State v. Lejeune
| Decision Date | 29 March 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. S04A0116, No. S04A0115. |
| Citation | 594 S.E.2d 637,277 Ga. 749 |
| Parties | The STATE v. LEJEUNE. Lejeune v. The State. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Brian Steel, August F. Siemon III, Atlanta, for Appellant.
Paul L. Howard, Jr., Dist. Atty., Marc A. Mallon, Elizabeth A. Baker, Christopher M. Quinn, Asst. Dist. Attys., for Appellee. SEARS, Presiding Justice.
Michael B. Lejeune is accused of malice murder committed in December 1997, after which he allegedly cut up the victim's body and burned it in a cemetery. The State is seeking the death penalty. Lejeune has not been tried yet, and Case Nos. S04A0115 and S04A0116 are appeals from rulings on pretrial motions. The same prosecution generated an appeal to this Court last year.1 In that case, the trial court granted Lejeune's motion to suppress blood evidence found in a search of his apartment, and this Court affirmed because the supporting affidavit for the search warrant lacked probable cause.2 The Court reversed the trial court's denial of Lejeune's motion to suppress the warrantless search of Lejeune's car under the automobile exception to the search warrant requirement, meaning that blood evidence in the car's trunk seized during that search was also inadmissible.3
The instant cases stem partly from the previous holdings on the motions to suppress. In Case No. S04A0115, the State appeals from the trial court's granting of Lejeune's motions to suppress the results of the new searches of Lejeune's apartment and parents' house conducted pursuant to fresh search warrants. In Case No. S04A0116, Lejeune appeals the denial of his plea in bar based upon the doctrines of res judicata, collateral estoppel, and law of the case. He argues that because there had already been an appellate decision holding that the evidence obtained from Lejeune's former apartment and car was inadmissible, the State was barred from re-litigating the admissibility of evidence obtained from those places despite the new search warrants.
In 2003, after this Court handed down its decision in LeJeune, supra, Rekha Anand, Lejeune's former co-indictee girlfriend, pled guilty to concealing the death of another. She made a statement and agreed to testify on behalf of the State at Lejeune's trial. In her statement, she said that she was in the apartment when Lejeune shot Ronnie Davis in the head, that she heard the shot and saw Lejeune holding the gun, and that he told her he had done it. Lejeune cut up the body, staining the carpet with blood, and they placed the body parts in Lejeune's Toyota Corolla. They drove to the cemetery and burned the body parts, but they kept the head because the bullet was still inside it. They took the head to Lejeune's parents' house on Lake Lanier, where Lejeune placed it in a basement vise and tried to extract the bullet. He was unsuccessful, so he placed the head in a bucket, poured cement into it, and dumped it in Lake Lanier. Some of Anand's statement corroborated information provided by Kenneth Vaughn, a previous informant in the case, and information obtained through a "controlled call," wherein the police overheard her and Lejeune before their arrest make incriminating comments about cleaning blood out of the apartment carpet. The State gave Anand's statement and the case file, with all the evidence and information pertaining to the suppressed searches redacted out, to GBI Special Agent Lang, who was uninvolved in the previous investigation of the case. Agent Lang was generally aware that prior searches in the case had been suppressed, but he was not told about any evidence that had been seized or where he should look. Agent Lang believed that blood evidence might still be present in the apartment and the car trunk because blood evidence does not degrade when protected from the elements. Similarly, he believed that some blood and tissue from the victim's head might have transferred to the vise grip and might still be present on the vise and basement floor in Lejeune's parents' house. He consulted with a blood expert, Dr. Henry Lee, who supported this theory. In May 2003, he obtained supporting affidavits, actually written by another GBI agent, and sought search warrants from judicial officers in Fulton County (for the apartment), DeKalb County (for the car), and Hall County (for Lejeune's parents' house). The search warrants were granted and blood evidence was obtained from all three locations. Lejeune moved to suppress the evidence seized pursuant to these searches, and the trial court granted the motions with regard to the Fulton and Hall County search warrants. The State appeals.
1. The trial court suppressed the blood evidence seized in the 2003 search of Lejeune's former apartment in Fulton County 4 because it determined that the Fulton County magistrate who issued the search warrant was acting without jurisdiction. The trial court found that the Fulton County magistrate lacked jurisdiction to issue the search warrant because of Uniform Superior Court Rules 3.2 and 3.3, which govern case assignment and the trial court's exclusive control of those cases assigned to it. Uniform Superior Court Rule 3.2 specifies that all companion and related actions involving the same parties, subject matter, or factual issues, shall be assigned to the same judge. Uniform Superior Court Rule 3.3 states that the judge to whom a case is assigned "shall have exclusive control of such action[.]" The trial court reasoned that, once Lejeune had been indicted and the case had been assigned to the trial court, no other Fulton County court had jurisdiction to hear any part of the case, including an application for a search warrant.5 Therefore, according to the trial court, the search warrant was void because the Fulton County magistrate was without jurisdiction to issue it.6
We conclude that this ruling was error. While the Georgia Constitution states that superior courts have exclusive jurisdiction "over trials in felony cases,"7 Georgia statutes vest numerous lesser courts, including magistrate courts, with the jurisdiction to hear applications for search warrants and issue search warrants upon a finding of probable cause.8 The constitutional requirement that a neutral and detached judicial officer determine the sufficiency of probable cause contained in a search warrant application functions as a check on the judgment of police officers "`engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.'"9 There is no constitutional impediment to the General Assembly's designating which judicial officers may provide this check10 and no indication in the Constitution or a statute that a judicial officer's authority to do so is limited by a criminal case's status in the superior court. Moreover, any rule that would require police officers to seek search warrants only from the superior court after indictment would result in different procedures for seeking search warrants depending on the location of the place to be searched. The authority of any judicial officer, including the superior court, to issue a search warrant is limited to places within that court's territorial jurisdiction.11 If a case is indicted, the police would still have to apply for search warrants with judicial officers other than the superior court if the location to be searched is outside the superior court's judicial circuit.12 During their investigation, the police would also be required to monitor each case's status to determine if it has reached indictment. We see no reason to further complicate the procedures for applying for a search warrant. Therefore, we reverse the trial court's ruling that the Fulton County magistrate lacked jurisdiction to issue a Fulton County search warrant because Lejeune had been indicted and the case assigned to the superior court.
2. In May 2003, the police sought a search warrant for Lejeune's parents' house in Hall County, and the supporting affidavit for the search warrant listed information provided by Ms. Anand about Lejeune taking the head into the basement there and allegedly placing the head into a vise grip in an attempt to extract the bullet. The affidavit also stated that there was a reasonable belief that blood evidence would still be found in the basement and on the vise because blood does not degrade when protected from the elements. The Hall County judge granted the search warrant and the police searched the basement and vise and found blood evidence. They also seized the vise.
Lejeune moved to suppress the results of this search, alleging that the information about the vise was stale because there was no information provided in the affidavit that indicated that the vise would still be there after five years. The trial court found probable cause for the police to search the house for blood, and it denied the motion to suppress the blood evidence found in the parents' basement. However, it granted Lejeune's motion to suppress the vise and blood evidence found on the vise because the information contained in the affidavit about the vise was stale. The State appeals this ruling.
Because there was probable cause to authorize the search for blood evidence in the house, the police were legally permitted to be inside the basement and reasonably permitted to look on surfaces where blood might be located, including the vise.13 Any blood evidence uncovered as a result of the swabbing of the vise is admissible. 14 We also conclude that the information about the vise contained in the supporting affidavit for the search warrant was not stale.
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