State v. Laskey

• Decision Date: 18 March 1970
• Docket Number: No. 68-185,68-185
• Parties: , 50 O.O.2d 432 The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. LASKEY, Appellant.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 187

21 Ohio St.2d 187

257 N.E.2d 65, 50 O.O.2d 432

The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. LASKEY, Appellant.

No. 68-185.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

March 18, 1970.

On Saturday, August 13, 1966, 31-year-old Barbara Bowman spent the evening with friends at the Lark Cafe in Cincinnati. At about 2:00 a. m. the next morning she telephoned for a cab to take her home. A short time later a man, identified by four witnesses as appellant Laskey, entered the cafe and called out 'cab.' Miss Bowman left the cafe with this purported cab driver.

Between 2:15 and 2:30 a. m. two women saw a Yellow Cab parked at the curb, behind another car, on the west side of Grand Avenue, 100 feet north of Warsaw Avenue, the first street south of Ring Place. The two women, who were looking for a particular address where a party which they had been attending was to be continued, stopped their car alongside the cab to ask directions. Both women testified that the driver's seat was empty and a negro man and a white woman were in the back seat. The witnesses observed the man crawl into the front seat, and the woman rise up, then slump over in the back seat. Without answering the women's questions for directions, the cab driver started the engine and began to move the cab, at which point the two women drove on. At the trial, both women gave the above account, and one of them identified the appellant as the driver of the cab.

At approximately 2:30 a. m. two persons in a car proceeding into the intersection of Ring Place and Grand Avenue in Cincinnati found their propress blocked by a stationary, damaged, Yellow Cab, No. 870, parked diagonally across Ring Place, headed south. The steering gear was broken, rendering the cab inoperable, and the left front fender was dented. Nearby lay the shoeless, inert and mutilated, but not yet lifeless, body of Barbara Bowman. Observing her circumstances and hearing her moan, the couple drove to the nearest police station to report the incident and to summon help.

Help was immediately dispatched, and the victim was taken to the hospital, where she died. The coroner's examination revealed that Miss Bowman had multiple stab wounds in her neck, which penetrated the thyroid gland, the larynx, the vertebral neck bones and severed the carotid artery and jugular vein, and that she also had a multitude of injuries, involving abrasions and bruising of the tissues on her head, neck, shoulders, thighs, pelvis and genitalia. Overlaying the stab wounds of the neck there was a deep, grooved abrasion from a ligature having been placed around the neck. Her right foot was completely torn loose from her ankle so that the ankle bones were exposed to view.

At the trial, the coroner testified that the cause of death was loss of blood as the result of stab wounds in the neck.

At the scene of the crime, the police found a set of Miss Bowman's keys, and a small paring knife nearby. One hundred feet north of the intersection, on the east side of Grand Avenue, in the sidewalk area, they found her eyeglasses, and on the west side of Grand Avenue, opposite the eyeglasses, two shoes were found. On Ring Place, 100 feet south of Grand Avenue, they found her billfold and purse, and at the intersection of Ring Place and Underwood Place, they found a rope two and one-half feet in length, with beads imbedded therein. These beads were later identified as being the same type as were found strewn about the seat and floor in the rear of the cab and as the type worn by Barbara Bowman on the evening of her murder.

It had been raining at and before the time of the discovery of the body. As police were conducting their investigation, another cab driver, Sol Thompson, came upon the scene, stopped, and proceeded on to take his passenger to a destination about a mile away. After discharging this passenger, at approximately 3:30 a. m., and within two miles of Grand Avenue and Ring Place, Thompson was hailed by a man wearing a small, skull-type cap and a black leather jacket, who paid his fare with two wet one-dollar bills. The cab driver discharged this passenger at Raymiller and Bank Streets. Thompson reported this fact to the police, and, at the trial identified appellant as that passenger. It was also shown at the trial that the Baymiller and Bank Street intersection is within three blocks of appellant's home.

Witnesses testified that Yellow Cab No. 870 had been removed from a lot where it had been stored, and that it had been in use without company authorization; that appellant was a former cab driver for Yellow Cab; that there was no record that appellant turned in his key when he left the cab company's employ in 1962; and that the same key would operate any of the company's cabs of this type.

The testimony of the cab dispatchers disclosed that on the night of the crime, cab No. 870 responded to 'open' calls by the driver identifying himself over the radio as cab No. 186. Cab No. 186 was not on duty that night and appellant's number, when he was employed as a driver for the company, was 186. Another state witness testified that he had engaged a cab earlier in the evening of August 13, and that appellant was the driver of that cab.

On December 9, 1966, the appellant was arrested for an unrelated assault upon a 22-year-old woman. A witness to that assault had noted the license number of the assailant's car as he fled the scene, which led to appellant's arrest in that case. Some of the witnesses in this case were called to see if the accused in the assault case was the person they had reported seeing on the night of the murder. All of the witnesses identified Laskey and tied him directly to the murder.

On December 16, 1966, the grand jury indicted appellant on two counts of first degree murder. Counsel was appointed immediately for appellant's defense.

At trial, appellant was found guilty of murder on both counts, without a recommendation of mercy, and was sentenced to death. The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction (13 Ohio App.2d 91, 234 N.E.2d 318), and the cause is now before this court upon appeal.

Melvin G. Rueger, Pros. Atty., and Calvin W. Prem, Cincinnati, for appellee.

Burton R. Signer, Donald F. Roney and Donald L. Robertson, Cincinnati, for appellant.

PER CURIAM.

The appellant raises 28 assignments of error.

The eighth assignment of error is that the trial court overruled four defense motions for discovery, and thereby denied appellant due process and equal protection as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Appellant made motions for inspection of physical evidence, for production of grand jury minutes and transcripts, for production of names and addresses of all witnesses who had testified before the grand jury and for production of a list of all witnesses expected to testify at the trial.

The trial court denied all these motions on the authority of State v. Rhoads (1910), 81 Ohio St. 397, 91 N.E. 186.

In denying the motion for the production of the grand jury transcripts, the trial court specifically relied upon the second paragraph of the syllabus of Rhoads, which provides:

'A person charged with crime is not entitled before or at the time of trial to the minutes of the evidence taken before the grand jury, on which the indictment was found against him, nor to an inspection of a transcript of such evidence; * * *.'

While paragraph three of the syllabus of State v. White (1968), 15 Ohio St.2d 146, 239 N.E.2d 65, overrules paragraph one of the syllabus of Rhoads, appellant argues that the second paragraph of the syllabus of Rhoads is effectively overruled by the fourth paragraph of the syllabus of White, which states:

'In a criminal case, the defendant has a right to an in camera inspection by the trial court, with counsel for the state and the defendant, to determine the existence of inconsistencies between the testimony of the prosecution's witnesses and their prior statements.'

The rule announced in the fourth and fifth paragraphs of the syllabus of White is not applicable to appellant's pre-trial motion for production of the ground jury transcript. The White rule contemplates a limited investigation for the purpose of determining whether inconsistencies exist between a witness' prior statements and his testimony at trial. Such investigation can be made only after the witness testified at trial, and, generally, can not be used by an accused for ascertaining the evidence of the prosecution for the purpose of trial preparation. It is a discovery device only for the purposes of impeachment upon cross-examination.

In this case, appellant sought discovery of the grand jury transcript before trial for purposes of preparation. Generally, proceedings before a grand jury are secret and an accused is not entitled to inspect grand jury minutes before trial for the purpose of preparation or for purposes of discovery in general. This rule is relaxed only when the ends of justice require it, such as when the defense shows that a particularized need exists for the minutes which outweighs the policy of secrecy. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. v. United States (1959), 360 U.S. 395, 400, 79 S.Ct. 1237, 3 L.Ed.2d 1323, rehearing denied, 361 U.S. 855, 80 S.Ct. 42, 4 L.Ed.2d 94. See 1 Antieau, Modern Constitutional Law, 300; 20 A.L.R.3d 7, 19.

It is also well settled that the allowance or overruling of various discovery motions in a criminal case rests within the sound discretion of the trial court, and only in cases of clear abuse will that discretion be disturbed upon review. See, for example, State v. Hill (1967), 12 Ohio St.2d 88, 232 N.E.2d 394. Thus, with respect to appellant's arguments concerning the overruling of the other discovery motions, we find no prejudicial error.

Defendant's eleventh assignment of error is that the trial court improperly admitted evidence of a similar offense pursuant to Section 2945.59, Revised Code. It is appellant's contention that the offense was...