State v. Johnson
| Decision Date | 23 December 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 92-2628,92-2628 |
| Citation | 643 N.E.2d 1098,71 Ohio St.3d 332 |
| Parties | The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. JOHNSON, Appellant. |
| Court | Ohio Supreme Court |
Defendant-appellant, Michael Jeffrey Johnson, was a brother of the murder victim, Susan Brunst, who disappeared from her Akron apartment during the early morning hours of June 2, 1990.
On June 1, 1990, Brunst had an argument with her boyfriend, Ronald Cook, at her apartment. Cook testified that at approximately 3:00 p.m., Brunst was still upset and told him that she was going to visit her friend Linda Starcher and get drunk. Brunst arrived at Starcher's house with a bottle of vodka.
Starcher testified that Brunst drank until 8:00 or 8:30 p.m. and also smoked marijuana. About 9:00 or 9:15 p.m. Brunst left Starcher's house and went to the East Akron Eagles Club, where she had two more drinks. She then left around 11:00 p.m.
At approximately 11:15 p.m., defendant entered the Eagles Club with a friend, James Westberg. Maida Cain, a barmaid at the Eagles Club, told Johnson that Brunst had been there alone and that she had just left drunk. Cain testified that Johnson tried to call Brunst from a pay phone but that there was no answer. Johnson told Cain that he was sure that Brunst had arrived home and that he would check on her in the morning.
Meanwhile, Cook was in Suffield, Ohio, babysitting his children. He testified that he tried to call Brunst several times during the night of June 1, but that she did not answer until midnight. After a brief argument, Cook hung up but immediately called again. During this second call, Cook asked her, "Who is there now?" Brunst replied, "Nobody," and then told Cook, "I'm sick, I'm going to be sick, I got to go, I love you, bye."
Cook further testified that he called again "almost immediately," but got no answer. He gave up trying to call back, and figured that Brunst was either throwing up or asleep. At about 12:15 a.m., Cook went to bed.
At approximately 1:00 a.m., Johnson and Westberg left the Eagles Club. Johnson told Westberg that he wanted to stop and check on his sister, so the two drove to Brunst's apartment, which was about ten minutes away. At that time, Johnson went in with a can of Budweiser, while Westberg stayed outside. Approximately ten minutes later, Johnson returned from inside without the beer can and the two drove to the apartment complex where they both lived.
Westberg testified that Johnson told him that Brunst was lying on her "bed naked" with the door wide open, and that Johnson "went on about that for about five minutes," calling Brunst a "stupid bitch and things like that."
At around 4:30 a.m., Johnson's next-door neighbor, Maureen Roop, was driving home from an early breakfast. As she drove toward her apartment, she passed Johnson, who was driving in the opposite direction, away from the apartment complex. Edward Collver, a former coworker and employer of Johnson, testified that on Saturday, June 2, Johnson failed to show up for work as expected at 7:30 a.m. Collver stated that before that day, Johnson had never missed work.
Meanwhile, at 9:00 a.m. Ron Cook went to Brunst's apartment and found the door open. He noticed an address book and a small jewelry box on the ground outside the door. Cook went through the apartment twice looking for Brunst, but could not find her. Cook found Brunst's purse and keys on the living room table. While some of the clothing Brunst had worn the previous day was in the bedroom, Cook was able to find only one of the matching pink socks. Cook also found a Budweiser beer can in Brunst's bedroom.
After calling Linda Starcher, Cook called the police and reported Brunst missing. He then called several more of her friends to ask if they had seen Brunst. Starcher went over to Brunst's apartment, where she noticed clothes Brunst had been wearing.
Later that afternoon, Cook went to Johnson's apartment, and asked him, "Do you have Susan in there?" Johnson replied:
That evening, Akron Police Detective Daniel Zampelli went to Brunst's apartment, where he found Cook. The apartment had not been preserved as a crime scene. Zampelli noted that the ringer on Brunst's phone had been turned off. He saw no signs of a struggle in the apartment. The beer can had been moved and Cook had begun cleaning up Brunst's vomit from the bathroom floor. Cook gave the detective a list of people who knew Brunst and whom Brunst had been with the night before. Cook also gave Zampelli the beer can and described to him what was "normal" and "out of the ordinary" in the apartment.
In the succeeding days, detectives interviewed Johnson several times. On June 3, Johnson admitted to Detective Charles Snyder, Jr. of the Akron Police Department that he had left his beer can at Brunst's apartment. Johnson told Det. Snyder that his sister was drunk at the time and he complained at length about Ron Cook, telling Snyder that Brunst had been "broken-hearted" because she knew Cook had been "running around."
On June 5, Det. Snyder talked to Johnson again. Although Brunst had not been found, Snyder noticed that Johnson was already referring to her in the past tense. Johnson told Det. Snyder that he wasn't guilty of her murder, but he "might as well confess and get it all over with" because "his family was trying to slander him." During this interview, Johnson also told Snyder he was mad at Brunst because he had overheard her telling Loretta Hopkins "about his prison experience" and "how kinky he was." On June 8, Snyder again interviewed Johnson and noted that Johnson maintained eye contact until asked about Brunst. On June 11, Johnson told Zampelli: "If you think I killed them, go check in the Gorge [a park near Johnson's home] where I threw her body, like I threw all the other women's bodies."
Family members testified that Johnson behaved suspiciously during June 1990. He refused to help his family search for Brunst, and told another sister, June Jones: "I'm not looking for the bitch." He tried to sell his truck and made plans to vacate his apartment. Brunst's daughter Cynthia testified that she saw an overnight bag belonging to Brunst in Johnson's apartment.
On June 27, 1990, a Portage County deputy sheriff found Brunst's naked corpse near Jones Road in Palmyra Township, near the village of Diamond. The body was so badly decomposed that the deputy coroner was unable to determine a cause or time of death. The deputy coroner did conclude, however, that "homicidal violence" was involved.
The area where Brunst's body was found had a reputation as a "parkers' spot" and was known to Johnson. There was testimony that Johnson had been driving there in his truck the previous week. Near the body, police found a pink sock matching the one found on the floor of Brunst's apartment, a pair of panties of the kind Brunst wore and a piece of carpet from Johnson's truck. The Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation later determined that two fibers found on the panties matched fiber samples from Johnson's truck.
During the late afternoon of June 29, 1990, Detectives Helmut Klemm and Bruce Van Horn of the Akron Police Department interviewed Johnson at his residence in Cuyahoga Falls. The first thing Johnson said to the detectives was "I'm the killer" and he dared them to arrest him. Klemm told Johnson he would if Johnson told him how he had killed Brunst. Johnson then told Klemm he "bashed in her head with a tire iron" and "dumped her" behind the Diamond Post Office. Klemm told Johnson he knew this story was false "[b]ecause there is no trauma to the body" and, at that time, he refused Johnson's invitation to arrest him. Johnson then claimed to have stabbed Brunst, then to have shot her, and gave "a constant barrage of confessions [and] retractions." On June 30, police arrested Johnson, who told them at that time:
Subsequently, Johnson was indicted on two counts of aggravated murder, R.C. 2903.01(A) and (B), each count having two death specifications: R.C. 2929.04(A)(5) () and (A)(7) (kidnapping and/or rape). He was thereafter convicted by a jury of both counts and all specifications. Upon the jury's recommendation of the death sentence, the trial court agreed and merged the aggravated murder counts. Upon appeal, the court of appeals affirmed.
The cause is now before this court upon an appeal as of right.
Lynn C. Slaby, Summit County Pros. Atty. and Phillip Bogdanoff, Asst. Pros. Atty., for appellee.
David H. Bodiker, Ohio Public Defender, Jane P. Perry and Randy D. Ashburn, Asst. Public Defenders, for appellant.
Upon a careful and thorough review of the record in this case, we are convinced that the number of errors during the guilt phase of defendant's capital trial deprived him of his constitutional due process right to a fair trial. Therefore, for the reasons that follow, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals upholding defendant's convictions, and remand the cause to the court of common pleas for further proceedings.
In his first proposition of law, defendant contends that his prior conviction for second degree murder in Florida cannot be the basis for convicting him of an R.C. 2929.04(A)(5) death specification.
In 1988, defendant pled guilty to and was convicted in a Florida court of a charge of "murder in the second degree," Fla.Stat.Ann. 782.04(2), for the 1984 beating death of Denise Hutchinson. Based on the second-degree murder conviction, the jury in the cause sub judice convicted defendant of a death specification pursuant to R.C. 2929.04(A)(5), which allows the death penalty if, "[p]rior to the offense at bar, the offender was convicted of an offense an...
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