State v. Caruthers

• Decision Date: 27 August 1984
• Citation: 676 S.W.2d 935
• Parties: STATE of Tennessee, Appellee, v. Walter Lee CARUTHERS, Appellant.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 935

676 S.W.2d 935

STATE of Tennessee, Appellee, v. Walter Lee CARUTHERS, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Tennessee,

at Knoxville.

Aug. 27, 1984.

E. Michael Ellis, Ellis & Associates, P.C., James W. Greenlee, Knoxville, for appellant.

John F. Southworth, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., William M. Leech, Jr., Atty. Gen. & Reporter, Nashville, for appellee.

OPINION

COOPER, Chief Justice.

This is a direct appeal of a death penalty case. Defendant, Walter Lee Caruthers, and Reginald Watkins were indicted on a charge of first degree murder in the death of Wilhelmina Stahl, two charges of aggravated kidnapping, two charges of armed robbery and for assault with intent to commit murder in the first degree causing bodily harm. Watkins was convicted of all charges except the charge of murder in the first degree. Caruthers was convicted of all charges. In a separate sentencing hearing on the first degree murder conviction, Caruthers was sentenced to death. ¹ It is the murder conviction and sentence of death that is before this court on appeal. After a careful review of the record, we are of the opinion that no reversible error was committed in the trial, that the verdict and sentence are sustained by the evidence.

The events that were the bases of the several charges set forth in the indictment of Walter Lee Caruthers occurred on October 11, 1980. Wilhelmina Stahl and her brother George were hitch-hiking from New York to Georgia. On the afternoon of October 11th, in Columbus, Ohio, they accepted a ride from the defendant Walter Caruthers, who offered to take them to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he lived. Also riding in Caruthers' car was the co-defendant named in the indictment, Reginald Watkins.

George Stahl testified that when they reached Knoxville that night, Caruthers drove to a vacant lot. Watkins pulled a small silver pistol, told the Stahls that it was a robbery, and took George's wallet and Wilhelmina's purse. Caruthers opened the trunk of the automobile, and at gunpoint Watkins told the Stahls to get in. The automobile was driven to another location where Watkins and Caruthers took Wilhelmina out of the trunk. When Wilhelmina was put back into the trunk ten to fifteen minutes later, she was hysterical and crying.

The car was driven to a gas station, then down a rough, bumpy road. After the car was stopped, Wilhelmina was told by Watkins to get out of the trunk. Caruthers was standing by Watkins. The men said they were going to tie the Stahls up. George was left in the trunk. He heard water splashing and Wilhelmina say, "Please, don't." George was then taken out of the trunk. Watkins hit him in the head and knocked him to the ground. Then, George said, he felt pressure as if someone had thrown a rock on his head. He jumped up, ran into the lake which was nearby, and swam out into the water. When the defendants' car left, George swam back to shore only to be found hiding in brush along the shoreline by Caruthers and Watkins, who had returned to search for him. Caruthers held George by the shoulders and told Watkins, "Cut his throat. He won't say nothing." Watkins repeatedly stabbed George in the throat with a knife. Both men then held him under the water until they thought he was dead. After they left, George made his way to a nearby road, where he was found and taken to the hospital. At the hospital, in addition to the stab wounds, doctors discovered George had been shot behind the left ear.

On a search of the area where George was found, Wilhelmina's body was located lying face down in shallow water near the lake shore. A large rock had been placed on top of her head. A red and white shirt was loosely wrapped around her neck. The autopsy showed that she had died from drowning. She had breathed so deeply that gravel had been drawn into her larynx and lungs. Sperm were found in her vagina.

Later that week police stopped Caruthers' wife in the car described by George Stahl. In the trunk they found a loaded nickel-plated .32 caliber pistol, from which one bullet had been fired. George Stahl's fingerprints were found inside the trunk. Hairs matching Wilhelmina's were found in the trunk and backseat of the car, which had been wiped clean. Caruthers was arrested soon thereafter, made a statement, and led the police to the place where the Stahls' clothing had been thrown out. Rebecca Thompson, one of Caruthers' girlfriends, testified that, when Caruthers and Watkins had come by her parents' home the day after the killing, Watkins was carrying some wet clothes, which he hung out to dry.

In defense Caruthers' wife testified that late in the evening of October 11, 1980, her husband and Watkins had come by her apartment. Watkins' clothes were wet, and he went through a bundle of clothing and a billfold. The defendant testified that the robbery was Watkins' idea, that Watkins raped and killed Wilhelmina and tried to kill George. The defendant said he went along with Watkins because he was afraid Watkins would shoot him. The defendant admitted convictions for armed robbery and interstate transportation of a stolen motor vehicle. Watkins' attorney asked the defendant about a prior incident (June, 1980) in which a young woman and her male companion had been kidnapped and assaulted. The defendant denied committing the crime. Michelle Cunningham, the young woman, who had been raped during the June, 1980, episode, then testified and identified the defendant as her attacker.

The co-defendant Watkins testified. He admitted owning the gun but claimed he was carrying it to protect himself from Caruthers. The robbery, Watkins testified, was originally Caruthers' idea, but he agreed to participate in it. He did not intend for anything else to happen, however. He admitted standing watch while Caruthers raped Wilhelmina, striking George in the head, and stabbing and attempting to drown George with the intent to kill him. Watkins testified that Caruthers insisted that the Stahls had to be killed to cover-up the robberies and rape. He claimed that Caruthers shot George in the head and drowned Wilhelmina. Watkins admitted prior convictions for aggravated robbery, carrying a concealed weapon, and petit theft.

In rebuttal the defendant introduced proof that he did not have a scar or tattoo such as those described by Michelle Cunningham in an earlier description of her assailant.

In his attack on the sufficiency of the convicting evidence, the defendant emphasizes that the only eyewitness to the drowning of Wilhelmina was Watkins, the co-defendant, who also was charged with the offense. Defendant also notes that during the criminal episode Watkins was carrying the gun and issuing orders to the Stahls. These were certainly matters to be argued to the jury. However, the jury accepted Watkins' version of events, not the defendant's version, and the proof is sufficient to convict the defendant under the standard prescribed in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) and T.R.A.P. 13(e).

In the bifurcated sentencing phase of the trial, the jury found the following statutory aggravating circumstances:

A. The defendant was previously convicted of one or more felonies, other than the present charge, which involve the use or threat of violence to the person;

B. The murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel in that it involved torture or depravity of mind;

C. The murder was committed for the purpose of avoiding, interfering with or preventing a lawful arrest or prosecution of the defendants or another;

D. The murder was committed while the defendant was engaged in committing, or was an accomplice in the commission of, or was attempting to commit, or was fleeing after committing or attempting to commit, any first degree murder, rape, robbery, larceny, kidnapping.

The jury also unanimously found that there "are no mitigating circumstances sufficiently substantial to outweigh the statutory aggravating circumstances or circumstances so listed above," and fixed defendant's sentence for the murder of Wilhelmina Stahl as death by electrocution.

The evidence supports all aggravating circumstances found by the jury as well as the determination that mitigating factors did not outweigh the aggravating factors.

Defendant does complain of the introduction of a photograph of Wilhelmina Stahl during the sentencing phase of the trial. It shows a frontal view of the corpse soon after it was removed from the water. There is mud or gravel on the victim's face, but no blood or wounds are visible. The State argues that the photograph was relevant to show that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel in that it involved torture or depravity of mind. Actually the photograph adds little, if anything, to the verbal description of the killing of Wilhelmina Stahl and her fight for life. However, in light of the entire case, the introduction of the picture in evidence was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

The defendant insists that the method used by the Knox County Jury Commission to select the jury pool denied defendant a fair and impartial cross section of the community. The Commission selected prospective jurors solely from the lists of registered voters. The defendant argued that this excluded the class of those who are not registered to vote and introduced evidence, largely held incompetent and irrelevant by the court, to show that those who do not register to vote are less wealthy and less educated than those who do register and that over a quarter of the city population and almost one-third of the county population are not registered to vote.

The method used by the Commission has been impliedly approved by the Tennessee courts, see Post v. State, 580 S.W.2d 801, 804 (Tenn.Crim.App.1979), although it may be that the list should be supplemented with some other source of names. See Jefferson v. State, 559 S.W.2d 649, 653 (Tenn.Crim.App.1977) (list of utility customers used to supplement voter list). In...