State v. Faulkner
| Decision Date | 28 January 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. W2001-02614-SC-DDT-DD.,W2001-02614-SC-DDT-DD. |
| Citation | 154 S.W.3d 48 |
| Parties | STATE of Tennessee v. Robert FAULKNER. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
JANICE M. HOLDER, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which FRANK F. DROWOTA, III, C.J., and E. RILEY ANDERSON, and WILLIAM M. BARKER, JJ., joined. ADOLPHO A. BIRCH, JR., J. filed a concurring and dissenting opinion.
The defendant, Robert Faulkner, was convicted of the first degree premeditated murder of his wife, Shirley Faulkner. The jury imposed a sentence of death based upon the aggravating circumstance that the defendant was previously convicted of one or more violent felonies. See Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-204(i)(2) (1997). The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. On automatic appeal under Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-206(a)(1) (2003), we designated the following issues for oral argument:1 1) whether the trial court improperly excluded testimony at the guilt phase regarding Faulkner's "diminished capacity"; 2) whether the trial court committed harmful error in its instructions defining "intentionally" and "knowingly"; 3) whether the failure of the verdict form to recite that the jury found the aggravating circumstance "beyond a reasonable doubt" rendered the verdict invalid; and 4) whether the sentence of death is disproportionate or invalid under the mandatory review of Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-206(c)(1) (2003). Having carefully reviewed these issues and the issue of photographic evidence raised by Faulkner, we find no merit to his arguments. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
At the guilt phase of the trial, the State's proof showed that the defendant, Robert Faulkner, and the victim, Shirley Faulkner, married in September 1998 and separated in December 1998. Faulkner moved in with his grandmother while the victim continued to live at her house in Memphis. On January 18, 1999, the victim filed a complaint with the Memphis Police Department alleging that on the previous night Faulkner struck her with his fist, held an ashtray over her head, and threatened to kill her. According to the victim, who suspected that Faulkner had been high on cocaine, Faulkner also called her several times on the morning of January 18, again threatening to kill her. The officer who took the report testified that the victim was nervous and shaking and that her left temple was swollen. On January 19, the victim visited a physician, who treated her for trauma to the left side of her face. The victim reported to the physician that she had been hit in the face on Sunday, which was January 17.
At approximately 11:00 p.m. on January 21, the victim clocked out from her shift as a cashier at a grocery store. Before leaving, she purchased groceries. Although the victim's supervisor testified that the victim appeared normal when she left, a security guard who escorted the victim to her car described her as shaking and crying. The victim told the guard that she was afraid to go home because her husband might be waiting there. The victim refused the guard's offer to escort her home and left by herself. That same night, the victim's son-in-law, Andre King, decided to check on the victim because a tornado watch was in effect for Memphis. When Mr. King arrived shortly after midnight he noticed that the lights were on in the victim's house but that no car was in the driveway. Mr. King waited outside for approximately thirty minutes and then left.
The next day, January 22, the victim's friend, Joe Ann Stewart, learned that the victim had not reported for work at her second job as a housekeeper for an apartment complex. Ms. Stewart called the victim's daughter, Twyla King, and asked her to meet Ms. Stewart at the victim's house. Ms. Stewart also contacted the police. Two officers arrived and used Ms. King's key to enter the house, which showed no signs of forced entry. The officers observed bags of groceries in the doorway of the kitchen. The lights were on in the library and the kitchen, and the television was on in the den. However, the victim's bedroom at the back of the house was dark, and the door was closed. When the officers entered the bedroom, they discovered the victim's body which was badly beaten about the head and lying face up on the floor.
Dr. O'Brien Cleary Smith, the Shelby County Medical Examiner, testified that the trauma to the victim was entirely focused on her head. The victim suffered at least thirteen blows to her head, most of them to her face. She had numerous bruises and tears to the skin and fractures of the facial bones. The injuries produced bruising of the brain, and some of the bone fragments cut into the base of her brain. The victim's facial bones were so fragmented that Dr. Smith could not count the fractures or determine the sequence of the blows. The victim's upper denture plate had been split in half. One piece was found on the floor; the other was still in her mouth. In addition, after inhaling her own blood, the victim's efforts to breathe caused a red frothy foam to obstruct her airway. The victim also swallowed over a pint of blood. Dr. Smith testified that the victim must have been alive, although not necessarily conscious, to have swallowed that amount of blood.
Dr. Smith concluded that the cause of death was blunt trauma to the head. He found no defensive injuries on the victim's body or any evidence that she had tried to escape the beating. Blood stains indicated that her head had moved after the beating began but her arms had not. Based on blood-splatter evidence indicating that the attack occurred while the victim was lying on the floor, Dr. Smith opined that the victim had been stunned or rendered unconscious by an initial blow or blows to the back of the head and may have felt nothing after she was first struck. Because the victim's blood had clotted before the end of the attack, Dr. Smith concluded that the beating had lasted six minutes, the minimum time necessary for clotting.
The crime scene unit of the Memphis Police Department discovered blood in the victim's bedroom, in the foyer next to the bedroom, and in the hallway running the entire length of the house. Blood was smeared on the handles of two grocery bags, in the kitchen doorway, and on the inside and outside knobs of the front door. Officers found a broken handle from a skillet on the bed near the victim's body. The rest of the skillet was never located. The victim's car was also missing and was discovered the day after the murder near the residence of Faulkner's sister. Blood stains were found inside the car.
On Sunday morning, January 24, Faulkner went to the fugitive office of the Shelby County Sheriff's Department and announced that he wanted to turn himself in for killing his wife on Thursday. Faulkner was transferred to Sergeant William Ashton of the Memphis Police Department. According to Sergeant Ashton, Faulkner was "very calm and very rational" during the interview. After informing Faulkner of his Fifth Amendment rights and receiving a written waiver, Sergeant Ashton asked Faulkner if he went by any other names. Faulkner replied, "Yes, Skillet." He then grinned and said, "That's what I hit her with, too." Faulkner stated that the incident occurred around 12:00 to 12:30 a.m. on the night of January 21 and 22. He said that he hit his wife with a frying pan and a metal horseshoe. Faulkner claimed that his wife had called him at lunchtime on January 21 and asked him to meet her at her house that evening. Faulkner described what happened:
My conversation with my wife was reconciling, and she had on her mind divorce. She said she just wanted the divorce, and I asked her why didn't she just call me on the phone and tell me that. I said, you didn't have to make me walk all the way from Shasta Street in the rain just to tell me you wanted a divorce. I sat back down on the bed and explained to her that I had enough problems already over my head and had to bury my brother on Monday. Everything I've tried to do since being out has just collapsed. I've lost my job, I've lost my wife, I was subject to being sent back to the penitentiary because I can't be without a job for 30 days. And you called me back here to discuss a divorce, and I only came to reconcile and ask we set aside our differences and go to my brother's funeral together. And she responded she was going, but she wasn't going with me.
* * *
So as we were finishing our conversation that was turning into an argument, I proceeded to walk from her bedroom to the front door as I was leaving. She walked behind me and asked me not to come back while I was standing in the hallway and everything just exploded. And I pushed her back off me and grabbed the two items that I seen, and I struck her repeatedly across the head.
Faulkner estimated that he struck his wife between seven and eight times. He acknowledged that the victim fell to the floor after the second blow and that he continued to hit her while she was on the floor. After the attack, Faulkner put the murder weapons in a bag and drove away in the victim's car. He threw the murder weapons and his bloody clothes into a flooded viaduct and then parked the car where it was later found. He slept in empty houses instead of returning to his grandmother's house. Faulkner concluded his statement by professing, ...
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