State v. Bayless

• Citation: 48 Ohio St.2d 73,357 N.E.2d 1035
• Decision Date: 24 November 1976
• Docket Number: No. 75-149,75-149
• Parties: , 2 O.O.3d 249 The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. BAYLESS, Appellant.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Ohio

Page 73

48 Ohio St.2d 73

357 N.E.2d 1035, 2 O.O.3d 249

The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. BAYLESS, Appellant.

No. 75-149.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Nov. 24, 1976.

Syllabus by the Court

1. Ohio's statutory framework for the imposition of capital punishment, as adopted effective January 2, 1974, is constitutional and does not impose cruel and unusual punishment within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

2. In a prosecution for aggravated murder with specifications, a potential juror may be disqualified on voir dire if the trial court is satisfied from the inquiry that the juror will not render an impartial finding according to law as to the defendant's guilt or innocence, both of the charge and of the specifications. (Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 distinguished.)

3. Any decision to vary the order of proceedings at trial in R.C. 2945.10 is within the sound discretion of the trial court, and any claim that the trial court erred in following the statutorily mandated order of proceedings must sustain a heavy burden to demonstrate the unfairness and prejudice of following that order.

4. Evidence of acts by a defendant, which is otherwise admissible under R.C. 2945.59 and which does not constitute part of a disposition or evidence given in court, is not barred by R.C. 2151.358, even though the evidence tends to show the commission of another crime by the defendant when a juvenile.

5. Rulings upon the admissibility of questions posed to witnesses at trial are largely within the discretion of the trial court, and it is not error for the trial court to overrule an objection to a question upon cross-examination which is arguably proper, absent an abuse of discretion, even though the question elicits evidence otherwise inadmissible.

6. In a prosecution for aggravated murder, testimony as to threats made by the defendant against a third person subsequent to the killing, which latter incident did not involve the deceased and formed no part of the murder affair, is not, over objection, admissible in evidence against the defendant. (Paragraph two of the syllabus, State v. Moore, 149 Ohio St. 226, 78 N.E.2d 365, approved and followed.)

7. Error in the admission of evidence in criminal proceedings is harmless if there is no reasonable possibility that the evidence may have contributed to the accused's conviction. In order to hold the error harmless, the court must be able to declare a belief that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. (Crim.R. 33(E)(4); Crim.R. 52(A); Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705.)

8. An order excluding the public from a part of a criminal trial is not prejudicial to the defendant, and any error is considered waived, where the defense supported the order, and it was made primarily to enable the defense to obtain the answer to a question posed to a prosecution witness on cross-examination. (State v. Hensley, 75 Ohio St. 255, 79 N.E. 462 distinguished.)

Early in the morning of February 27, 1974, the Akron police received a telephone call from Samuel J. Howze, Jr., reporting 'two dead people in the park.' Two detectives met Howze on a street corner at about 3:30 a. m., and, after contacting two uniformed police units, the detectives accompanied Howze to Perkins Park in Akron. A search was made of the park, and, in the course of that search, the police discovered the bodies of a man and a woman lying face down near a tree. Each victim had been shot once in the head, and in each case the powder burns and other characteristics of the wound indicated that the muzzle of the gun had been in direct contact with the skin of the deceased. The opinion of the examining coroner was that both had been shot sometime between 4:30 p. m., and 10:30 p. m., the previous day, and that death had been instantaneous for the man, but that the woman lived for a few minutes after the shooting. The victims were identified as Mr. and Mrs. Paul Anthony. They had been abducted at gunpoint from the parking lot of a K-Mart Shopping Center in Akron.

With the information furnished by Howze, police went to the home of Mrs. Ada Bayless, at about 8:15 on the morning of the 27th, armed with an arrest warrant executed on February 1, 1974, charging her grandson, the defendant, Carl Lamont Bayless, with being a delinquent under R.C. 2151.02. Mrs. Bayless told police that her grandson was present. Police searched the house and discovered the defendant hiding in a crawl space in the attic. He pointed a revolver at the officers and threatened to kill them, and said he knew he was wanted for the two murders in Perkins Park. Eventually, his mother persuaded him to throw down the revolver and come out. In the attic, at the spot where Bayless was found, police recovered a voter's registration card with Paul Anthony's name on it, a Master Charge card belonging to Mrs. Anthony's family business, a wristwatch, and a wallet containing $319 in cash and a pay receipt from a restaurant, Church's Chicken, which had been robbed the night before. Later, in searching the defendant, police found a ladies wristwatch in his pocket and a wedding band on a finger of his right hand with the Anthonys' initials engraved inside the ring. The Anthonys' car, a black and white Cadillac, was parked a short distance from the Bayless home.

On March 6, 1974, the defendant was indicted on four counts of aggravated murder with specifications and on three counts of aggravated robbery. The indictment was later amended to charge two counts of aggravated murder, with three specifications on each count, and one count of aggravated robbery. The defendant entered pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity.

The murders and defendant's arrest received extensive publicity in the local news media, and the trial judge ordered restrictions upon statements by officers of the court. Two special venires were summoned, and a jury was selected after a lengthy voir dire. The trial judge, at that time, denied a defense motion for a change of venue.

At trial, two witnesses, Sam Colvin and the aforementioned Samuel Howze, testified that they had spoken to the defendant at his home early in the evening of February 26, and that he had shown them a gun and talked about pulling a 'hustle' and getting some money. Colvin left with the defendant, and the pair separated about four or five blocks from the parking lot from which the Anthonys were abducted shortly afterwards. Howze testified that he left the Bayless home to go to his mother's house, and that later that evening, at about 11:00, he next saw the defendant at his mother's house with the Anthonys' car. The defendant allegedly told Howze that he had taken the car from some people at the K-Mart and put them in the trunk, and that, after transporting them to Perkins Park, he shot them because 'the man tried to play hero.' Howze also testified that the defendant told several people in a bar about the shootings; that he and the defendant picked up Colley Smith, Jr., and Jeannette Mason and drove through Perkins Park where the defendant indicated that the bodies were 'over there'; that Smith and the defendant discussed robbing Church's Chicken; that the defendant left with Smith and returned about 45 minutes later with money taken from the restaurant; and that Howze called the police about two hours later-early in the morning of the 27th.

Jeannette Mason testified that she was at Colley Smith's house, at about 10:30 p. m. on the 26th, when the defendant drove up alone in a white and black Cadillac, and that Smith later told her that he and the defendant talked about going to Church's Chicken to get money; that defendant came back at about 12:30 a. m. with Howze and drove her home; that Howze and Smith were also in the car; that the defendant drove slowly through Perkins Park on the way to her home; that she saw somebody lying in the park near a tree, and that she told the defendant she had seen a man and asked the defendant to stop the car, but he said 'he had already seen it' and it was only 'some trash or some garbage or something.' Colley Smith largely confirmed Miss Mason's testimony, and also stated that, after dropping off Miss Mason and Howze, the defendant indicated to him that he had shot a man and a lady, and that 'he touched the lady and it sounded like she was coming back alive so he cut out.' Smith also described the robbery by the defendant of Church's Chicken at about 2:00 that morning. The manager of Church's Chicken gave similar testimony as to the details of the robbery. Other evidence for the state included testimony concerning the discovery of the bodies and the arrest of the defendant; expert testimony identifying the defendant's fingerprint on the steering wheel of the car and identifying the defendant's gun as the type used to fire the bullets which killed the Anthonys, although the bullets were too mutilated to positively identify the gun as the murder weapon; and testimony by another witness that the defendant told him about the killings on the evening of February 26 and gave him an umbrella belonging to the Anthonys which the defendant had taken from the trunk of the Anthonys' car. A state witness also testified that four days before the murder of the Anthonys, the defendant had abducted her at gunpoint from a shopping center parking lot, robbed her, and left her locked in the trunk of her car.

The defense called the defendant's grandmother, Ada Bayless, who testified that the defendant had been home at about 5:00 or 5:30 p. m. on the 26th, and that she had let him in early the following morning. A defense psychologist testified that, in his opinion, the defendant had the mental ability to know the consequences of his act, and to know it was unlawful, but did not have the emotional capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of law because of a lack of conscience or of any...