State v. Newton
| Decision Date | 25 January 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 2003-0565.,2003-0565. |
| Parties | The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. NEWTON, Appellant. |
| Court | Ohio Supreme Court |
James J. Mayer Jr., Richland County Prosecuting Attorney, John Randolph Spon Jr., Assistant Prosecuting Attorney; Jim Petro, Attorney General, and Michael L. Collyer and Kirsten L. Pscholka-Gartner, Assistant Attorneys General, for appellee.
David H. Bodiker, Ohio Public Defender, and Joseph E. Wilhelm, Stephen A. Ferrell, and Robert K. Lowe, Assistant Public Defenders, for appellant.
{¶ 1} Between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. on November 15, 2001, defendant-appellant, Christopher J. Newton, an inmate at the Mansfield Correctional Institution ("MANCI"), beat and strangled his cellmate, Jason Brewer, causing his death. A grand jury indicted Newton for the aggravated murder of Brewer with prior calculation and design, R.C. 2903.01(A). A single R.C. 2929.04(A)(4) death-penalty specification alleged that Newton had committed the murder while he was under detention.
{¶ 2} Newton waived a jury trial and elected to be tried by a three-judge panel. Newton pleaded guilty as charged, and the state presented evidence establishing his guilt as required by R.C. 2945.06 and Crim.R. 11(C)(3). The panel found Newton guilty as charged. Following a penalty-phase hearing, the panel imposed the death penalty.
{¶ 3} In June 1992, Newton was sentenced to five to 15 years in prison for attempted aggravated burglary. Within a few weeks of his release on parole in 1999, he broke into his father's house. As a result, his parole was revoked, and he was sentenced to an additional concurrent eight-to-15-year prison sentence. In August 1999, Newton told a mental-health professional that he was going to kill someone in prison so that he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
{¶ 4} On October 16, 2001, Newton, claiming that another inmate had threatened to stab him, requested that he be placed in protective custody. He was assigned to cell 115 with Brewer in a section of MANCI reserved for inmates who request special protection. Brewer was 27 years old, five feet, 11 inches tall, and weighed 130 pounds. Newton was 32 years old, five feet, 11 inches tall, and weighed between 195 and 225 pounds.
{¶ 5} On November 15, 2001, around 5:10 a.m., MANCI correctional officers ("COs") Gregory Ditmars, John Vesper, and Shane Douglas responded to a disturbance in cell 115. Brewer was lying still on the floor in a puddle of blood with a piece of orange cloth wrapped around his neck. Newton was laughing and had blood smeared all over his face. MANCI nurse Trena Butcher testified that when she examined Newton, he told her that he had "painted himself with the victim's blood and had also ingested the victim's blood as part of the ritual when you kill someone."
{¶ 6} MANCI nurse Diane Burson testified that when she responded to cell 115, Brewer was not breathing and had no pulse. Burson and responding paramedics worked diligently, and eventually Brewer's heart began to beat. Ditmars testified that while medical personnel were trying to save Brewer's life, Newton was laughing and yelling, " " According to Douglas, Newton said, " " Nurse Butcher recalls Newton periodically shouting to the paramedics, "`Stop, let the fucker die.'" State Highway Patrol Trooper Doug Hamman described Newton as singing, "`[T]here is nothing like the taste of fresh blood in the morning.'"
{¶ 7} Newton told Ditmars that he had killed his cellmate and had drunk his blood. Vesper recalled Newton's saying that he had killed Brewer by choking him and beating his head on the floor. Douglas testified that Newton said that he had hit Brewer earlier that night and had seen the fear in his eyes and knew he was going to kill Brewer before the night was over.
{¶ 8} After paramedics established a heartbeat, Brewer was taken to MedCentral Hospital, then flown to the Ohio State University Medical Center, where he was declared brain dead around 2:30 p.m. After an autopsy, Dr. Dorothy Dean, a forensic pathologist, concluded that Brewer had died from a ligature strangulation. Brewer also suffered other injuries to his head and body consistent with his having been kicked or stomped on.
{¶ 9} After the assault, Newton told Lieutenant Hilbert Mealey, a MANCI CO, that he had allowed Brewer to lie dead for an hour in the cell because Newton knew that paramedics would try to save his life. Newton told Mealey that he had more fun in prison than on the outside. MANCI Lieutenant Joe Albert recalled that Newton had seemed very happy and had repeatedly asked, " " Newton also said, "[I]f he is not dead, I hope he is going to be a vegetable."
{¶ 10} Although Albert did not want to interview him, Newton was adamant about making a statement. Albert advised Newton of his Miranda rights, and Newton waived them. Newton described how he had choked and assaulted Brewer starting around 3:45 a.m. Using a razor blade, Newton had cut a strip off an orange jumpsuit and had used that strip to strangle Brewer.
{¶ 11} In Newton's cell, COs found four letters addressed to various prison officials, dated November 14, in which Newton stated that he had lied to obtain protective custody. He stated that his real reason for requesting protective custody was to "take care of a little problem," and the job was now done. Newton authenticated the letters by his bloody fingerprints and referred to himself as "Satan's Messenger, 666."
{¶ 12} On the morning of the murder, November 15, Trooper Smith advised Newton of his Miranda rights, and Newton signed a written waiver of those rights. Newton told Smith that another inmate had hired him to beat up Brewer and that at around 10:00 p.m. the previous evening, while he and Brewer were playing chess, they argued, and then he struck Brewer. They both stayed awake, and Newton spent time making a rope so that he could strangle Brewer. Around 3:30 a.m., as Brewer was going to sleep, Newton pulled Brewer out of bed and hit his head against the floor and stomped on his head twice. Newton then strangled Brewer with the rope he had made, until it broke. Newton punched Brewer in the face a few times and then cut a strip off a prison jumpsuit and strangled Brewer with it. Then Newton stomped on Brewer's head again.
{¶ 13} Although Brewer begged, "Please don't kill me," Newton estimates that he stomped Brewer's head with his foot between five and ten times. He also stomped on his throat and chest a few times. After Newton finished assaulting Brewer, he smeared Brewer's blood on his face and licked the blood off his hands. After 30 minutes or so, he called to a CO and said, "[W]elcome to the house of death!" Newton also stated that he knew he would die in prison and hoped for the death penalty.
{¶ 14} On November 18, Newton wrote an 11-page letter relating details of the murder. In a Highway Patrol interview on November 19, 2001, Newton admitted that he had lied in claiming that an inmate had hired him to assault Brewer. He had never met or heard of Brewer before they were placed in the cell together. Newton said that he and Brewer had been sexually intimate, and that when he woke up Brewer that night, he had said, According to Newton, Brewer ignored him, which made Newton angry. Although Newton had already decided to kill Brewer, he said that he "needed that kicker [the refusal] * * * to start, start the rage."
{¶ 15} At the guilt phase of the trial, Newton, after pleading guilty, presented no evidence.
{¶ 16} At the penalty phase, the defense asserted that Newton's background and his mental illness were mitigating factors.
{¶ 17} Newton's brother David Newton and his sister, Lisa Newton, described Newton as the youngest of five sons and one daughter born to Jean and Lynn Newton. Their parents worked opposite shifts, and their mother operated an antique store and was also frequently gone. Their parents communicated with each other only by yelling or arguing. Their father was strict and imposed discipline with a belt, but their permissive mother did not follow through on punishments that had been imposed.
{¶ 18} According to David, their father had little patience with Newton, whom David described as a "lost and disturbed" child with "bizarre" behavior. Newton was impulsive, and his very few friends were "misfits." Newton's mother spoiled the children and was overprotective, particularly with Newton. Whenever Newton misbehaved, their mother always blamed the other children.
{¶ 19} The children used drugs and drank heavily. David testified that he "was in fights continuously all through junior high" and took drugs and drank heavily for years. But David admitted that none of his other siblings were in prison and that they all worked for a living.
{¶ 20} Lisa describes the Newton family household as constantly in turmoil, with verbal, physical, and mental abuse and arguing. Their mother was very religious but very lenient, and their father was very harsh, imposing discipline in the house by severely whipping the children with a belt. Because their parents were frequently absent, the children did whatever they wanted. Lisa also testified that her father had abused her sexually when she was a teenager.
{¶ 21} Newton was different from the other children when he was growing up, and he started getting into trouble at a very early age. When the family went on vacation, they left Newton to stay with their grandmother. The other children called Newton "Pyro" because he had set their home on fire when he was five or six years old,...
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