State v. Clark

• Decision Date: 27 June 2003
• Docket Number: No. 2002-KA-1463.,2002-KA-1463.
• Citation: 851 So.2d 1055
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Sedwric E. CLARK.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

851 So.2d 1055

STATE of Louisiana v. Sedwric E. CLARK.

No. 2002-KA-1463.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

June 27, 2003.

Rehearing Denied September 5, 2003.

Christopher Eades, David L. Koen, R. Neal Walker, New Orleans, Counsel for Applicant.

Richard P. Ieyoub, Attorney General, William R. Coenen, Jr., District Attorney, Penny Wise-Couciere, Rayville, John M. Lancaster, Counsel for Respondent.

KIMBALL, J.

This is a direct appeal under article V, section 5(D) of the Louisiana Constitution. The defendant, Sedwric E. Clark, was indicted by a grand jury for the first degree murders of Bertha Lee Anderson and Mariah Barnes. Following a trial, a jury found the defendant guilty on both counts and recommended sentences of death as to each count. The trial court sentenced the defendant to death in accordance with that recommendation. In his appeal to this court, the defendant raises fifteen separate assignments of error. After a thorough review, we conclude that none of the assignments or error raised by the defendant merits reversal, and we therefore affirm the defendant's convictions and sentences.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On February 13, 2000, a home health nurse making a routine visit to the residence 68-year-old Bertha Anderson in Oak Grove, Louisiana, discovered Anderson's bloodied body on the floor of her bedroom. Anderson had been beaten, choked, and stabbed. The autopsy revealed that there were large areas of bruising around the face, eyes, and neck. Anderson received a puncture wound on her right cheek. Her ribs and jaw had been broken, and the facial bones around the orbits and her nasal bone were fractured. In addition, the autopsy revealed that Anderson had been stabbed four times in the neck with such force that her spinal cord and both jugular veins had been severed. Neighbors and family soon gathered at the residence and alerted police that Mrs. Anderson's eight-year-old great-granddaughter, Mariah Barnes, who also lived at the residence, was missing.

Defendant, Barnes's father, gathered with others at the scene. The crowd grew hostile towards defendant, in all likelihood due to his volatile relationship with Anderson stemming from her refusal to allow him unsupervised visits with his daughter. Officers placed him in a police cruiser, and defendant agreed to accompany them to the West Carroll Parish Sheriff's Station so that he could assist the authorities in the search for his daughter. Before talking to the defendant, both Chief Criminal Deputy Louis Russell and Deputy Garland Walker gave the defendant Miranda warnings, which defendant knowingly and voluntarily waived. The deputies observed scratches on defendant's face and neck. When asked about their origin, defendant stated that they had been sustained the night before during a rough sexual encounter with a woman named Cocoa, whose birth name officers later clarified was Conita Ward, or possibly from an altercation he had had with his girlfriend. The deputies also noticed scratches on defendant's hands, but defendant refused to allow a search of his body for other scratches. Defendant told the officers that he had spent time with his daughter the day before, purchasing her a bicycle and some new shoes and later watching television with her at Anderson's residence until approximately 10:00 p.m. Defendant denied any knowledge concerning the circumstances of Anderson's death or his daughter's whereabouts, and the police released him. During the interview, defendant signed a consent form to search his house and car in hopes of finding Barnes. The officers' search, however, was unsuccessful. Defendant later signed a consent to search his Peterbilt truck. Russell and Trooper Neal Harwell of the Louisiana State Police, who had been dispatched after Russell requested assistance from the State Police Bureau of Investigation, accompanied defendant to search the truck. Defendant opened the truck, and the officers found no signs of Barnes. Defendant also consented to the seizure of the clothes that he wore the night of Barnes's disappearance, which were located in the washing machine at the residence of his girlfriend's parents in Lake Providence, where defendant and his girlfriend had slept the night before.

Despite the fact that his daughter was missing, the following morning, February 14, 2000, defendant asked his pregnant girlfriend, Malisha Green, to accompany him on a shopping trip to Vicksburg, Mississippi. Defendant drove through Vicksburg, telling Green he wanted instead to go to a shopping mall in Jackson, Mississippi. Upon arrival in Jackson, defendant proceeded directly to the Greyhound bus station and boarded a bus bound for New York City. He told Green that he did not want to return to jail for crimes he did not commit and that he knew police would blame him for Anderson's murder and Barnes's disappearance. Green drove defendant's vehicle back to her parents' house. Accompanied by her mother, Virginia Green, she then notified the West Carroll Parish Sheriff's Office about the circumstances of defendant's suspicious departure.

At the time of his attempted travel to New York, defendant was on parole for previous convictions. The authorities consulted with his parole officer and learned that the unauthorized trip violated the terms and conditions of his release. The officers then obtained a warrant for defendant's arrest based upon his parole violation.

The FBI participated in the apprehension of defendant when it learned that the case involved a possible kidnapping in which the suspect had crossed state lines. The Monroe office of the FBI learned that the bus defendant had boarded would make a scheduled stop in Atlanta at approximately 10:45 p.m. on February 14, 2000. FBI Special Agent Jeffrey Holmes was contacted in his Atlanta home and agreed to meet the bus at its scheduled stop. Holmes approached defendant, placed him under arrest, and brought him to a transit police station located across the street from the terminal. Defendant knowingly and voluntarily waived his Miranda rights and gave a statement about the offense in which he indicated that an unknown male was at Anderson's home when he left the residence at approximately 10:00 p.m. the night before her body was discovered. Defendant could not identify nor did he know the name of this other man. When asked of the apparent scratches on his face, defendant explained they were a result of an argument between him and Green.

The following morning, Holmes interviewed defendant a second time along with FBI agent May Jo Onusko in a cell at the Fulton County, Georgia jail. Defendant again was given his Miranda warnings, but he knowingly and voluntarily agreed to speak with the agents. This time, defendant told the officer that he went to Anderson's residence and found her arguing with the unknown man. When defendant approached her, Anderson grabbed at him, and the unknown man began to choke her. He admitted that Anderson had caused the visible scratches on his face but claimed that he had not killed her. Defendant was unable to provide the agents with an identification of the unknown attacker. He also admitted that he returned to Anderson's house after he left at 10:00 p.m. and that the unidentified male was still at the residence. Defendant stated that he also believed this man strangled Anderson. Defendant claimed that this man had abducted his daughter and described for Holmes where he thought that her body could be found. Holmes interviewed defendant a third time later that afternoon in an office at the jail in an effort to elicit more information concerning the location of Barnes's body.¹ Holmes again advised defendant of his Miranda rights. This time, defendant described the unknown male in Anderson's home as a six-foot tall, 160 pound African-American male in his late 30s with a dark complexion and slender build. Defendant claimed that he returned a telephone call from the unknown assailant, but he could not provide the number to Holmes. According to defendant, the assailant informed him that he had shot his daughter and told defendant where her body could be found. Defendant then claimed that he and the other man had planned the murder of Anderson so that he could rescue Barnes and that Barnes was to be out of the house before the other man actually killed Anderson. Defendant asserted he became involved however because the "other dude" was too weak and "couldn't handle it." Defendant then said that he knew where Barnes's body was located and drew a map in which he indicated the exact location where his daughter's body could be found. At approximately the same time that defendant drew the map, a telephone repairman discovered Barnes's body in some weeds south of Holly Ridge Road in Richland Parish. She had been raped and shot in the head with a .22 caliber pistol.

Defendant waived extradition and was transported from Atlanta back to West Carroll Parish. There, after being given and having waived his Miranda rights, he gave a lengthy recorded confession in which he admitted being the sole assailant, murdering Anderson before abducting Barnes, and attempting to rape and finally killing Barnes.

Based on the confession and corroborating physical evidence, police learned that on February 12, 2000, defendant spent much of the day with his daughter. According to his confession and the testimony of his girlfriend, Malisha Green, defendant and Green went to Oak Grove. Defendant, accompanied by Barnes's cousin Toni Anderson, took Barnes to Wal-Mart and bought Barnes a promised bicycle and some sandals. After returning to Anderson's house, defendant then picked up Green, who had stayed behind at defendant's house. Defendant and Green then proceeded to Monroe so defendant could see a dentist and shop at the mall, where he bought Barnes a necklace. Defendant, Green and a relative of Green, Derrick Cottress, then returned to Oak Grove. Defendant brought Green and Cottress to another...