State v. Jones

• Court: Ohio Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: O'CONNOR
• Citation: State v. Jones, 135 Ohio St.3d 10, 984 N.E.2d 948 (Ohio 2012)
• Decision Date: 06 December 2012
• Docket Number: No. 2008–0525.,2008–0525.
• Parties: The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. JONES, Appellant.

135 Ohio St.3d 10

984 N.E.2d 948

The STATE of Ohio, Appellee,

v.JONES, Appellant.

No. 2008–0525.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted July 10, 2012.

Decided Dec. 6, 2012.

Sherri Bevan Walsh, Summit County Prosecuting Attorney, and Heaven DiMartino, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.

Nathan A. Ray and Lawrence J. Whitney, Akron, for appellant.

O'CONNOR, C.J.

[Ohio St.3d 10]{¶ 1} This is a death-penalty direct appeal as of right. A Summit County jury convicted appellant, Phillip L. Jones, of numerous crimes in connection with the murder and rape of Susan Yates and unanimously recommended that he be sentenced to death. The trial court accepted that recommendation and sentenced Jones accordingly.

{¶ 2} For the following reasons, we affirm Jones's convictions and sentence of death.

BackgroundFacts and Procedural History

{¶ 3} Jones was charged with one count of aggravated murder, one count of murder, and two counts of rape.

{¶ 4} Count 1 charged Jones with the aggravated murder of Yates while committing rape. The count included a death-penalty specification for committing, attempting to commit, or fleeing immediately after committing or attempting to commit rape and that Jones was the principal offender in the commission of the aggravated murder, R.C. 2929.04(A)(7). Count 2 charged Jones with the murder of Yates. Counts 3 and 4 charged Jones with rape. ¹All four counts included specifications charging Jones as a repeat violent offender.

{¶ 5} Jones pled not guilty, and the case proceeded to trial.

The state's case-in-chief

The criminal investigation

{¶ 6} At around 6:20 a.m. on April 23, 2007, Richard Wisneski was jogging his usual route on the paved path through Mount Peace Cemetery in Summit County [Ohio St.3d 11]when he discovered a woman's body. The body was lying face up on the ground next to the path and in front of some headstones. Wisneski ran out of the cemetery. After unsuccessfully attempting to flag down a motorist, Wisneski ran to a McDonald's restaurant and called 9–1–1.

{¶ 7} Police officers arrived at the cemetery shortly thereafter and quickly determined that the woman, later identified as Susan Marie Christian Yates, was dead. Yates was wearing a brown sundress under a denim skirt and vest, a denim jacket, and a bra. Her skirt was torn. So was her bra, which had been ripped at the connecting fabric between the cups and was turned around on her torso. Her shoes, a denim hat, and a pocketknife were on the ground near her body. Yates's face and neck had numerous bruises. A small, plastic, glow-in-the dark cross had been placed over her right eye.

{¶ 8} The police searched the scene and collected evidence, including two buttons that they found on the roadway, 27 and 44 feet from the body, that appeared to match buttons on Yates's dress. One of Yates's earrings was also recovered from the roadway.

{¶ 9} The police were not able to immediately identify Yates because she did not have any identification on her and none of the officers recognized her. Later that same day, Yates was identified through her fingerprints, but her name was not released to the media. The next day, April 24, an article in the Akron Beacon Journal newspaper reported that the body of an unnamed woman had been found in the cemetery.

{¶ 10} Around 4:00 p.m. that day, Jones was watching the news on television and reading the newspaper. Afterwards, he and his wife, Delores, had a conversation about the news. Shortly thereafter, the couple walked to a nearby store, and Jones bought some cigarettes. Upon returning home, Delores got in her car and drove to the home of her friend, Charletta Jeffries.

{¶ 11} Delores arrived at Jeffries's home between 4:30 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. Delores ran up Jeffries's stairs and screamed, “He did it, he did it.” Jeffries asked, “He, who?” and Delores replied, “My husband, Phil.” Jeffries then asked, “Did what?” and Delores responded, “Murdered the woman.” Jeffries then asked, “What woman?” and Delores replied, “The woman that they found in the cemetery.”

{¶ 12} Delores then called the police, told them that she had information about the woman found at the cemetery, and asked to speak to “somebody in charge.”

{¶ 13} Shortly after the phone call, Detective Richard Morrison arrived at Jeffries's home. Delores was hyperventilating and acting “hysterical.” Morrison asked Delores, “Do you have something you need to tell me?” Delores replied, “My husband is the one that killed that girl in the cemetery.” Morrison then [Ohio St.3d 12]asked, “How do you know this?” and Delores said, “Because he told me her name was Susan. Isn't it Susan?”

{¶ 14} Delores also disclosed that she had arrived home on April 22 at around 10:30 p.m., and Jones was not there. Delores was unable to determine Jones's whereabouts, and she spent the night with her mother. Between 7:00 and 8:00 the next morning, Delores returned home and found Jones asleep in bed. She noticed that Jones had a scratch on his shoulder and lip.

{¶ 15} During further questioning at the police department on April 24, Morrison showed Delores the cross found over Yates's eye. Delores said that she did not recognize it. Later that evening, police officers accompanied Delores to her home, where she collected clothing and her jewelry box before going to a domestic-violence shelter.

{¶ 16} On April 25, Delores notified police that she had found a glow-in-the-dark cross in her jewelry box and that it was similar to the cross found at the cemetery. Delores testified that Jones had given her the glow-in-the-dark cross in June 2006 and that she knew that Jones kept another glow-in-the-dark cross in his wallet.

{¶ 17} Based on the information learned from Delores's interview, the Akron Police Department issued a “be on the lookout” for Jones. Thereafter, the police secured an arrest warrant for Jones.

The arrest

{¶ 18} At around 11:00 p.m. on April 24, police spotted Jones driving near his home and arrested him. Jones was briefly interviewed at the police station that night and stated only, “[A]ll I'm going to say about this is that it was an accident.”

{¶ 19} Investigators examined Jones's car and took swabbings from the interior of the vehicle. Subsequent testing found no evidence that the victim had ever been in the car.

The autopsy

{¶ 20} The chief deputy medical examiner for Summit County, George Sterbenz, M.D., conducted the autopsy on Yates. Dr. Sterbenz noted abrasions on the upper chest, collar bones, neck, and jaw line. Yates had bruising around her right eye and scalp and smaller abrasions over her arms, legs, feet, and back. Dr. Sterbenz also noted that the “blows caused abrasions * * * all over the neck and jaw and over the collar bones and shoulders.” There were “gouging” or “fingernail type abrasions” on her neck, right thumb, and elbow. Petechiae, or “pinpoint type hemorrhages,” were found on her face and in her eyes. Yates's larynx was fractured in two places: the hyoid bone and the thyroid cartilage.

[Ohio St.3d 13]{¶ 21} Dr. Sterbenz concluded that Yates died from asphyxia by strangulation. He opined that Yates had been dead for 6 to 12 hours before her body was found.

{¶ 22} Dr. Sterbenz also concluded that Yates had been sexually assaulted. There were extensive vaginal injuries, including bruising of the fatty and muscular tissues that form the deep wall of the vagina. He opined that such injuries may have been caused by “a fist * * * or very large rigid foreign object.” He also found a wadded Kleenex or toilet-type paper inside Yates's vagina.

{¶ 23} There was also a significant amount of internal, deep bruising to the anus and rectum. Dr. Sterbenz stated that a long and rigid object likely caused these injuries from the object's having been violently “placed into the anus” and “jammed up into the rectum.” A twig was also found in the fecal material inside the rectum about four to six inches from the anal opening.

{¶ 24} A toxicology screen detected the presence of cocaine and alcohol. Yates's blood-serum level of alcohol was .096 percent.

The forensic evidence

{¶ 25} Evidence collected during the criminal investigation and the autopsy was sent for testing to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation (“BCI”).

{¶ 26} Dale Laux, a forensic scientist at BCI in charge of examining samples to identify body fluids, found sperm on the vaginal swabs taken from Yates. He also detected sperm on stains found on the inside of Yates's skirt. No seminal fluid was detected on the rectal swabs or on tissue paper found near the body.

{¶ 27} Laux forwarded the samples that tested positive for sperm to Stacy Violi, a DNA examiner at BCI, for DNA testing. Violi concluded, “Phillip Jones cannot be excluded as a source of semen on the vaginal swabs and cuttings from the skirt.” Violi testified, “Based on the national database provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the expected frequency of occurrence of the DNA profile identified in the sperm fraction of the vaginal swabs and the cuttings from the skirt * * * is one in three sextillion, thirteen quintillion unrelated individuals.” In other words, Violi explained that she would have to test more than three sextillion individuals before finding the same DNA profile. The world's population is less than seven billion people.

{¶ 28} Violi also tested swabs obtained from the surface of Yates's breast. Violi concluded that “[t]he DNA profile from the breast swabs is a mixture of at least two individuals. The major DNA profile is from an unknown male. The minor DNA profile is consistent with contributions from Susan Yates.” Violi also tested the cross, but did not find enough DNA to make a comparison.

[Ohio St.3d 14]Other acts evidence

{¶ 29} In 1990, Jones had pled guilty to two counts of attempted rape. He was sentenced to an indefinite prison term of four to 15 years. Jones served 14 years and two months in prison before being released in July 2004.

{¶ 30} A victim, T.J., who had been...