State v. Hale

• Decision Date: 03 August 1992
• Citation: State v. Hale, 840 S.W.2d 307 (Tenn. 1992)
• Parties: STATE of Tennessee, Appellee, v. Thomas Daniel Eugene HALE, Appellant.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 307

840 S.W.2d 307

STATE of Tennessee, Appellee, v. Thomas Daniel Eugene HALE, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Aug. 3, 1992.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 8, 1992.

James T. Bowman, Anthony B. Lee, Johnson City, appellant.

Charles W. Burson, Atty. Gen. & Reporter, and C. Anthony Daughtrey, Asst. Atty. Gen., Nashville, for appellee.

OPINION

ANDERSON, Justice.

Thomas Daniel Eugene Hale was convicted of first degree murder for the beating death of two-year-old Jay Michael Maupin, in accordance with the 1988 amendment to Tennessee's first-degree murder statute, which eliminated the requirement that the killing be willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated if the child was under thirteen and the death resulted from child abuse. The sentencing jury found the two statutory aggravating circumstances--that Maupin was under twelve years of age, and that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel in that it involved torture or depravity of mind ¹--outweighed the mitigating circumstances. Hale was sentenced to death by electrocution.

We conclude that the provisions of the 1988 amendment to the first-degree murder statute under which Hale was convicted unconstitutionally deprived the defendant of due process in contravention of the law of the land provisions of Article I, § 8 of the Tennessee Constitution ². We further hold that the sentence of death imposed in this case is unconstitutionally disproportionate to the crime committed. Consequently, the conviction and sentence in this case are reversed and the charges against Hale based upon Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-2-202(a)(2) (Supp.1988) are dismissed.

Because our decision today is in no way based upon a conclusion that the evidence of Hale's guilt of some degree of homicide was constitutionally insufficient, the State may, however, in its discretion, choose to re-indict Hale for premeditated first-degree murder, for second-degree murder, or for some lesser-included offense.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

In the spring of 1988, nineteen-year-old Thomas Hale came to live with Denise Maupin and her two children, Michael and Jordonna, in their Johnson City apartment. Hale was originally distant with young Michael. Eventually, however, Hale and Michael had more interaction with each other. Unfortunately, many instances of such interaction involved the corporal punishment of the child.

Nora Cunningham, a temporary resident at the Maupin apartment, testified at trial that Hale began "whooping" Michael with his open hand if the boy interrupted the defendant. Cunningham further stated that Hale would strike Michael in the face if the boy "might have peed on hisself, or got in the refrigerator, or took a toy outside that he didn't have permission, just any little thing. Or speaking whenever Thomas was talking to someone, or just any small thing that the child did, he got whooped for it." Cunningham also told of one instance in which Michael stated he had to go to the bathroom. Hale lunged toward the child and pushed him in the back, causing Michael to cut his head on the bottom of the stairs. As a result of that cut, Michael was transported to the hospital where he received stitches to close the wound.

Moreover, Cunningham testified she examined Michael on June 6, 1988, and found "enormous bruises" on the boy's back, buttocks, and legs. She also recalled witnessing Hale pushing Michael out of the way and "throw[ing] him across the floor" when Michael tried to intervene while Hale was arguing with Denise Maupin.

Fourteen year-old Bobby Dean Smith testified he stayed in the Maupin apartment for approximately two weeks during the summer of 1988. During that stay, Smith observed Hale slap Michael across the face and put the boy in a corner if the child was unable to state the date or his name, age, and birthday.

Pamela Ruth Stewart, a Maupin neighbor, testified that she saw Hale hit Michael Maupin three times with a belt on one occasion when Michael came out of his bedroom to go to the bathroom. Although the blows were not severe, Michael shook during the whipping. On another occasion, while the Maupins, Hale and Stewart were out shopping, Stewart said she permitted Michael to go to the bathroom, and at that time, noticed three or four small bruises on the boy's stomach "like he had been poked."

At trial, Dwight Berry, a friend of Hale's who lived in the Maupin apartment from November of 1988 until January of 1989, also stated that he had seen the defendant hit Michael Maupin. According to Berry's testimony, Hale had slapped Michael in the face three or four times for not eating. Additionally, Berry once observed Hale "taking Michael and shoving him and Michael hit the floor right next to the wall."

Another friend of Hale's, Tony Banks, as well as Berry, spent the night of January 17, 1989, in the Maupin apartment. Both men left the residence the following morning and returned at approximately 7:00 p.m. on January 18, 1989. Upon their return, Hale informed them that Michael "had urinated on the floor and he used the bathroom in his britches." While Banks and Berry watched television, Hale paced through the apartment and continued to go into and out of Michael's bedroom.

Eventually, Hale took Michael from the child's room and moved him into the bedroom shared by Maupin and Hale. Berry testified that Hale then indicated that Michael had "done it again," at which time Hale returned to the bedroom into which he had taken Michael.

When Maupin returned home from work at approximately 7:40 p.m., Hale summoned her into the bedroom. Less than a minute later, Maupin called Banks to the room. Banks testified he took one look at Michael and immediately directed Berry to call for paramedic assistance. Banks stated that his nurse's training enabled him to recognize that the child's discoloration and droopy eyes were signs of trouble. He also observed blood on Michael's mouth and noted that the boy could speak only in a whisper. Before the arrival of the paramedics, however, both Banks and Berry agreed to the joint request of Maupin and Hale that the authorities be informed that Michael had fallen down the stairs.

Jeffrey Scott Crawford, a paramedic, testified that he responded to a call for assistance at the Maupin apartment. Upon his arrival, he found a two and one-half-year-old child with a rapid but weak pulse rate and numerous bruises on the face, chest, abdomen, thighs, and groin area. Before the child could be transported to the hospital, Michael's weakened condition caused him to have "a large bowel movement of bright red blood." Crawford also noted that all Michael "could do was whimper and basically guard his belly as if it were what were bothering him the most."

At trial, Dr. William McCormick, a forensic pathologist, testified about the autopsy he performed on Michael Maupin to determine the cause of death. Although Dr. McCormick observed numerous fresh bruises and abrasions on the boy's body, as well as evidence of older bruises, he concluded that such injuries would not have been life-threatening. Dr. McCormick opined, however, that Michael had bled to death from a very deep tear in the liver and a tear in the small bowel mesentery.

According to Dr. McCormick, "[a] fairly large amount of force" would be required to cause the injury to the liver. Such force could be supplied either by a blow from a fist to the abdomen or from a severe squeeze.

Evidence of such force was supplied by a confession given by Hale to law enforcement authorities. According to that statement, Hale struck Michael repeatedly for defecating and urinating in his clothes. The blows were directed to the child's face, stomach, back, and "just about anywhere." Hale admitted that he used excessive force on Michael but that he "just lost [his] cool" as he had in the past on approximately four or five occasions. Moreover, although he claimed that the beating that resulted in Michael's death "was a very bad extreme," Hale admitted that he beat Michael in December of 1988 "to where he would have died or something" had not Maupin stopped him by grabbing his arm.

STATUTORY UNDERPINNINGS OF HALE'S CONVICTION

Prior to April 25, 1988, Tennessee's first-degree murder statute provided as follows:

FIRST-DEGREE MURDER.--(a)(1) Every murder perpetrated by means of poison, lying in wait, or by other kind of willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing, or committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, any murder in the first degree, arson, rape, robbery, burglary, larceny, kidnapping, aircraft piracy, or the unlawful throwing, placing or discharging of a destructive device or bomb, is murder in the first degree.

(b) A person convicted of murder in the first degree shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for life.

(c) Murder in the first degree is a Class X felony.

Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-2-202 (1982). On April 25, 1988, the 1988 amendment to Tennessee's first-degree murder statute, known as "The Scotty Trexler Law," went into effect. See 1988 Tenn.Pub.Acts, ch. 802, § 2 ³. It provided that:

It shall also be murder in the first degree to kill a child less than thirteen (13) years of age, if the child's death results from one (1) or more incidents of a protracted pattern or multiple incidents of child abuse committed by the defendant against such child, or if such death results from the cumulative effects of such pattern or incidents.

Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-2-202(a)(2) (Supp.1988).

When the trial judge instructed the Hale jury on the elements of this offense, as set out in the above 1988 amendment, he found that the words "child abuse" were not defined in the statute. He concluded, therefore, that the statute's mention of incidents of "child abuse" referred to the misdemeanor statutory offense of child abuse, which was defined as follows:

Any person who maliciously, purposely, or knowingly, other than by accidental means, treats a child under eighteen (18)...