outside to smoke a cigarette while he analyzed the polygraph. Before speaking with Roberts, Rateliff informed FBI Special Agent Mark Jessie that Roberts was being deceptive on the exam.
Rateliff then called Roberts back into the interview room and told him that the test revealed that he was being deceptive. Roberts immediately dropped his head and said, "I messed up." He then confessed that he took Andria from her home, drove her out on an old logging road, raped her, and then strangled her to death. Rateliff wrote down Roberts's statements as he made them, and then Roberts signed off on the written statement.
Roberts was subsequently convicted of the capital murder of the young girl and sentenced to death, in an order entered on May 23, 2000. Following his conviction and sentence, on June 13, 2000, Roberts filed a waiver of appeal. Thereafter, the trial court held a hearing on the waiver and determined that Roberts had knowingly and intelligently waived his appeal rights. This court granted the State's petition for a writ of certiorari to review the record in this case and appointed attorney Tim Buckley to abstract the record and prepare a brief setting out any points of error. See Roberts v. State, CR 02-22, slip op. (February 7, 2002) (per curiam).
Because Roberts waived his rights to appeal and to postconviction relief, this court must conduct a review of the record in this case to determine whether there is reversible error. In doing so, we must consider and determine: (1) whether Roberts properly waived his rights to appeal; (2) whether any errors raised in the trial court are prejudicial to Roberts in accordance with Ark.Code Ann. § 16-91-113(a) (1987) and Ark. Sup.Ct. R. 4-3(h); (3) whether any plain errors covered by the exceptions provided in Wicks v. State, 270 Ark. 781, 606 S.W.2d 366 (1980), have occurred; and (4) whether other fundamental safeguards were followed. See Smith v. State, 343 Ark. 552, 39 S.W.3d 739 (2001); Robbins, 339 Ark. 379, 5 S.W.3d 51.
Appointed counsel raises four points of error. The first two points concern the trial court's refusal to suppress Roberts's statement and the physical evidence gained as a result thereof. The third point concerns the seating of a juror that the defense attempted to remove for cause. The fourth point challenges the evidence to support the aggravating circumstance that the crime was committed in an especially cruel or depraved manner. Before reviewing these points or any other potential errors, we must first determine whether the trial court erred in ruling that Roberts was competent to waive his appeal rights.
In this state, a defendant sentenced to death will be able to forego a state appeal only if he or she has been judicially determined to have the capacity to understand the choice between life and death and to knowingly and intelligently waive any and all rights to appeal his or her sentence. Smith, 343 Ark. 552, 39 S.W.3d 739. This court will not reverse the trial court's conclusion unless it is clearly erroneous. Id.
In the present case, the trial judge had the benefit of having heard much psychological evidence during the pretrial competency hearing and throughout the course of the trial. The defense presented testimony from Dr. Lee Archer, a neurologist from the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences, and Dr. Mary Wetherby, a neuropsychologist from Texarkana. Both doctors testified that Roberts had experienced an injury to the frontal lobes of his brain when he was hit by a dump truck at age twelve. Both doctors stated that as a result of the brain injury, Roberts suffered from hallucinations and his ability to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was impaired. Both doctors acknowledged that Roberts knew right from wrong, but they opined that he was not able to control his emotions, and that this lack of emotional control was directly responsible for his raping and murdering the victim.
The State presented testimony from Dr. Reginald Rutherford, a clinical neurologist, and Dr. Charles Mallory, a psychologist from the Arkansas State Hospital. Dr. Rutherford opined that Roberts's brain injury did not cause him to do what he did. Rutherford explained that Roberts had no dramatic behavioral problems that would indicate that he would do something of this nature. Rutherford also stated that it was evident that Roberts was involved in a complex series of actions that culminated in the crime, and that his actions demonstrated that he appreciated the criminality of his conduct.
Mallory determined that Roberts had a full-scale I.Q. of seventy-six, which placed him within the borderline-intellectual-functioning range. Despite his lower I.Q., Mallory found that Roberts had graduated high school, could read and write on a high school level, had held the same job for the last six years, and had a wife of ten years and a family. Mallory also stated that Roberts did very well on the Georgia Court Competency Test, which measures if a person understands the criminal-justice system and the procedure of the trial. Mallory stated that Roberts's responses demonstrated that he understood his legal rights and the trial process. Mallory ultimately concluded that, based on his tests and interviews with Roberts and his review of Roberts's medical and psychological records, Roberts knew the difference between right and wrong and that he had the ability to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. Mallory relied on the foregoing facts as well as on Roberts's actions in the crime. Particularly, Mallory stated that Roberts was cognitive of his actions, and that he took steps to avoid apprehension both before and after the crime, by driving the girl to a remote location, raping and killing her, and then covering up her body and throwing away her clothes. Mallory also pointed to Roberts's statement that he decided to kill Andria because he knew that she could identify him as having raped her.
During the posttrial hearing, defense counsel asked Roberts if he was aware of the rights that he was waiving, specifically his right to appeal to this court, his right of postconviction challenge under Ark. R.Crim. P. 37.5, and his postconviction and habeas rights in federal court. Roberts stated that he understood the rights he was waiving and that it was his desire to waive any right to appeal. Roberts stated that he was not under the influence of alcohol or any other substance that would affect his ability to understand or to make a decision.
The trial judge asked Roberts a series of questions about the rights he was waiving and, specifically, if he understood what it meant to waive a right. Roberts stated that the word waiver "means to let something pass." Roberts then reaffirmed that he understood all of his appeal rights. The trial judge asked Roberts to tell him in his own words what he was asking for, and Roberts stated: "I want to die." The trial judge then asked Roberts if he was asking that the death sentence be carried out without any further action by his attorney on direct appeal, and Roberts stated: "Yes."
We conclude that the foregoing evidence demonstrates that the trial court did not clearly err in determining that Roberts knowingly and intelligently waived his rights of appeal. We now turn to the points raised by appointed counsel in his brief.
Appointed counsel first argues that the trial court erred in denying Roberts's motion to suppress his statement to police and any physical evidence gathered afterwards, as fruit of the poisonous tree. During the proceedings below, Roberts's attorneys argued that the statement was involuntary because the police made a false statement of leniency in order to secure Roberts's confession. At the suppression hearing, Officer Rateliff testified that when he confronted Roberts with his deceptive polygraph exam, Roberts "got that teared up look in his eye and dropped his head and...
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