State v. Sheffield

• Decision Date: 27 August 1984
• Citation: 676 S.W.2d 542
• Parties: STATE of Tennessee, Appellee, v. Hubert Lloyd SHEFFIELD, Appellant. 676 S.W.2d 542
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 542

676 S.W.2d 542

STATE of Tennessee, Appellee, v. Hubert Lloyd SHEFFIELD, Appellant.

676 S.W.2d 542

Supreme Court of Tennessee,

at Jackson.

Aug. 27, 1984.

William M. Leech, Jr., Atty. Gen., Gordon W. Smith, Asst. Atty. Gen., Nashville, for appellee.

A.C. Wharton, Jr., Shelby County Public Defender, Edward G. Thompson, Robert W. Jones, W. Mark Ward, Asst. Public Defenders, Memphis, for appellant.

OPINION

FONES, Justice.

This is a direct appeal of a death penalty case. Defendant was convicted of first degree murder in the perpetration of rape and sentenced to death upon the jury's finding of three aggravating circumstances, to wit: subsections 2, 5 and 7 of T.C.A. Sec. 39-2-203(i), and no mitigating circumstances.

I.

Ruby Marlar and her husband Hill Marlar lived on Addison Street near the National Cemetery in Memphis. Their house was just a half block from Whittier Street, where defendant and his friend William Pratere, one of the principal witnesses, lived.

On New Year's Eve, December 31, 1979, Mr. and Mrs. Marlar began celebrating about 5:00 p.m. They visited Nita's Lounge, the Viaduct Lounge and Knight's Cafe, where Mrs. Marlar worked part time but she was not working on New Year's Eve. About 2:00 a.m. Mr. Marlar went home, by mutual agreement, having made arrangements for someone to drive Mrs. Marlar home. Mr. Marlar had been asleep about two hours when he heard his wife knocking at the door, but by the time he opened it, she was gone. He was not disturbed because her brother lived about one and a half blocks away and on previous occasions she had walked to her brother's house and spent the night. If that was her destination that morning, she did not get there because she had an encounter with defendant, "Butch" Sheffield, or his friend Gary Haning, or both of them. Her body was discovered beside a dirt road near Lakeland Lake in Shelby County, on January 5, 1980, with a seven inch incision to her neck that almost severed her head from her body and, of course, caused her death. Tests revealed seminal fluid and sperm in her vagina and anus and saliva on her breast and a blood alcohol level of 0.51%.

Gary Haning testified that he had been given a life sentence for his participation in the murder of Mrs. Marlar and that the State had made no deal with him other than that he would not be incarcerated in the same facility as defendant and that the attorney general would write the parole board to the effect that he had testified under "difficult circumstances."

Gary Haning's version of the events that culminated in the murder of Ruby Marlar was that he had gone to sleep at Mike Pratere's house, woke up cold, went to the heater, fell and burned his leg and back; that Mike and defendant came in about 3:00 a.m., defendant left for a while and Mike bandaged his burns. Defendant returned within thirty or forty minutes and told him that he had a drunk lady in the car and wanted his help to "con" her out of her money or otherwise take it from her, to which he agreed. He testified that he got in the back seat of defendant's car and defendant drove the three of them out Summer Avenue toward Ellendale. He denied that he had known Ruby Marlar before and said that the lady was mad because her husband would not let her in the house and that defendant had told him he found her walking down the street; that defendant was ostensibly complying with her request to drive her to her mother's home in Ellendale; that when they passed the turn-off to her mother's house she was upset but defendant told her that he wanted her to go to the door of a house near Lakeland and get a girl to come out, because her father would not allow her to go out with defendant.

Haning testified that the lady "was drunker than both of us," and defendant drove down near a dock on Ellendale Lake, stopped where they could just see the top of a building that looked like a house and tried to get the lady to leave the car and get his girlfriend to come out. She refused to do that but she accepted Haning's invitation to join him in the back seat and they "began to have sex." Defendant was in the front seat, rolled a joint and rifled the victim's purse. When Haning heard the purse hit the floorboard, he stopped having sex and got out of the car. Defendant then got in the rear seat with the victim and after a few minutes Haning heard and saw defendant beating the victim with his fist. He said defendant was beating her because she objected to his "going at her from behind." Haning weighed one hundred and ten pounds and defendant weighed two hundred and ten or more, but Haning said he remonstrated with defendant and told him he should not treat the victim that way. According to Haning, defendant got out of the car and told the victim to get out, whereupon he grabbed her by the hair and cut her throat. Haning testified that he could not believe what he had seen. That he was sick, surprised and shocked. He said that defendant drug the victim a short distance down the road, threw out a number of Miller beer cans from the car and they drove away. Haning testified that as they drove away he heard the victim making noises like she was drowning.

Haning admitted that he had told the police on various occasions, and testified to, different versions of the events of that evening but insisted that his stories had been consistent except that he had left himself out as a participant in various episodes in an attempt to "beat" his case. He also admitted that he had thrown his hunting knife away in a field near Ripley, Tennessee, shortly after the date of the murder.

Mike Pratere had only known defendant a few months prior to December 31, 1979; but he and defendant had worked together, contracting and performing painting and flooring jobs. They resided in houses that were only a half block apart on Whittier Street. Pratere testified that he had met Haning for the first time that New Year's Eve when he and defendant stopped by the Haning residence about 10:00 p.m. He described in great detail a fight between Haning and his pregnant wife, highlighted by her breaking the T.V., throwing a machete and firing a gun as the three men left the Haning residence. According to Pratere, Mrs. Haning was upset about the men drinking beer and because her husband and defendant were talking about going to Mississippi and stealing some boat motors.

Pratere said that he, defendant and Haning went to Pratere's house and left Haning there while he and defendant went to the hospital to be with his diabetic wife at midnight. After the hospital visit he and defendant stopped at the Krystal near Sears to eat and eventually went to the home of a girlfriend of defendant's, Diane Arnold. They left Diane Arnold's house about 4:00 a.m. and drove the short distance to Pratere's house on a flat tire. They discovered that Haning had awakened from his drunken sleep and fallen over a gas heater and burned his right side and back. Pratere further tracked Haning's testimony to the effect that he doctored Haning's burns while defendant was gone to get his own car. Pratere testified that Haning began playing around with a knife and started throwing it in the house. That provoked an argument between them; and when defendant returned, he took Haning's side of the argument; and after whispering something to Haning, the two of them left and Pratere went to bed.

Pratere testified that he dozed off and was awakened by a dog barking and screams; that he looked out into the street, at an angle in the direction of Ruby Marlar's house ¹ and saw defendant holding a woman and Haning with a knife to her throat and "she was like a rag doll when they threw her in the car." He elaborated that "Well, to me, you know, it looked like her throat got cut. To me. That's the way it looked at the time. But she got as limp as a rag and they threw her in the car." Pratere said they drove off toward the National Cemetery and came back about two hours later, around daybreak, and woke him up. Pratere testified that Haning and defendant's clothes were bloody and when he asked what happened defendant said he ran over somebody.

On cross examination Pratere acknowledged that in relating an earlier account of those events he had said that he went out to his front yard clad only in his underclothing and started to go across the street where Haning, defendant and the woman were but fell in a ditch; that his next door neighbor, Sidney Gattis, a part time preacher, was standing in his yard and witnessed the throat cutting, the throwing of the limp woman in the car and the departure of the three of them.

Sidney Gattis was called as a witness and said that he was at home that evening with his wife and two children and neither heard anything unusual nor saw anything unusual during the night or early morning hours of that New Year's Eve and Day.

Defendant took the stand and gave a different version of his activities and those of Haning and Pratere during the critical morning hours of 4:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. He testified that after he transferred the license tags from Pratere's car with a flat tire, to his car, he got more beer, drove Haning around looking for a "joint" for Haning and finally returned to Pratere's house. Pratere was passed out drunk, defendant had had enough, but Haning wanted to continue looking for a "joint," or to go to his house where he had hundreds of pills. Haning asked to use defendant's car, defendant gave his consent, and when Haning left defendant went to sleep on the couch in Pratere's living room. Defendant was awakened about daybreak, approximately 6:00 a.m., by Haning knocking to get in. That testimony, of course, sent Haning out alone in defendant's car for the critical hours when the murder was committed.

At approximately 7:30 a.m. on January 1, 1980, a fire was observed just inside the wall at the National Cemetery. It was extinguished and found to be a woman's purse containing a still legible...