State v Hall
| Decision Date | 15 November 1999 |
| Docket Number | 97-00023 |
| Citation | 8 S.W.3d 593 |
| Parties | STATE OF TENNESSEE, Appellee v. JON DOUGLAS HALL, AppellantIN THE SUPREME COURT OF TENNESSEE AT JACKSON FILED: |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
MADISON COUNTY
For the Appellant:
Jesse H. Ford, III, Clayton F. Mayo, Jackson, Tennessee (At Trial)
C. Mark Donahoe, Jackson, Tennessee (On Appeal)
For the Appellee:
Paul G. Summers, Attorney General and Reporter
Michael C. Moore, Solicitor General
Alice B. Lustre, Assistant Attorney General, Nashville, Tennessee
James G. Woodall, District Attorney General
Alfred Lynn Earls, Asst. District Attorney General, Jackson, Tennessee
FOR PUBLICATION
AFFIRMED
The defendant, Jon Douglas Hall, was indicted for first degree premeditated murder in the strangulation and drowning death of his wife, Billie Jo Hall. The State filed notice of its intent to seek the death penalty. Pursuant to the defendant's motion for a change of venue, the case was transferred from Henderson County to Madison County for a trial by jury. Following presentation of evidence in the guilt phase, the jury found the defendant guilty of first degree murder as charged. After a sentencing hearing, the jury concluded that the evidence established one aggravating circumstance: that "[t]he murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel in that it involved torture or serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to produce death." Tenn. Code Ann. 39-13-204(i)(5) (1991). Finding that this aggravating circumstance outweighed any mitigating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury sentenced the defendant to death. On appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed both the conviction and sentence. Thereafter, pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. 39_13_206(a)(1) (1997), the case was docketed in this Court for automatic review.
The defendant raises the following issues for our review:
1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to convict the defendant of first degree premeditated murder;
2. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support the finding of aggravating circumstance (i)(5)(torture or serious physical abuse);
3. Whether the trial court erred in admitting photographs of the victim's body at sentencing;
4. Whether the trial court erred in instructing the jury that it must agree unanimously to impose a life sentence;
5. Whether the trial court erred in excluding the testimony of Cheryl Arbogast at the guilt phase;
6. Whether the trial court's refusal of defendant's request to remove the United States Flag from the courtroom violated the defendant's right to testify on his own behalf under the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution; and
7. Whether the sentence of death is disproportionate to the penalty in similar cases;1
After thoroughly reviewing the record of the trial, the legal principles at issue, and the arguments of the parties, we find no error. The defendant's conviction and sentence are affirmed.
When she met the defendant, Billie Jo Hall had two daughters, Jennifer and Cynthia, from a former relationship. After their marriage, she and the defendant had two more daughters, Stephanie and Jessica. The youngest, Jessica, suffered from cerebral palsy. At the time of her murder, Mrs. Hall and the defendant were estranged and living separately.
On the night of July 29, 1994, the defendant went to Mrs. Hall's house to discuss a reconciliation. He brought a $25.00 money order made out to Mrs. Hall as a payment toward child support. Prior to entering the house, the defendant disconnected the telephone line at the utility box on the outside wall of the house.2 When Mrs. Hall answered the door, the defendant pushed his way into the room where she and the children were watching television. The defendant told the girls to go to bed. When they did not immediately obey his order, the defendant tipped over the chair in which Mrs. Hall was sitting. The defendant and Mrs. Hall then went back into her bedroom. The children, who had gone into their bedrooms, could hear "[t]hings slamming around" and their parents yelling at each another. When the children tried to enter the room, they found the door blocked. The three oldest children, Jennifer, Cynthia and Stephanie, persisted in their efforts to get into the room and finally succeeded. They attempted to stop the defendant from hurting their mother. When Mrs. Hall told the children to go to a neighbor's house, the defendant told them that if they went for help, "he was going to kill Mama." He also told Mrs. Hall, a college student, that she would never live to graduate. Cynthia and Stephanie tried to use the telephone to call for help, but they discovered the telephones would not work. At that point, they went to a neighbor's house where they called 911. Jennifer, the oldest child, was the last to leave the house, carrying her sister Jessica. Before she left, she saw her mother and the defendant leave the bedroom and go outside. She watched the defendant drag her mother, "kicking and screaming," to the small pool in the back yard.
The first officer to arrive on the scene was Chief Jerry Bingham of the Henderson County Sheriff's Department. Upon his arrival, he was directed by a neighbor to check the pool where he found Mrs. Hall's body floating face down in the water. He immediately called Emergency Medical Services and a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) investigator. TBI Agent Brian Byrd arrived on the scene shortly after midnight.
Agent Byrd entered the house and found the master bedroom in disarray. Bloodstains marked the bed, a counter top, and a wedding dress. The telephones inside the house were off their hooks. A $25.00 money order made out to Mrs. Hall and dated the day of the murder was found inside the house. No weapons were found. A trail of drag marks and bloodstains led from the master bedroom, out the front door, over the driveway, past the sandbox, and down to the pool in the back yard. Mrs. Hall's t-shirt was lying beside the pool. Clumps of grass ripped from the ground floated in the blood-tinged water of the pool. Outside the front door of the house the telephone junction box was opened and the phone line was disconnected. The grass and weeds near this box were matted down.
Dr. O'Brien Clay Smith, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy on Mrs. Hall, testified that the primary cause of death was asphyxia resulting from a combination of manual strangulation and drowning. He could not say with certainty that either strangulation or drowning was the exclusive cause of death. Evidence supporting strangling as a contributing cause of death included bruising on the left and right sides of Mrs. Hall's neck, hemorrhaging in the neck muscles around the hyoid bone in the neck, and bleeding in the thyroid gland, which indicated that extensive compression had been applied to the neck. Evidence supporting drowning as a contributing cause of death was water found in both Mrs. Hall's stomach and in her bloodstream. The water in her stomach could have collected when Mrs. Hall swallowed water as she was being drowned. The water in her bloodstream would have entered when she took water into her lungs, and the water passed through the lungs into her bloodstream.
Before dying, Mrs. Hall sustained at least eighty-three separate wounds, including several blows to the head, a fractured nose, multiple lacerations, and bruises and abrasions to the chest, abdomen, genitals, arms, legs and back. Abrasions on Mrs. Hall's back were consistent with having been dragged across pavement. Dr. Smith used a mannequin during his testimony to demonstrate the size and location of the various wounds on Mrs. Hall's body, marking each wound with a black magic marker. He described some of the injuries to Mrs. Hall's arms, legs and hands as defensive wounds. He characterized the injuries to the neck, face and head as intentional "target" wounds. Except for the physical trauma associated with the strangulation, however, none of the injuries would have proven fatal.
Chris Dutton, who was confined in a cell next to the defendant, testified that while both men were incarcerated, the defendant confided in him about his wife's murder. When describing what happened on the night of the murder, the defendant told Dutton that he had tried to talk with Mrs. Hall about reconciling but "[a]ll she was interested in was the money." When she refused to consider his plea for reconciliation and demanded that he leave, "his temper got the best of him and he began to strike her." According to Dutton, the defendant had determined, even before he arrived at his wife's house, The defendant told Dutton that he hit his wife in the head until he panicked, threw her in the swimming pool, then re-entered the house, took the car keys, and drove away in Mrs. Hall's minivan.
On cross-examination, Dutton admitted that the defendant also told him that he was depressed and had been drinking since he telephoned his wife earlier that day. The defendant also told Dutton that he was very concerned about the welfare of his two daughters, especially Jessica. The defendant explained that he disconnected the telephone line, because, when he and his wife argued in the past, she had called the police.
Two witnesses testified on the defendant's behalf during the guilt phase of trial. Dr. Lynn Donna Zager, a clinical psychologist, interviewed the defendant several times after his arrest. She diagnosed him as depressed and suffering from alcohol dependence. In addition, she noted personality characteristics of paranoia and dependency. In Dr. Zager's opinion, at the time of the killing the defendant suffered from depression and alcohol intoxication. These factors were compounded by his personality characteristics and various psycho-social stressors,...
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