State v. Schmeiderer, No. M2007-01922-CCA-R3-DD (Tenn. Crim. App. 4/9/2009)
| Decision Date | 09 April 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. M2007-01922-CCA-R3-DD.,M2007-01922-CCA-R3-DD. |
| Parties | STATE OF TENNESSEE v. JOEL RICHARD SCHMEIDERER. |
| Court | Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals |
Sharon D. Aizer, Columbia, Tennessee (on appeal); Claudia S. Jack, Shipp Weems, and Michelle VanDeRee, Columbia, Tennessee (at trial) for the Defendant, Joel Richard Schmeiderer.
Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General; James E. Gaylord, Assistant Attorney General; Mike Bottoms, District Attorney General; Joel Douglas Dicus and Patrick S. Butler, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the Appellee, State of Tennessee.
Robert W. Wedemeyer, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which James Curwood Witt, Jr., and J.C. McLin, JJ., joined.
A Maury County jury convicted the Defendant, Joel Richard Schmeiderer, of premeditated first degree murder, and it sentenced him to death. On appeal, the Defendant claims: (1) the trial court erred when it denied his motion for a continuance; (2) the trial court erred when it conducted voir dire; (3) the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction; (4) the trial court erred when it allowed the State to enter and argue non-statutory aggravating circumstances during the penalty phase of the trial; (5) the prosecutor's closing argument constituted misconduct and plain error; (6) the death penalty was imposed arbitrarily and is excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases; (7) the Tennessee death penalty statute is unconstitutional; (8) the Tennessee death penalty statute is applied in a cruel and unusual way; and (9) the trial court violated the Defendant's constitutional right to present mitigation evidence. After a thorough review of the record and the applicable law, we affirm the conviction and the sentence of death.
A Maury County Grand Jury indicted the Defendant for first degree murder on July 26, 2001. On January 9, 2003, the Defendant filed a motion to continue his trial, which was set for February 3, 2003. The trial court granted the motion and reset the trial for May 3, 2004. The Defendant filed a second motion to continue on April 28, 2004, citing a need for more time to conduct mental evaluations. The trial court held a hearing on the Defendant's second motion to continue, at which the Defendant presented the following evidence: Dr. Stephen Montgomery, a forensic psychiatrist, testified that he examined the Defendant for ninety minutes at Riverbend Maximum Security Prison on April 20, 2004. He interviewed the Defendant, took note of the Defendant's current and past psychiatric symptoms, and performed a mental status examination on the Defendant. Dr. Montgomery said, "The only significant finding was that [the Defendant's] . . . range of emotional expression appeared to be somewhat incongruent with the situation he was facing and the topics that we were discussing." Dr. Montgomery continued, "[I]t appeared to [me] he approached . . . [the situation he faced] . . . in a somewhat nonchalant and jovial way instead of a serious way."
Dr. Montgomery testified that he received some of the Defendant's school, medical, and legal records from Dr. Ann Charvat, who was the defense team's mitigation specialist. He told the court that he had not received all of the records and that his evaluation would not be final without them. Discussing the Defendant's medical history, Dr. Montgomery testified that the Defendant "suffered a possible head injury in 1982, when he fell down the stairs breaking his nose." In 1995, the Defendant voluntarily committed himself to Cumberland Hall Psychiatric Facility, where he underwent an electroencephalogram ("EEG"). The EEG results were considered "abnormal," and, according to Dr. Montgomery, "This would mean or could possibly mean that [the Defendant] has some impairment or dysfunction in his brain." Dr. Montgomery said the Defendant's physicians recommended a "CAT" scan of his head to get a more detailed evaluation. In 1998, the Bedford County Medical Center "noted [the Defendant] to be stuporous and lethargic, with a drug screen positive for cannabis and some other unidentified substance." Accordingly, the Defendant's physicians again recommended a "CAT" scan of the Defendant's head. Dr. Montgomery said the Defendant suffered additional injuries while he was incarcerated, and he concluded that the Defendant needed further neurological and neurophysiological evaluations. He estimated this testing would take eight to ten weeks.
Dr. Montgomery explained the possible connection between a brain injury and the Defendant's alleged conduct involved in this case by stating that damage to the frontal lobes of a person's brain could cause that person to "act in a rash, impulsive manner." He said such an injury, coupled with stress, could interfere with the Defendant's ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or conform it to social standards.
On cross-examination, Dr. Montgomery said defense counsel contacted him three to four months before his testimony at this pre-trial hearing. He testified he saw no indication the Defendant was incompetent to stand trial or mentally retarded. Dr. Montgomery acknowledged that an abnormal EEG did not necessarily indicate brain damage or abnormality. He opined that during his interview with the Defendant, the Defendant was somewhat defensive and denied having a psychiatric disorder. Dr. Montgomery testified that defensiveness and denial indicate conscious decision-making, which is inconsistent with brain damage.
Dr. Ann Marie Charvat, the defense team's mitigation specialist, testified that she worked to "explain[] the context within which the crime occurred" and to "identif[y] the social influences beyond the control of the individual." Dr. Charvat said she began working on the Defendant's case one year before the hearing and performed an assessment of the Defendant, collected documents, interviewed the Defendant's mother, and collected the Defendant's school, medical, and legal records. Dr. Charvat said she usually tried to identify five themes in a defendant's past that help provide the "context" of the crime: (1) dysfunctional family; (2) community response; (3) institutional involvement; (4) cognitive or emotional disorders; and (5) distortion of perception with respect to the "failure of the social institutions to adequately socialize a person." Dr. Charvat stated that there were "a number of irregularities about [the Defendant's] family . . . ." She stated that, without a complete psychological evaluation, her mitigation evaluation was incomplete. On cross-examination, Dr. Charvat stated she had interviewed very few witnesses, and she described her future interviews as "necessary." She also sought additional records in order to complete her evaluations
After hearing the evidence, the trial court denied the Defendant's motion to continue the Defendant's trial date.
The Defendant was indicted for the first degree murder of Tom Harris, which occurred on July 11, 2001, while the victim and the Defendant were housed at South Central Correctional Center ("SCCC"). At the Defendant's trial, the State presented the following evidence: Daniel Eugene Devers testified that, on July 11, 2001, he was acting as the 2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. shift supervisor at SCCC when inmate Harris was found strangled in his cell with a sock around his neck. Officer Devers described the incident saying that, around 8:30 p.m., he was alerted to a situation in Apollo B Pod of the prison, and when he went to cell 201 he observed Sergeant Hallman inside the cell and a body, which had blood on its rib area, lying on its side on the floor. Officer Devers also noticed blood on the floor. He said that the officers rolled the body over to see the face and noticed that the victim's head was "blue from the neck up" and that there was a standard prison issued sock around the victim's neck. The officers removed the body, and the prison guards then searched each cell in Apollo B Pod.
Officer Devers said that SCCC housed around 1650 inmates at a time and that there were generally two inmates housed in each cell. The prisoners were locked in their cells seven times a day to be counted. The prisoners were also locked in their cells between 9:15 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Officer Devers explained that each inmate had a key that opened his own cell door.
On cross-examination, Devers testified that some prison inmates exchanged keys to their respective cells and that others jammed their cell doors open so the cell could be entered without a key. The officer said that, when the guards searched all the cells in Apollo B Pod, they found bloody items in cells 104, 118, 122, and 224.
SCCC guard Chris Sawyer testified that he responded to the call for help on July 11, 2001. He helped to secure each inmate and to transport the victim's body to the hospital. The victim was pronounced dead shortly after the ambulance left the prison. After returning from the hospital, Sawyer helped search the cells. While searching cell 120, Sawyer found a pair of standard prison issued blue pants that appeared to have blood on them. Sawyer turned those pants over to Sergeant Rodriguez to deliver to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation ("TBI"). On cross-examination, Sawyer elaborated that, when he helped lock down the prison, he locked the doors, secured the cells, and made sure there were two inmates in each cell.
Sergeant Omar Rodriguez testified that, after he heard about the incident in Apollo B Pod, the prison began locking down the units. Then, officers gathered to search every cell in Apollo B Pod. The teams were instructed to bring back to Sergeant Rodriguez...
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