State v. Jaques

• Decision Date: 17 August 1988
• Docket Number: No. 15823,15823
• Citation: 428 N.W.2d 260
• Parties: STATE of South Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. David JAQUES, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: South Dakota Supreme Court

Page 260

428 N.W.2d 260

STATE of South Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v.David JAQUES, Defendant and Appellant.

No. 15823.

Supreme Court of South Dakota.

Argued April 27, 1988.

Decided Aug. 17, 1988.

Mark Smith, Asst. Atty. Gen., Pierre, (Roger A. Tellinghuisen, Atty. Gen., on the brief), for plaintiff and appellee.

John P. Billings of Bogue, Weeks, Rusch & Billings, Vermillion, for defendant and appellant.

HENDERSON, Justice.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY/ISSUES

DefendantDavid Jaques(Jaques) was charged with one count of second-degree murder and three counts of first-degree manslaughter for his involvement in events leading to the death of Martin Gray(Gray).After a jury trial in the circuit court for Clay County, Jaques was convicted on one count of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced to 35 years in the State Penitentiary.The jury acquitted Jaques on the other counts.Codefendant Elijah Sitting Crow (Sitting Crow), tried in the same proceeding, was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter.Sitting Crow's conviction was affirmed in State v. Sitting Crow, 428 N.W.2d 268(S.D.1988).

Jaques appeals his conviction alleging trial court error regarding six issues:

1.Admission into evidence of a jailhouse note, written by Jaques to Sitting Crow, which was seized by jail officials;

2.Denial of court-appointed expert assistance;

3.Jury instructions regarding self-defense were inappropriate;

4.Use of a non-testifying codefendant's statement for impeachment purposes denied Jaques his constitutional right of confrontation;

5.Sufficiency of evidence to support his conviction; and

6.Denial of Jaques' motion for severance.

These issues are treated seriatim.We affirm.

FACTS

On October 9, 1986, Jaques, Sitting Crow, Teresa Peterson(Jaques' sister, married to Sitting Crow), and Angelique Johnson(Gray's fiancee) were drinking beer and wine at Sitting Crow's house in Vermillion.All except Johnson lived in the house.Johnson was visiting Jaques, for whom she felt a romantic inclination.

That evening, Gray came by looking for Johnson.Told by Peterson that Johnson had left earlier, Gray departed.He returned later, again seeking Johnson, and was let into the house.At this point, Johnson was hiding in a closet in a back room, closely attended by Jaques.Gray, Sitting Crow, and Peterson conversed for a half-hour or so.A fight broke out, according to Peterson, when Gray, without provocation, struck Sitting Crow on the head with a wine bottle.Gray, we are told, grabbed a skillet as a weapon, Sitting Crow wrestled with Gray, Peterson fled to a back room, and Jaques came forward to help Sitting Crow.In the process, Jaques picked up a stick used as a window prop.

Testimony differed as to what happened after the melee developed inside the house.The defendants claimed that they struck Gray only in the course of the fight, which boiled out the door and continued for a few minutes outside.This was contradicted by Sitting Crow's statement, dictated to police, to the effect that he had tackled Gray inside the house when Gray attempted to escape, and beat Gray into unconsciousness after telling Gray that he would have to "give some blood" for what he had done.Also, two neighbors testified that Gray was beaten repeatedly while begging to be allowed to leave.

Police and an ambulance were summoned by the neighbors at Peterson's request.Gray was found unconscious on the neighbor's property, having been dragged there by the defendants.He died the next day of multiple head injuries and an associated skull fracture.Colored photographs, received in evidence, graphically depicted Jaques' bootprints on the head of the corpse.The theory of defense was not that Jaques and Sitting Crow, acting jointly, did not kill Gray, but that their beating of Gray was justifiable or excusable.

DECISION

I.THE JAILHOUSE NOTE

Codefendant Sitting Crow, while he and Jaques were incarcerated in the Clay County Jail, asked a jailer to pass a note to Jaques.When the jailer asked if he could read it, Sitting Crow agreed.The jailer took it to a deputy, who photocopied it and allowed the jailer to deliver it to Jaques, although jail regulations forbid this.Jaques wrote a letter in reply, which a different jailer delivered to Sitting Crow.The second jailer later asked Sitting Crow for the letter from Jaques, and Sitting Crow voluntarily gave it up.Jaques' letter contained references to Jaques' culpability regarding Gray's death, and was later admitted into evidence at trial.There is no detail, however, in the note regarding what actually occurred during the Gray incident.

Jaques now claims that the reading and use as evidence of this prison note violated his Fourth (unreasonable search and seizure), Fifth (self-incrimination), and Sixth (right to counsel)Amendment constitutional rights.These arguments are unfounded, as is Jaques' assertion that the State induced Jaques to write the letter, an allegation not supported by the evidence.

The law is well settled that prison officials can read prisoner-to-prisoner messages voluntarily given to prison orderlies even where such deliveries are unauthorized.Denson v. United States, 424 F.2d 329(10th Cir.1970), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 844, 91 S.Ct. 88, 27 L.Ed.2d 80(1970)(adopting the rationale of Stroud v. United States, 251 U.S. 15, 40 S.Ct. 50, 64 L.Ed. 103(1919)).The Denson decision, rejecting Fourth and Fifth Amendment claims as there is no coercion or unlawful interrogation, and no unreasonable search and seizure, is still good law.SeePeople v. Morones, 39 Colo.App. 451, 569 P.2d 336(1977);Perry v. State, 505 N.E.2d 846(Ind.App.1987);Thomas v. State, 285 Md. 458, 404 A.2d 257(1979).There is also no Sixth Amendment violation unless the prison officials prevent or significantly impair an inmate's right to counsel.SeeAnnot., Censorship and Evidentiary Use of Unconvicted Prisoners' Mail, 52 A.L.R.3d 548, 553(1973).No interference with Jaques' access to counsel appears in this record.We find no illegal search and seizure, interrogation, or infringement of Jaques' right to counsel.

II.EXPERT ASSISTANCE AND CONTINUANCE

Jaques argues that he was denied due process of law when the trial court refused his requests for court-appointed experts to analyze physical evidence held by the State.This evidence and results of tests by State experts were made available to the defense one day before the motion hearing concerning Jaques' request for expert assistance, and two and one-half weeks before trial.The defense also requested a continuance to allow time for experts to analyze the released material.Specifically, Jaques requested: 1) examination of a knife for fingerprints; 2) examination of the skillet used by Gray for fingerprints and bloodstains; 3) analysis of Gray's clothing for blood and hair evidence; 4) analysis of Sitting Crow's and his own clothing for blood and hair evidence; 5) examination of the wine bottle fragments; 6) examination of a mop used to clean blood off the floor of the Sitting Crow house; and 7) appointment of an expert to reconstruct Gray's blow to Sitting Crow's head.

Jaques supports this argument by citing United States v. Patterson, 724 F.2d 1128, 1130(5th Cir.1984):

[W]here the government's case is heavily dependent on evidence with regard to which a government expert testifies and the defendant has been denied the appointment of an expert, such evidence is sufficiently crucial to the government's theory that denial of a defense expert constitutes reversible error.

The Fifth Circuit's reasoning in Patterson is based on Bradford v. United States, 413 F.2d 467(5th Cir.1969)(government case based on fingerprint and handwriting expert testimony, and corroborated only by testimony of a codefendant who had pled guilty).In Patterson itself, the government case was built on conflicting eyewitness testimony, a possibly racially tainted in-court identification, and fingerprint analyses by three government witnesses.Patterson, 724 F.2d at 1130-31.Jaques buttresses his argument with Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68, 105 S.Ct. 1087, 84 L.Ed.2d 53(1985), wherein the United States Supreme Court recognized a state's duty to make certain that an indigent defendant must have access to the materials needed to build an effective defense.

The guidelines for determining when court-appointed experts are essential to an adequate defense are: 1) The request must be made in good faith; 2) the request must be reasonable in all respects; 3) the request must be timely and set forth reasons which seem to make such services needed or necessary to the defendant, and 4) the request must specify that the defendant is financially unable to obtain the required service himself and that such services would otherwise be justifiably obtained if the defendant were financially able.State v. Sahlie, 90 S.D. 682, 690, 245 N.W.2d 476,480(1976).See alsoState v. Hallman, 391 N.W.2d 191(S.D.1986).However, if the request is frivolous, unreasonable, unnecessary for an adequate defense, or without underlying factual support, the appointment need not be made.Hallman, id. at 194;Sahlie, 90 S.D. at 691, 245 N.W.2d at 480.

The State argues that the defense requests were unreasonable or unnecessary for an adequate defense.We agree.The knife was not used in the fight, and analysis, at best, might have been useful to weakly impeach Johnson's credibility regarding her testimony that both defendants had picked up the knife in the course of the evening.The State expert indicated that no prints sufficient for identification were on the knife blade or sheath and no blood or fingerprint evidence linking the defendants to the knife was offered.Regarding the skillet, the government witness testified that Sitting Crow's blood was on it, substantiating the testimony that Gray used it against Sitting Crow, and no evidence was presented contradicting the defendants' claims regarding it.As to...