State v. Claybrook
| Decision Date | 08 September 1987 |
| Citation | 736 S.W.2d 95 |
| Parties | STATE of Tennessee, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Willie CLAYBROOK, Defendant-Appellant. 736 S.W.2d 95 |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
David M. Livingston, Bolivar, Garry G. Brown, Alamo, for defendant-appellant.
W.J. Michael Cody, Atty. Gen. & Reporter, Ann Lacy Johns, Asst. Atty. Gen., Nashville, for plaintiff-appellee.
In the trial court the defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree and was sentenced to death by electrocution. The death sentence was based on aggravating circumstances found by the jury as set out in T.C.A. Section 39-2-203(i)(2), (5) and (7), that is, that he had been convicted of a previous violent felony, that the instant murder was heinous, atrocious, and cruel and that the murder was committed during commission of a robbery.
At about 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, September 17, 1983 the body of Mr. Lesley Jennings was found by his great grandchild lying on the floor of the kitchen-dining room area of his home on Highway 88 near Maury City in Crockett County. Blood was observed on a sheet used to cover the couch in the living room, on the wall and ceiling and Mr. Jennings' badly beaten head lay in a pool of blood. His pants' pockets had been turned inside out.
A pathologist stated that the cause of Mr. Jennings' death was blunt trauma to his head. There were wounds all about his head from at least 16 identifiable blows and he had suffered at least 12 fractures of the skull. Floor burns on Mr. Jennings' face and extensive crushing of the back of the skull indicated that some blows had been inflicted while he was lying on the floor. Although the pathologist was unable to identify the precise type of instrument used in the beating, the patterns of the wounds suggested that the weapon had "a flat circular face which was probably closed and not open." Obviously, that description could include a claw hammer or a solid piece of pipe.
Although the house was not ransacked, a heater had been pulled loose from the wall in the bathroom and someone had removed the fuses from the fuse box and cut off the electricity. Although Mr. Jennings did not smoke, the butt of a Winston cigarette was found in the toilet bowl. A hammer that was usually kept on the front porch was not there. Law enforcement officers were unable to pick up any latent fingerprints from objects in the house nor did they find any footprints or tracks to indicate that someone fled from the house through the surrounding fields.
The State's evidence showed that on the morning of September 17 the defendant went to the bank in Gates, Tennessee and was told that his account balance was zero. Cecil Houk testified that between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m. he saw the defendant driving a tan or beige truck west on Highway 88 toward Gates. Around 9:00 a.m. he saw the defendant sitting in this truck at a house about one mile from Mr. Jennings' home. Around 10:00 a.m. Houk saw the same truck parked at Jennings' house.
Sometime between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. Henry Lee King drove by Jennings' house and saw a man wearing a light blue work shirt, whom he identified as the defendant, walking toward Jennings who was sitting on the front porch. A light tan colored Ford pickup was parked in the driveway. Both Mr. Jennings and the defendant waived at King. When King drove by an hour later he saw the truck was gone and that the car of Mr. Jennings' grand daughter-in-law was pulling out of the driveway.
Later that day sometime after Noon Mr. Houk and Mr. King, on separate occasions and at different places, saw the defendant driving by in his truck. King noticed that the defendant was now wearing a different, darker colored shirt and that someone was with him. Having learned by this time of Mr. Jennings' death, Mr. Houk and King got the license number of the truck which was traced by police to the defendant who lived in Lauderdale County, Tennessee.
Alerted to be on the lookout for defendant, Deputy Sheriff Jerry Crane apprehended the defendant just as he was driving his brown Ford pickup truck into his driveway in Lauderdale County. The defendant started to run, then turned and came back to meet Deputy Crane. Upon being informed that he was being held for investigation of a homicide, the defendant said that he had done nothing. At that time, the defendant was wearing a dark blue pullover T-shirt. While he was being transported to meet the sheriff of Crockett County, the defendant told the officers that he had been to Jackson that day and stopped in Crockett County. When he spoke with the sheriff, however, he denied being in Crockett County that day.
The officers noticed red specks on the defendant's trousers and the defendant tried to scratch off the specks. The defendant claimed he had won the trousers in a crap game the night before. The officers also noticed red spots or ketchup-like stains on the driver's side of the truck's front seat. Later that evening, on a return visit to defendant's home, law enforcement officials confiscated a dark shirt that appeared to have been recently washed.
Later, the defendant gave a statement to TBI agent, Thomas L. Lewis. In it he said that he had taken his mother to a dialysis clinic in Jackson early on the morning of September 17 and that while his mother was receiving treatment he went to the bank at Gates at about 9:00 a.m. to check his account in order to learn if he had enough money to buy a tape player. He then stopped by Jennings' house to talk. The two had been chatting on the front porch for 30 minutes when a black man wearing an army camouflaged coat came from behind the garage and asked for some water. After Mr. Jennings took the man inside the house, the defendant heard scuffling and upon entering the house saw the man hitting Mr. Jennings with a piece of pipe. Defendant told the man not to do that, whereupon, the man, carrying the pipe, ran out the front door and behind the garage. Defendant stated that he did not report the killing because he was frightened. He left Mr. Jennings' house at 10:00 a.m. and returned to Jackson where he picked up his mother at about Noon.
On the next day, the defendant asked a deputy at the Crockett County jail to buy him some Winston cigarettes. While getting the money out of the defendant's billfold, the deputy found a dollar bill which appeared to have blood on it. The deputy noted that the defendant always smoked Winstons while he was in the jail.
On September 29, 1983 two girls found Mr. Jennings' billfold lying in some bushes off the Lonon Road on Highway 88 two miles west of Alamo. The billfold contained two $2.00 bills, Mr. Jennings' driver's license and his bank book.
A TBI serologist testified that there were spots of blood on the shoes that the defendant had been wearing when he was arrested. Human blood stains were found on the pockets and lower legs of the defendant's trousers, on the front of seat cover of the defendant's truck and on the dollar bill found by the deputy. Other items submitted for testing such as the defendant's shirt showed no trace of blood.
Defendant's evidence showed that early on that Saturday morning he had driven his mother to a clinic in Jackson for dialysis treatment and several hours later at about Noon he had returned to pick her up. His mother testified that on the drive home from the clinic the clot in the skin graft through which she received dialysis treatment "broke loose" and began bleeding in the truck. Blood dripped on the upper leg of defendant's pants, and on his shoes in the truck floor. Mrs. Claybrook contradicted her son's story about how he had recently won the pants. She testified that he had owned them for a long time. Claybrook's father, who had talked with Mr. Jennings about coming to the Claybrook's church testified that he had told his son to stop by Mr. Jennings' home to ask him about going to their church the next Sunday. Roger Turnage testified that he saw Mr. Jennings and "another boy" resembling the defendant sitting on Mr. Jennings' front porch sometime between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. that Saturday morning. Defendant waved at Mr. Turnage.
The State presented evidence that the defendant had pled guilty to second degree murder in Lauderdale County Circuit Court on September 17, 1973. The defendant's elderly father and mother, as well as several of his acquaintances, testified on his behalf. His parents explained that they had adopted him at the age of 3 months. Defendant's witnesses, some of whom admitted that he had been in trouble before, stated that the defendant who was in his 30's was a good son, who helped his parents and was an honest man. They told of his involvement in the church as a part-time preacher, a deacon and clerk.
Although the evidence in the record is circumstantial we are satisfied that it is sufficient to support the verdict under the standards of Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) and of TRAP Rule 13(e).
The defendant argues strenuously that extensive pre-trial publicity concerning details of this murder as well as the defendant's prior conviction of second degree murder and a recent acquittal of another charge of first degree murder required that the voir dire examination of prospective jurors should have been conducted individually and outside the hearing of prospective jurors and jurors who had been tentatively selected. That extensive pre-trial publicity concerning these other crimes had in fact occurred was established by affidavits that are in the record and by newspaper articles from The Crockett Times and The Jackson Sun. While the articles in the Times do not appear to be harmful, most of those from The Jackson Sun do mention that the defendant had previously been convicted of second degree murder and had been charged but acquitted of another murder in the first degree.
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