State v. Jackson
| Decision Date | 04 January 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 2003-0137.,2003-0137. |
| Citation | 839 N.E.2d 362,2006 Ohio 1,107 Ohio St.3d 300 |
| Parties | The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. JACKSON, Appellant. |
| Court | Ohio Supreme Court |
Dennis Watkins, Trumbull County Prosecuting Attorney, and LuWayne Annos, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.
John P. Laczko, Youngstown, and Dennis Day Lager, Ravenna, for appellant.
{¶ 1} In the very early morning of December 12, 2001, Donna Roberts phoned 911 to report the shooting death of her former husband, Robert Fingerhut, at their home in Howland Township, Trumbull County, Ohio. Over the next few days, police learned that she and Nathaniel Jackson had plotted to kill Fingerhut. Both Roberts and Jackson were arrested, convicted of aggravated murder, and sentenced to death. This opinion addresses the appeal by defendant-appellant, Jackson.
{¶ 2} As evidence at trial showed, Roberts and Fingerhut had been divorced in 1985, but were living together in the Howland Township home. Almost all of the couple's assets, including two Greyhound bus terminals in Warren and Youngstown were in Roberts's name. Fingerhut managed the terminals. Many of those who dealt with the couple assumed that they were married, and Fingerhut referred to Roberts as his wife in many business dealings.
{¶ 3} Donna Roberts and Nathaniel Jackson met and began having an affair sometime before 2001. Their romantic relationship was interrupted during most of 2001 while Jackson was incarcerated in the Lorain Correctional Institution. At the time of Fingerhut's murder, Jackson was 29 years old, Roberts was 57, and Fingerhut was 56.
{¶ 4} While Jackson was in prison, he and Roberts exchanged letters and spoke on the phone. Because phone calls from prisoners are routinely recorded at the Lorain Correctional Institution and kept for at least six months, there were digital recordings of 19 of their phone conversations. Many of the letters and conversations were sexually graphic, describing the couple's plans after Jackson's release. The couple used veiled terms in their letters and conversations to discuss how they would deal with Fingerhut once Jackson was out of prison.
{¶ 5} Three days before Jackson was released from prison on December 9, 2001, a woman reserved a Jacuzzi suite at the Wagon Wheel Motel in Youngstown. The woman paid for the room, and she and Jackson stayed there on the night of his release.
{¶ 6} For the next few days, Roberts and Jackson were seen together at various places. On the afternoon of December 10, Frank Reynolds, an employee of the Youngstown Greyhound bus terminal, saw Roberts and Jackson talking near the terminal before Fingerhut arrived for work. Later, Reynolds overheard Roberts ask Fingerhut for $3,000, which he refused to give her. According to Reynolds, Roberts was nervous and shaky and gave Fingerhut "the dirtiest look like it can kill a person."
{¶ 7} The next afternoon, December 11, the day of the murder, at approximately 4:35 p.m., bus driver Jim McCoy saw Fingerhut working alone at the Youngstown terminal. Shortly afterwards, McCoy drove his bus to the Warren bus terminal, where he saw Roberts with a black male who identified himself as "Nathaniel." According to McCoy, the two appeared to be in a hurry to leave.
{¶ 8} Shortly before 6:00 p.m. that evening, a waitress at the Red Lobster restaurant in Niles began serving Roberts and Jackson. The two paid for their dinner at 6:43 p.m. and left the restaurant.
{¶ 9} Fingerhut left the Youngstown bus terminal at 9:00 p.m., telling the security guard that he was going home.
{¶ 10} Near 9:30 p.m. the same evening, a neighbor of Roberts saw her driving near her home. Although no one else was on the road at the time, Roberts was driving very slowly. Meanwhile, Fingerhut left the Youngstown bus terminal at 9:00 p.m., telling the on-duty security guard, "I'm going home."
{¶ 11} Later that night, Roberts reserved a room for a week at the Days Inn Motel in Boardman. The room receipt indicates that she paid for the room at 11:33 p.m.
{¶ 12} Shortly after midnight, December 12, 2001, Roberts called 911 screaming that there was something wrong with her husband. The computer showed that the call came from Roberts and Fingerhut's home in Howland Township.
{¶ 13} These facts from the trial record are consistent with the state's theory that Roberts let Jackson into her home to wait for Fingerhut to return from work; that when Fingerhut got home, Jackson shot him and stole his car and then called Roberts's cell phone from the cell phone in Fingerhut's car; that Jackson abandoned Fingerhut's car, and Roberts picked him up and took him to Days Inn, where she reserved a room for a week; and that Roberts then went home and called 911.
{¶ 14} Upon arriving at the scene, police found Fingerhut's bloody corpse lying face down on the kitchen floor near the door to the garage. Roberts told police to do whatever they had to do to catch the killer. She also gave police permission to search the house and her car in the garage. She asked police several times where her "husband's car" was, but told police later that somebody had stolen it. Roberts's emotional state fluctuated. At times she was very coherent, while at other times she was screaming, crying, and asking police why they were not doing anything. Eventually, police arranged for Roberts's brother to come and get her while police continued to process the crime scene.
{¶ 15} The deputy coroner for Trumbull County, Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk, observed the victim at the crime scene and later performed an autopsy. Fingerhut had sustained lacerations and abrasions to his left hand and head, as well as three gunshot wounds: one to his head, a perforating wound that started at the right side of his back and went through his chest, and a grazing wound to the right side of his back. Germaniuk concluded that the gunshot to his head was fatal.
{¶ 16} During the search of the crime scene, police found a fully loaded .38-caliber revolver near Fingerhut's body. Near the gun was a bloody shoe print. A firearms expert with the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation ("BCI") concluded that the bullets recovered from the crime scene and the victim had all been fired from the same weapon, but not from the one found at the scene.
{¶ 17} In a dresser in the master bedroom of the house, police discovered 145 letters and cards handwritten by Jackson to Roberts. Most were addressed to Roberts at a post office box in Warren.
{¶ 18} In the trunk of Roberts's car parked in the garage, police found a brown paper bag with Jackson's name on it. Inside the bag were clothing and 139 handwritten letters from Roberts to Jackson dated from October through early December 2001. Roberts told police that she had written the letters. Also in the trunk, police found an empty handcuffs box.
{¶ 19} During the ensuing investigation, police learned that Jackson and Roberts had spent a night at the Wagon Wheel Motel and that Roberts had registered for a room (room No. 129) at the Days Inn and had paid for a week. Police and a BCI agent found bloodstains in room No. 129. Police also recovered a garbage bag that had been in room No. 129 containing a nearly empty bottle of hydrogen peroxide and bloodstained bandages and gauze. The DNA of the blood was later determined to be consistent with Jackson's DNA profile. Fingerprints lifted from inside room No. 129 and from a Days Inn room-key envelope marked "129," which was also found in the garbage bag, matched Jackson's fingerprints.
{¶ 20} Police also learned that Fingerhut had two life-insurance policies naming Roberts as sole beneficiary. The aggregate benefit from the two policies was $550,000.
{¶ 21} Police discovered Fingerhut's car abandoned on the east side of Youngstown. A BCI forensic scientist found blood on the driver's visor and elsewhere inside the car. The blood on the visor was a mixture consistent with both Jackson's and Fingerhut's DNA profiles. Blood recovered from the trunk-release lever inside the car was a mixture with a major profile consistent with Jackson's DNA and a minor profile consistent with Fingerhut's DNA. The occurrence frequency of the DNA profile from blood found on the trunk-release lever is one in 45 quintillion, 170 quadrillion in the Caucasian population, one in 29 quadrillion, 860 trillion in the African-American population, and one in 22 quintillion, 400 quadrillion in the Hispanic population.
{¶ 22} Passages from the letters exchanged between Jackson and Roberts, as well as recorded phone calls Jackson made to Roberts from prison, revealed a plot to murder Robert Fingerhut. The subject was raised on more than one occasion.
{¶ 23} For example, on October 2, 2001, Jackson wrote to Roberts:
{¶ 24} On October 8, 2001, Jackson wrote:
{¶ 25} In an October 20, 2001 letter, Jackson wrote: ...
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