State v. Lloyd

• Decision Date: 10 August 2018
• Docket Number: No. 115,834,115,834
• Citation: 423 P.3d 517
• Parties: STATE of Kansas, Appellee, v. Jonell K. LLOYD, Appellant.
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

423 P.3d 517

STATE of Kansas, Appellee,

v.Jonell K. LLOYD, Appellant.

No. 115,834

Supreme Court of Kansas.

Opinion filed August 10, 2018.

Clayton J. Perkins, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, argued the cause and was on the briefs for appellant.

Lesley A. Isherwood, assistant district attorney, argued the cause, and Marc Bennett, district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, were with her on the brief for appellee.

The opinion of the court was delivered by ROSEN, J.:

Jonell K. Lloyd was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder, felony murder, and abuse of an infant victim. On direct appeal, this court affirmed his conviction but remanded the case to the trial court for resentencing, with a jury impaneled to make specific factual findings supporting or not supporting an enhanced sentence. He now appeals from the newly imposed sentence.

FACTS

The facts supporting the conviction were set out in State v. Lloyd , 299 Kan. 620, 325 P.3d 1122 (2014) :

"Chavira Brown was 17 months old when she was found dead in the attic of Lloyd's house. She was born to Jessica Jackson, who believed Lloyd was the child's father, so he occasionally watched Chavira. Lloyd lived with his girlfriend, Tameika Loudermilk, and their 8-month-old son.

"As Jackson testified at trial, Lloyd left her a voicemail message on July 31, 2008, saying he had lost Chavira at a city park. Jackson and her sister went to Lloyd's house, where he explained he had taken Chavira and his son to the park but lost her while changing the boy's diaper. Lloyd would later admit he fabricated this explanation. He later testified he lost Chavira at his house but did not want to say so because he sold drugs there. Jackson testified Lloyd asked the two women not to call the police because he had outstanding arrest warrants. Jackson's sister, however, reported the child missing, and then the two women went to the park to look for Chavira. Lloyd admits he left the house.

"When Jackson arrived at the park about 8 p.m., police officers were already there. After speaking with her, an officer drove Jackson to Lloyd's house, where the officer talked with Loudermilk, who initially denied knowing Lloyd. But after another person told officers Lloyd lived there, Loudermilk admitted Lloyd had been at the house, but she did not know his whereabouts and had not seen Chavira recently. Police arrested Loudermilk for obstruction and took her into custody, which led to a series of interviews at the police station that began after midnight. Loudermilk's statements to investigators and her trial testimony were central to the investigation and prosecution and play prominently in the conviction-related issues on appeal.

"Detective Brian Hightower first interviewed Loudermilk. She initially repeated that she did not know Chavira's whereabouts, but she did describe how Lloyd had shouted at Chavira because she wet herself. At 2:53 a.m., Officer Michael John Nagy took over the interview and admits he was ‘pretty rough’ in his questioning in order to get Loudermilk to tell where Chavira was. Nagy was aware Loudermilk's infant son was in protective custody after her arrest, so he told Loudermilk he would help get her son back from protective custody if she cooperated. He also told her she would ‘be in a world of hurt’ if she did not help locate Chavira. But Loudermilk offered no additional information. Nagy then changed tactics.

"Nagy told Loudermilk she would go to jail for a long time if something bad happened to Chavira; and, if that happened, her son would go into ‘the system’ and she would be unable to see him. Toward the end of this interview, Nagy told Loudermilk he was going to get the truth from another witness who had talked to Lloyd and knew what happened. Nagy told her to think about whether charging her with murder was fair to her and her son. He then left the room and Detective Lennie Rose entered. At around 4:45 a.m., Loudermilk made statements incriminating Lloyd—most critically, she said she thought Chavira was in the attic of the house.

"Officers secured a search warrant and discovered in the attic what they initially described as a black bag, which was actually a sofa cushion cover filled with three black plastic trash bags, one bag inside the other, and ‘knotted, tied.’ The innermost bag contained Chavira's body.

"The State charged Lloyd alternatively with first-degree premeditated murder and felony murder with the underlying felony of child abuse. It also charged him with child abuse.

"At trial, Loudermilk testified as a State witness. She said she was at home the day Chavira died and mainly stayed in her bedroom. She said she saw Lloyd in the living room hitting Chavira with a belt for about 20 minutes because the child had wet herself. Loudermilk did nothing to stop him. She said she walked through the living room later and saw Lloyd with his hand around the backside of Chavira's neck and heard her crying. Loudermilk returned to the bedroom, leaving the door partially open. She continued to hear Chavira crying. Loudermilk said she heard Chavira making noise for 10 to 15 minutes, as if Chavira could hardly breathe.

"Loudermilk said Lloyd then carried Chavira to the den at the back of the house. She said she did not know but thought Chavira was dead. Lloyd returned to the front of the house without Chavira, took trash bags from under the kitchen sink, and then went to Loudermilk's room, took her phone, and went back to the kitchen to make a call. Loudermilk said Lloyd paced back and forth until Jackson and her sister arrived. Loudermilk heard Lloyd tell Jackson, ‘It's going to be okay, we're going to find her.’ But before Lloyd left the house, Loudermilk said Lloyd told her, ‘You don't know Chavira and you haven't seen her.’

"After Lloyd left, Loudermilk said, he called and told her to pick up some jeans from the living room floor or else he would come back and kill her. She said she complied, putting the jeans in a plastic bag in her room. In their later search, officers found a trash bag containing a pair of jeans with what appeared to be attic insulation on them in a bedroom.

"Detective Rose testified after Loudermilk about the police interviews and what Loudermilk said. His testimony was largely consistent with Loudermilk's. Rose said Loudermilk told him that Chavira had been crying all day, that Lloyd spanked Chavira with his hand and belt after the child wet her pants, and that Loudermilk said she saw Lloyd holding Chavira down with his hand around her throat while Chavira made a choking sound. He quoted Loudermilk as saying, ‘That sound lasted for about an hour and then it stopped.’ Loudermilk also told him that after the noise stopped, Lloyd walked to a back room carrying Chavira; grabbed several kitchen bags; returned to the back room; asked for her cell phone; and then paced back and forth. Loudermilk also told Rose that two females came to the house and talked to Lloyd. She heard crying and ‘mention of something about the park and we'll find her.’

"After the State rested, Lloyd called Detective Hightower and Officer Nagy to testify about Loudermilk's police interview. Nagy explained what he told Loudermilk during the interview to prompt her cooperation. Lloyd then moved to strike testimony, claiming Loudermilk's statements were coerced....

"Lloyd testified in his defense and substantially contradicted Loudermilk's testimony. He told the jury on the day Chavira disappeared he needed to clean an area where he kept his 11 dogs. He said Loudermilk would not watch Chavira, so he brought the child with him. He said he put Chavira on the back porch, but she started crying, so he took her outside to a fenced-in backyard accessible from the street. Lloyd said he went into the house for cleaning supplies and when he returned, Chavira was gone. Lloyd testified he ran around the house and down the street but could not find her. He said he called Jackson to tell her what happened but could not reach her, so he called her friend and lied by telling her Chavira was lost in the park.

"Lloyd denied asking Loudermilk to pick up any clothes or threatening to kill her. He admitted spanking Chavira with a belt the day she disappeared, explaining she had wet the bed and this was his potty training process. But he said, aside from this spanking, he did not hurt Chavira or place her inside the trash bags where police found her body. He denied killing Chavira and did not know who did.

"Deputy Coroner Ronald Distefano performed Chavira's autopsy. He concluded she died of asphyxiation

, explaining this could have been caused by covering her mouth and nose; a constricting force around her neck; compression of her chest and abdomen; or an environment with limited or no oxygen. Distefano noted Chavira's asphyxiation caused brain swelling, which he said was a significant symptom because such swelling takes time to occur. He concluded the swelling indicated hours elapsed between death and the initial asphyxiationinjury to the brain. He also determined Chavira had early evolving pneumonia, which occurs when death is prolonged.

"The jury unanimously convicted Lloyd of first-degree murder under both prosecution theories: premeditated murder and felony murder in the course of child abuse. The jury also convicted him of child abuse." 299 Kan. at 622-26, 325 P.3d 1122.

In that appeal, Lloyd raised three issues asserting trial errors: the evidence at trial was insufficient to support a premeditated murder conviction; Loudermilk's pretrial statements and trial testimony were the products of coercion and should have been suppressed; and evidence of another crime should not have been admitted. A majority of this court rejected the asserted trial errors and affirmed the conviction. In...