State v. Eaton

• Decision Date: 11 April 1988
• Docket Number: No. 87-KA-1199,87-KA-1199
• Citation: State v. Eaton, 524 So.2d 1194 (La. 1988)
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Winthrop Earl EATON.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 1194

524 So.2d 1194

STATE of Louisiana v.Winthrop Earl EATON.

No. 87-KA-1199.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

April 11, 1988.

Rehearing Denied May 12, 1988.

William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., James A. Norris, Jr., Dist. Atty., Joseph T. Mickel, Asst. Dist. Atty., for plaintiff-appellee.

Geary S. Aycock, Malcolm Decelle, Jr., Monroe, for appellant.

COLE, Justice.

The grand jury of Ouachita Parish returned a true bill indicting defendantWinthrop Earl Eaton for first degree murder, in violation of La.R.S. 14:30.The district attorney and the defense attorney stipulated that, in the interest of justice, the court should grant a change of venue and trial took place in Rapides Parish.Following the guilt phase of the bifurcated trial, the jury unanimously found defendant guilty as charged.Trial continued, pursuant to La.C.Cr.P. art. 905.1, et seq., and the jury unanimously recommended imposition of the death penalty.The jury based its recommendation upon the finding of the following aggravating circumstances: "(A) the offender was engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of aggravated rape; (B) The offender was engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of armed robbery or simple robbery; (C) The offense was committed in an especially heinous, atrocious or cruel manner."Thereafter, in conformity with the jury recommendation, the judge sentenced defendant to death.On appeal to this Courtdefendant presents thirteen assignments of error for the reversal of his conviction and sentence.¹Because we find no reversible errors were committed either in the guilt or penalty determinations, we affirm the conviction and sentence of death.

FACTS

Almost immediately after his arrest defendant admitted killing Reverend Lea Joyner in order to steal her car for a trip to Florida.He never thereafter denied his commission of the crime, but defended against the charge on the basis of a dual plea of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity.

The murder occurred around midnight on March 11, 1985, in the parking lot of the Southside United Methodist Church of Monroe, Louisiana, where Rev. Joyner had been the minister for over twenty years.After killing Rev. Joyner and taking her car, defendant disposed of her body in a cotton field.He then went to Arkansas where he stayed with relatives.These relatives informed defendant's parents of his presence and the fact that he had arrived in a small, new, white car.The parents were aware of Rev. Joyner's disappearance and that the police were looking for her 1985 white Honda automobile.Consequently, they were suspicious of their son's involvement in the situation and notified the Monroe police he was in Little Rock, Arkansas.Communication with the Little Rock police confirmed the white car had a temporary Louisiana license.The license number was checked and it was ascertained to be the same as that on the car belonging to Rev. Joyner.Monroe police obtained a warrant for defendant's arrest and teletyped it to Little Rock where police effected the arrest.The Little Rock police advised defendant of his Miranda rights at the time of his arrest and again at the station before he gave a statement in which he admitted killing Rev. Joyner.He also drew a map indicating where he had left her body.A few hours later, police from Monroe arrived in Little Rock and interviewed defendant.After again receiving and waiving his Miranda rights, defendant gave another confession.

The following account of the crime comes from defendant's confessions.On several occasions when defendant passed the Southside United Methodist Church at the corner of Temple and South Fourth Streets in Monroe, Louisiana, he observed a small white car in the parking lot.He knew that a white woman who was usually at the church drove the car, but did not know her name or that she was the minister of the church.Defendant and a man named Isaac had discussed going to Florida and defendant planned to kill the woman and steal her car for the trip.On the night of March 11, 1985, defendant arrived at the church around 10:15 p.m. and hid behind a bush which was beside the church and waited for the woman to leave the church and come to her car in the parking lot.He had a heavy pipe, a knife, a blanket and some line from a weed-eater with him.He had been waiting for a short time when a woman, not Rev. Joyner, left the church.He remained behind the bush for another hour or so before Rev. Joyner came out and walked to her car, the small white one defendant wanted to steal.He hit her twice on the back of the head with the pipe as she was standing by the car ready to open the door.When he put her on the blanket he had spread nearby, he could see that she was not dead so he stabbed her three or four times.He tied the blanket with the weed-eater cord and put the body in the back seat of the car.He drove away slowly so that he would not attract attention because he knew the police would have stopped him if he had been driving too fast.He drove around the area until he found Isaac, who climbed into the car and informed defendanthe would not make the trip to Florida with him.At some point Isaac noticed the body in the back seat and became very nervous.Isaac had defendant park on the side of a store and left the car.Defendant got out of the car and talked with Isaac briefly before driving away and leaving his companion behind.Outside of town, defendant turned into a cotton field and drove to the back where he stopped to think for a few minutes.After concluding it was not the time for farming, he decided to dump the body there.He also threw the victim's belongings in the field.Before he left, he tried to get his hand prints off everything, using the gloves he was wearing to wipe things.After leaving the field, he drove to Arkansas and spent the night at his grandmother's house in Warren.In the morning he went to his aunt's house in Little Rock where he was arrested.

In both statements defendant gave he denied raping the victim.He did admit taking a gun she was holding in her hand and also removing a ring she was wearing.

Jo Rugg testified she was a friend and parishioner of Rev. Joyner and had been with her until about 10:45 p.m. on March 11, 1985.The two had been in Rev. Joyner's office and Rev. Joyner had walked to the outside door with her and watched her get into her car.As she drove away from the parking lot, Ms. Rugg checked to see that Rev. Joyner had gone back into the church office building.

Mattie Crow, another good friend and parishioner, phoned Rev. Joyner each morning to awaken her.When Ms. Crow phoned on March 12, 1985, at 4:45 a.m., she received no answer.She called again, but there still was no response.She then phoned a church member and learned that Rev. Joyner's car was not parked at the church.At trial, she identified the gun found in the glove compartment of the victim's car, which had been seized in Little Rock at the time of defendant's arrest, as the gun she had purchased and given to the victim.

Bennie Fuller, the secretary-bookkeeper of the church arrived there a few minutes before 8:00 a.m. on March 12, 1985.A workman asked her to come to the side of the building where some construction was underway to see a spot he had discovered which looked like blood.She phoned Mattie Crow who came to the church.The women notified the police.

In the course of their investigation, the police removed a section of carpet from a walkway between two parts of the church complex which contained a spot thought to be blood.They also collected samples from other spots which appeared to be blood.They found a pair of glasses broken into two pieces which belonged to Rev. Joyner.

Shortly before midnight on March 12, 1985, defendant's parents talked with the police and communicated their suspicions of their son's involvement in the disappearance of Rev. Joyner.As previously set forth, this conversation ultimately led to defendant's arrest in Little Rock and the giving of the statements in which he confessed to killing the victim, but denied raping her.

In his testimony, Dr. George McCormick, the pathologist who performed the autopsy on the victim, detailed the extent of the injuries she received.He said she had traumatic injuries in three general areas: the neck, the chest and the head.She had three stab wounds in her neck; two of them had gone all the way through and one was superficial.The thirteen stab wounds in the chest had cut both lungs, the heart, and the aorta.Eight of the wounds went all the way through the chest and came out the back.There was extensive hemorrhage in the chest; the sternum (breastbone) had been cut into two pieces; there were multiple broken ribs on both sides from the force of the stabbing.The victim had multiple injuries on her head and neck.There was extensive bruising around the left eye which went across the bridge of the nose and to the corner of the right eye.The bone forming the eyesockets was fractured on both sides.There was a large laceration on the left side of her forehead which ran from the left eyebrow to the hairline and was so deep that the skull showed.There was a large laceration above the top of the right ear and a similar one on the left side of the head above and behind the left ear.A large hemorrhage beneath the entire scalp extended from the eyebrows to the back of the head.The victim had a large skull fracture which started at the top of the head, ran to the right and then continued across the floor of the skull to the left ear.The fracture almost completely separated the front of the skull from the back.There was bruising over the entire brain.The victim's pubic bone had been fractured and separated down the mid-line.There was an area of congestion in the vagina which suggested a traumatic injury.There were smudges on both her knees which appeared to be fingerprints.

The large number of...