State v. McGuire
| Citation | 490 S.E.2d 912,200 W.Va. 823 |
| Decision Date | 18 July 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. 23671,23671 |
| Court | Supreme Court of West Virginia |
| Parties | STATE of West Virginia, Plaintiff Below, Appellee, v. Lorie Ann McGUIRE, Defendant Below, Appellant. |
1. Syl. Pt. 15, State v. Bradshaw, 193 W.Va. 519, 457 S.E.2d 456 (1995).
2. As a general proposition, a defendant is entitled to an instruction as to any recognized defense for which there exists evidence sufficient for a reasonable jury to find in his favor.
3. Gross provocation and heat of passion are not essential elements of voluntary manslaughter, and, therefore, they need not be proven by evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. It is intent without malice, not heat of passion, which is the distinguishing feature of voluntary manslaughter.
4. Syl. Pt. 4, State v. Hughes, 197 W.Va. 518, 476 S.E.2d 189 (1996).
Scott F. Reynolds, Prosecuting Attorney, Diana L. Crutchfield, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, Moundsville, for Appellee.
Wray V. Voegelin, Donald J. Tennant, Jr., Cassidy, Myers, Cogan, Voegelin & Tennant, Wheeling, for Appellant.
The defendant below and Appellant herein, Lorie Ann McGuire (hereinafter Appellant), appeals the January 3, 1996, order of the Circuit Court of Marshall County which vacated its prior sentencing order 1 and sentenced Appellant to ten years imprisonment for Appellant's conviction by jury of voluntary manslaughter of her newborn daughter. 2 On appeal, Appellant argues the trial court committed a number of instructional errors. Appellant also asserts that she was denied the right to be present at a critical stage of the proceedings, was prohibited from offering certain psychiatric testimony, and was wrongfully denied credit for the time she served on home confinement while released on pretrial bail. After review of the errors alleged by Appellant, we affirm her conviction and the final order of the trial court.
At the time of the tragic events of this case, Appellant was a twenty-one-year old college student attending West Virginia Northern Community College. Both Appellant and her fourteen-month-old daughter lived with Appellant's parents in Marshall County. On Wednesday, February 8, 1995, at approximately 3:00 or 3:30 a.m., Appellant gave birth to a baby girl in Appellant's bedroom located on the first floor of her parent's house. Up until this time, Appellant never told her parents that she was pregnant, and, although Appellant's mother was asleep in a bedroom on the second floor, Appellant never alerted her mother to the fact she was giving birth.
At trial, Appellant testified she believed the baby was stillborn. Allegedly acting upon this belief, Appellant wrapped the baby in a towel, took the baby to the basement, and placed the baby in an operating woodstove to dispose of the baby's body. Appellant then went back upstairs and took a bath. After bathing, Appellant apparently decided it would be better to bury the baby's body. Therefore, she went back to the basement, retrieved the baby's severely burnt body from the woodstove, and wrapped the body in a plastic garbage bag. Appellant then placed the baby in the trunk of her car because the ground was frozen and she could not dig a hole until the ground thawed. The next morning, Appellant went to her college classes as if nothing happened. 3 Appellant consistently has maintained the baby was dead at birth and described the baby as not moving and being blue in appearance.
According to the testimony of Appellant's "best friend," Jodi Mangino, Appellant stopped by her house later that day, and told Ms. Mangino that she had something to show her. Ms. Mangino testified that Appellant appeared happy and lifted up the front of her The next evening, Ms. Mangino and Appellant spoke over the phone, and Ms. Mangino encouraged Appellant to go see a doctor. Again, there was no discussion about the status of the baby, but Ms. Mangino testified Appellant showed no signs of crying, sadness, sorrow, or regret during either of their conversations. Thereafter, Ms. Mangino placed an anonymous phone call to the sheriff's department and explained to an officer that a friend of hers had given birth and she believed "something bad might have happened." Ms. Mangino refused to give the officer either her name or Appellant's name so the officer requested her to call back the next day and speak with a detective. 5
[200 W.Va. 827] shirt to reveal she was no longer pregnant. 4 According to Ms. Mangino, Appellant explained she gave birth about 3:30 a.m. and, afterwards, turned over her mattress, sat in the tub for an hour, and was able to attend school that day. Appellant also told Ms. Mangino she continued to have contractions while at school, causing her to grip her desk so hard that "her hands were turning white...." Ms. Mangino did not ask Appellant about the baby, apparently because Appellant told her that she did not want to know anything else
After classes the next day, Ms. Mangino called the police and spoke with Dan Livingston, an investigator with the Marshall County Sheriff's Department. During the conversation, Ms. Mangino told Officer Livingston both her name and Appellant's name, and she, along with two other women who knew Appellant, met with Officer Livingston later in the evening. According to Ms. Mangino, Officer Livingston said he needed to speak with some other people because the allegations were based only on her report. Therefore, Ms. Mangino decided to call Appellant the next day and tape record their conversation.
Ms. Mangino testified that during this conversation, Appellant stated she did not go to the doctor, but she told her mother that she was two months pregnant and suffered a miscarriage. Ms. Mangino asked Appellant if the baby was dead and Appellant responded yes. Ms. Mangino then asked Appellant what she did with the baby, and Appellant said she put the baby in the trunk of her car and was going to wait until the ground thawed to bury the baby. Appellant also told Ms. Mangino that she thought about throwing the baby over a hill in a trash bag, but she feared the dogs might bring it back, and she considered putting the baby in a dumpster, but she decided against it as well. During the conversation, Appellant never mentioned that she already had burned the baby's body in the woodstove. Ms. Mangino took the tape recording of the conversation to Officer Livingston.
Thereafter, Officer Livingston and two other police officers went to the McGuire residence to conduct an investigation. When they arrived, Appellant was not there, but Officer Livingston explained the circumstances to her mother. Appellant's mother gave him permission to search the house.
Apparently before the search could begin, Appellant arrived home. Officer Livingston read Appellant her rights while another officer went with Appellant's mother to conduct the search. At first, Appellant denied the pregnancy, but when her mother returned crying after discovering Appellant's blood-stained mattress, Appellant said she had a miscarriage. The officers eventually discovered the baby's frozen and burnt body in the trunk of Appellant's car, wrapped in the towel and the garbage bag. The baby's body was taken to Wheeling Medical Center for an autopsy. 6 After authorities learned from the autopsy that the baby was born alive, Appellant was arrested and charged with murder. In defense of the murder charge, Appellant argued at trial she was not guilty by reason of insanity, she was not guilty of any offense greater than involuntary manslaughter because she believed the baby was dead when she placed her in the woodstove, or she was not guilty because the baby was, in fact, dead at birth. After hearing the evidence, the jury convicted Appellant of voluntary manslaughter.
JURY INSTRUCTIONS
Appellant asserts the trial court erred by denying five jury instructions submitted by defense counsel. 7 When called upon to review a trial court's rejection or acceptance of a specific jury instruction, this Court generally applies an abuse of discretion standard. State v. Guthrie, 194 W.Va. 657, 671 n. 12, 461 S.E.2d 163, 177 n. 12 (1995); State v. Derr, 192 W.Va. 165, 179, 451 S.E.2d 731, 745 (1994). Likewise, we provide broad discretion to a trial court's formulation of the wording of jury instructions. Syl. Pt. 6, in part, Tennant v. Marion Health Care Found., Inc., 194 W.Va. 97, 459 S.E.2d 374 (1995); Derr, 192 W.Va. at 179, 451 S.E.2d at 745. Our review of the legal correctness of a jury instruction, however, is performed de novo, 8 and, when a jury instruction is...
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...manslaughter is a lesser included offense of murder. See State v. Guthrie, 194 W.Va. 657, 461 S.E.2d 163 (1995) and State v. McGuire, 200 W.Va. 823, 490 S.E.2d 912 (1997). Therefore, we now proceed to consider whether there was evidence presented at trial that would tend to prove that the d......
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...question of whether a jury was properly instructed is a question of law, and the review is de novo."). See also State v. McGuire, 200 W.Va. 823, 828, 490 S.E.2d 912, 917 (1997) ("Our review of the legal correctness of a jury instruction ... is performed de novo[.]" (footnote omitted)); B.F.......
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