State v. Linde, 2003-336-C.A.

• Decision Date: 07 July 2005
• Docket Number: No. 2003-336-C.A.,2003-336-C.A.
• Citation: 876 A.2d 1115
• Parties: STATE v. Eddie M. LINDE.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

876 A.2d 1115

STATE v. Eddie M. LINDE.

No. 2003-336-C.A.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

July 7, 2005.

Christopher R. Bush, Esq., for Plaintiff.

Catherine A. Gibran, Esq., Providence, for Defendant.

Present: WILLIAMS, C.J., GOLDBERG, FLAHERTY, SUTTELL, and ROBINSON, JJ.

OPINION

SUTTELL, Justice.

Tragic events involving an ironworking crew from Florida constructing the iron substructure of a church in Smithfield, Rhode Island, culminated in the shooting death of one of the workers in the parking lot of the Susse Chalet motel on October 23, 2001. As a result the defendant, Eddie M. Linde, was charged by indictment with first-degree murder and sixteen additional felony offenses. Six counts were dismissed before trial pursuant to Rule 48(a) of the Superior Court Rules of Criminal Procedure and the remaining eleven counts were tried before a jury. On May 29, 2002, the jury returned not-guilty verdicts on two counts, and guilty verdicts on nine counts, including murder in the second degree. After denying the defendant's motion for a new trial, the trial justice sentenced him on the various felonies, most significantly to life imprisonment, consecutive to a forty-year sentence with twenty years to serve.¹

Linde contends on appeal that the Superior Court committed two errors that warrant setting aside the judgment of conviction and granting him a new trial. He asserts that the trial justice erred in refusing to suppress evidence seized from under his motel room mattress, pursuant to a warrantless search that his roommate consented to. Secondly, defendant asserts that the trial justice erred by refusing to instruct the jury on self-defense. For the reasons stated below, we affirm the judgment of conviction.

I Statement of Facts

The events preceding the fateful and fatal shooting that evening are largely undisputed. The defendant came to Rhode Island in early October 2001 as a member of a crew of ironworkers from Florida to work on the Ocean State Baptist Church in Smithfield. The group initially consisted of the foreman, Randy Silas, Eddie M. Linde (defendant), Michael Linde (defendant's son), Shane Roberts, and Kent Holton. The defendant, a twenty-six-year veteran ironworker from Florida, had met Silas only several weeks earlier through a mutual acquaintance. At the time, Silas was hiring a crew to do the subcontracting work on the church in Smithfield. Linde, a certified welder and union ironworker, accepted this nonunion position because Silas agreed to train his son Michael and his son's friend Shane Roberts in the ironwork trade. Michael Linde and Roberts recently had been discharged from the Marine Corps and had experienced difficulties finding decent jobs. The crew stayed at the Susse Chalet in Smithfield, where Silas had rented three rooms. The defendant shared a room with Roberts, Michael Linde roomed with Kent Holton, and Silas initially stayed in a room by himself.

Several weeks later, around October 20, 2001, a sixth worker, Daniel Mosley, joined the crew. He testified that he came to Rhode Island from Florida at the request of Silas, with whom he had worked on numerous occasions over the previous two years. Mosley described his responsibilities at the job site as those of a foreman, working under the direction of Silas and supervising the other four workers. Mosley roomed with Silas at the motel and drove to and from work with Silas in the latter's truck.

Mosley testified that he quickly developed a dislike of Linde, whom he described as a belligerent fellow, "disruptive towards everyone" at the job site and not a good welder.

Their respective responsibilities soon brought them into conflict. Mosley's duties included "hanging iron." He would raise and place three-by-twenty-foot sheets of corrugated steel on girders and mark them where they were to be welded to the bar joists below. It was then Linde's job to weld the sheets to the joists. Mosley testified that Linde would burn completely through the joists. Linde testified that he burned unnecessary holes because the decking was marked incorrectly.

Whatever the cause, the disagreements between the two men reached a boiling point on October 23, 2001, only Mosley's second or third day on the job. Linde testified that he had had to re-mark a lot of decking that had been wrongly marked. He said that after five hours of picking up the sheets to determine the position of the joists underneath, he became annoyed and started cussing and complaining. The tension between the two ironworkers escalated when Mosley removed a work-welding shirt that Linde had placed on a piece of iron. According to Mosley, he removed the shirt and "laid it on the deck." Linde testified that he noticed the shirt "laying in a puddle of water" and asked who had put it there, at which point Mosley came up swearing and screaming that he had put it there. Mosley's version of the incident was that Linde approached him from behind, cussing and wanting to know who the "jackass" was who had thrown his shirt down.

In any event, words were exchanged, and then the two began to scuffle. Silas jumped between them, attempting to break it up, but Mosley shoved him out of the way and threw Linde to the ground. Mosley testified that he was "pretty much going to beat the heck out of him" until Silas and another man grabbed and restrained him. The dispute ended, and the two men shook hands, acknowledging that they can "fight one minute and everything is okay the next." Mosley went right back to work, but Linde was in a great deal of pain and concerned about his knee. He said that he had undergone five previous surgeries on his right leg, and felt certain that his knee was "torn out." Linde, wanting medical attention, borrowed a car and drove to the motel to retrieve his ironworker's insurance card. Unable to find it, he returned to the job site, where Silas advised him to call his wife in Florida for the insurance information and go to a clinic. He then did go to the clinic, but testified that the clinic would not accept him for treatment. Linde drove back to the work site. Silas told him to go back to the motel to see whether the swelling in his knee would subside, and to return to work the next day.

At the Susse Chalet, the desk clerk asked Linde what had happened and suggested that he call the police. Detective Lisa St. Angelo of the Smithfield Police Department² testified that she went to the Susse Chalet in Smithfield at about 5:20 p.m. on October 23, 2001, for a possible assault complaint. She said that Linde initially was very upset, but calmed down when she spoke with him. Detective St. Angelo further testified that Linde told her that he had injured his knee during an altercation on the job earlier in the day and that he had wrapped it up because it was gushing with blood. When she asked to see the knee, she did not observe any injury or swelling. The defendant later denied telling the police officer that his knee was gushing with blood. To investigate the complaint fully, Det. St. Angelo then went to the work site to talk to witnesses. There, she spoke with Silas and Mosley; Mosley confirmed that he and Linde had been involved in an altercation. She then returned to the Susse Chalet and spoke again with Linde. She informed him that if he wanted to continue to press charges she would have to arrest both him and Mosley because both appeared to be mutually responsible for the fracas. At that point, Linde informed her that he did not wish to pursue the criminal complaint. Linde also told her that he would not cause any problems when the other workers returned to the motel that night and that he planned to return to Florida at the end of the week.

Frank Parrillo, the motel clerk, testified that at some point after the police officer left, he contacted Linde in his room because he saw that Linde was incurring long-distance telephone charges and wanted to inform him that he probably would be responsible for these charges. Linde told him that he was just calling his wife to tell her that he would be coming home as soon as he had the money to travel to Florida. Parrillo further noted that when he initially spoke with him, Linde appeared "very soft-spoken, gentlemanly." He seemed "resigned to the fact that he got hurt," and was not resentful. When Parrillo spoke again with defendant about the phone charges, Linde told him that he would seek medical attention for his knee when he returned to Florida. Detective St. Angelo, however, had observed that Linde had enlarged pupils and seemed dazed, prompting her to ask whether he was on drugs or medication. The defendant denied that, and the police officer said she did not detect any smell of alcohol.

The defendant did, however, resort to self-medication for the pain in his knee. He testified that he drank two bottles of vodka and a bottle of Smirnoff malt liquor and became intoxicated.³ After finishing those, he drank some coolers and looked for more alcohol because he "was still pretty much in pain." He searched in the nightstand in his motel room, which he had not opened before, and came across his roommate's 9 mm handgun.⁴ Michael Linde testified that Shane Roberts had found this gun while moving from California to Florida, and that he kept it in his motel room at the Susse Chalet.

Shortly after 10 p.m., the truck with Silas and Daniel Mosley pulled into the parking lot of the Susse Chalet in Smithfield and parked under a streetlight. From this point on the account of events given by Linde differs significantly from those given by other witnesses.

In his initial statement to the police at 3:06 a.m. on October 24, 2001, Linde said that he was in a grassy area adjacent to the parking lot, playing with a dog, when Silas and Mosley returned. He said he approached the truck and informed Silas that he needed to go to the hospital. He also said that, at that point, Mosley came around the side of the truck, told him "it could have been...