State v. Garrett

• Decision Date: 30 November 2022
• Docket Number: 2019-1381
• Citation: 2022 Ohio 4218
• Parties: The State of Ohio, Appellee, v. Garrett, Appellant.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

2022-Ohio-4218

The State of Ohio, Appellee,
v.
Garrett, Appellant.

No. 2019-1381

Supreme Court of Ohio

November 30, 2022

Submitted June 15, 2022

Appeal from the Court of Common Pleas of Franklin County, No. 18CR-168.

G. Gary Tyack, Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney, and Seth L. Gilbert, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.

Carpenter, Lipps, & Leland, L.L.P., Kort Gatterdam, and Erik P. Henry; and Timothy Young, Ohio Public Defender, and Melissa Jackson and Erika LaHote, Assistant Public Defenders, for appellant.

Fischer, J.

{¶ 1} This is an appeal of right from an aggravated-murder conviction and death sentence. A Franklin County jury found appellant, Kristofer Garrett, guilty of the aggravated murders of his four-year-old daughter, C.D., and her mother, Nicole Duckson, with accompanying death-penalty specifications. The jury recommended a sentence of death for the aggravated murder of C.D., and the trial court sentenced Garrett according to the jury's recommendation. The court also

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sentenced him to life without parole for the aggravated murder of Nicole. We affirm Garrett's convictions and death sentence.

I. TRIAL EVIDENCE

A. Prosecution's evidence

1. Murders of Nicole and CD. in their driveway

{¶ 2} In January 2018, Nicole and CD. lived in Columbus with Clifton Duckson Sr., Nicole's father. Nicole would normally carpool to work with her friend and coworker, Amberly Reid, and drop off CD. at childcare.

{¶ 3} At 6:27 a.m. on January 5, 2018, Nicole sent Reid a text message stating that she would pick Reid up between 7:10 and 7:15 a.m. When Nicole failed to arrive, Reid texted Nicole, but Nicole did not respond. Reid then drove to Clifton's house to make sure everything was alright. Upon arrival, Reid found Nicole's and C.D.'s bodies covered in blood and lying on the driveway next to Nicole's car. Reid then called 9-1-1.

{¶ 4} Police officers arriving at the scene found Nicole's and C.D.'s dead bodies. Blood, clumps of hair, and items from a purse and a child's backpack were found outside the back door of the home. Marks on the snowy driveway suggested that C.D.'s body had been dragged from the front of Nicole's car to its location next to Nicole's body. A trail of blood droplets also led down the driveway and along the street.

2. Garrett's identification as the suspect and his arrest

{¶ 5} Members of the Duckson family identified Garrett as a possible suspect. Garrett did not answer his phone when the police tried to reach him. The police learned that Garrett was at his Chatford Drive apartment in Columbus and that his driver's license had been suspended.

{¶ 6} Around 9:40 p.m. on January 5, as Garrett was driving away from his apartment, Columbus police officers stopped him for driving with a suspended license.

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3. Garrett's first police interview

{¶ 7} On January 5 at 11:35 p.m., Detective James Porter, the lead investigator, and Sergeant David Sicilian interviewed Garrett at Columbus police headquarters. Police observed lacerations on the palm of Garrett's right hand and noted that the fingers on that hand had been stitched and bandaged.

{¶ 8} Garrett waived his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and agreed to speak to investigators. During a videotaped interview, Garrett stated that he had worked from 10:00 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. on January 5. Garrett said that after work, he cut his hand while taking a steak out of a package and stitched the wounds himself.

{¶ 9} Detective Porter informed Garrett that Nicole and CD. had been stabbed to death. Garrett stated he was unaware that that had happened. Garrett said that he and Nicole had lived together for about a year but claimed that he had not talked to her since the past summer. Garrett denied that he had done anything to Nicole or CD.

{¶ 10} As the interview progressed, Garrett discussed his relationship with Nicole. He stated that he was 19 and Nicole was 29 when they had started dating. According to Garrett, Nicole told him she could not get pregnant and did not want him to use condoms. And Nicole agreed to have an abortion if she did get pregnant. Thus, when Nicole gave birth to CD., Garrett felt that he had been tricked.

{¶ 11} Garrett was also upset because Nicole said she would never request child support but then she did. Child-support payments were $600 a month. But Garrett's rent was $485 a month, and he also needed money for food, the gym, and gas for his car. Garrett said Nicole kept taking him to court and doing everything to "bring [him] down." Garrett said his driver's license was suspended because he had failed to pay child support. According to Garrett, a "disgruntled woman" was subjecting him to a "substandard" mode of living.

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{¶ 12} Garrett added that Nicole had kept him from seeing CD. He stated that Nicole tried to manipulate him by telling him that if he wanted to see CD., he would have to have sex with her. Nicole told him that if "you can't see me, you can't see her." According to Garrett, the last time he saw CD. was in May of the previous year. Garrett said it had reached the point where he felt that CD. was not his daughter anymore.

{¶ 13} Toward the end of the interview, Garrett acknowledged that on January 5, he had left work early and drove to Nicole's house. He admitted that he had cut his hand at the crime scene and that it was his blood droplets on the driveway. Garrett stated that he did not know why he went to Nicole's house, that he should have never gone, and that he regretted it.

4. Garrett's second interview

{¶ 14} After he was transported to Grant Hospital for medical treatment, Garrett informed the guard that he wanted to speak with Detective Porter again. On January 7, Detective Porter conducted an audiotaped interview of Garrett at the hospital. After being reminded of his Miranda rights, Garrett said he wanted to make a full confession.

{¶ 15} Garrett stated, "I confess that I did kill Nicole Duckson and I did kill [CD.]." Garrett said that after leaving work around 6:00 a.m., he went home and checked his email. He stated that had received an email regarding his delinquent child-support payments that indicated "they were going to be locking [him] up." Garrett became angry, took multiple shots of liquor, drove to Nicole's neighborhood, parked down the street from her house, and waited for her outside.

{¶ 16} Garrett said that when Nicole came out the door, he "just started stabbing her." Nicole yelled, "[P]lease, I'm sorry!" But Garrett said that "[i]n the back of [his] mind, [he] felt she wasn't sorry" because they had been in this situation too many times. CD. then ran out and started screaming. Detective Porter asked whether Garrett killed CD. because she had seen him stab her mom.

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Garrett responded, "Yes, because of that." Garrett then went back to his car, put the knife in the trunk, and drove home.

{¶ 17} Garrett explained that he felt that he and Nicole "had argued enough" and that he had been unable to persuade her that he was "trying to get [his] feet on the ground." He said that he was trying to save money to start a food-truck business and that once he was able to start that business, he would have been able to pay child support. But, according to Garrett, Nicole "never wanted to hear it." Garrett added that he had been driving with a suspended license and would go to jail if he ever got into an accident. He believed that Nicole was trying to destroy his future.

{¶ 18} Garrett stated that he drove home and hid the knife and the clothes he was wearing in a "cubby hole" by the laundry room at his apartment complex. He then decided to drive to a Dayton hospital to have his hand treated. Garrett returned to Columbus and was driving to work when the police arrested him.

5. Murder weapon, bloody clothing, and bloodstains

{¶ 19} On the evening of January 7, Detective Porter and other officers found Garrett's bloodstained clothing and a bloodstained 12-inch hunting knife in a storage unit at Garrett's apartment complex. A few days later, the police searched Garrett's car and found possible bloodstains on the driver's seat, dashboard, and gear-shift knob.

6. Autopsies of CD. and Nicole

{¶ 20} Dr. John Daniels, a forensic pathologist and Franklin County's deputy coroner, reviewed C.D.'s and Nicole's autopsies, which had been conducted by Dr. Donald Pojman.^[1] Dr. Daniels testified that he agreed with Dr. Pojman's findings as to each victim.

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{¶ 21} CD. suffered 33 sharp-force injuries. C.D.'s wounds included a 9.5-centimeter-long incised wound to the back of her head, a 10-centimeter-long incised wound that fractured her mandible and amputated the tip of her tongue, two stab wounds that penetrated her skull and entered her brain, and an incised wound that punctured her left jugular vein. CD. had defensive wounds on the palms of her hands and on the side of her right hand. C.D.'s cause of death was multiple sharp-force injuries.

{¶ 22} Nicole suffered multiple stab wounds to her head, neck, and torso. She had a 3.7-centimeter-long wound on the right cheek, a 4.5-centimeter-long wound to her chest wall that left 400 milliliters of blood in her left thoracic cavity, three incised wounds on the left side of her head, and a small puncture wound to her right jugular vein. Nicole had several defensive wounds on her hands and wrists. Nicole's cause of death was multiple sharp-force injuries.

B. Defense and rebuttal evidence

1. Dr. Reardon's testimony

{¶ 23} Dr. James P. Reardon, a forensic psychologist, supported Garrett's plea of not guilty by reason of insanity ("NGRI") for the murder of CD. Dr. Reardon testified that when Garrett was 13, he was diagnosed with "reactive attachment disorder of infancy or early childhood." According to Dr. Reardon, this disorder does not allow "normal attachment * * * of a...