State v. Smith
| Decision Date | 03 October 1994 |
| Citation | 893 S.W.2d 908 |
| Parties | STATE of Tennessee, Appellee, v. Sylvester SMITH, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Charles W. Burson, Atty. Gen. and Reporter, Kathy M. Principe, Sr. Counsel, Nashville, for appellee.
W. Mark Ward, Brock Mehler, Nashville, for appellant, on appeal.
The Defendant, Sylvester Smith, appeals directly to this Court his conviction of first-degree felony murder and the sentence of death imposed by the jury. The jury found three aggravating circumstances: (1) the Defendant was previously convicted of one or more felonies which involved the use or threat of violence to the person; (2) the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel in that it involved torture or depravity of mind; and (3) the murder was committed while the Defendant was engaged in committing a felony. T.C.A. § 39-2-203(i)(2), (5) and (7) (1982). The Defendant raises numerous issues in this appeal; but, after a careful review of the entire record and the law, a majority of the Court affirms the Defendant's guilt and his sentence of death. The verdict and judgment are supported by material evidence, and the sentence of death is in no way arbitrary or disproportionate.
The Defendant, Sylvester Smith, was convicted of the felony murder of Olive K. Brewer. Ms. Brewer, an elderly widow, lived by herself in a house on Winchester Road in Memphis, Shelby County. On Sunday, July 2, 1989, Ms. Brewer attended Sunday school and church and had lunch with a friend. Ms. Brewer left the restaurant around 1:30 p.m. and indicated to her friend that she was going to the grocery store before returning home. Ms. Brewer was wearing her diamond ring when she left the restaurant.
That evening, around 8:00, while answering a holdup alarm at a service station, Officer Steve Perry of the Memphis Police Department noticed a vehicle parked in the woods off Winchester next to Ms. Brewer's house. After answering the hold-up call, Perry returned to investigate the vehicle around 8:14 p.m. The automobile, a 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass, was stuck in the mud. Its engine was still warm. There was evidence someone had been trying to get the car out of the mud. Ms. Brewer's stereo and television were sitting on the ground outside the vehicle. A stereo or television stand was on the front seat of the car.
After learning that the vehicle was registered to the address of the house next door, Perry and another patrolman who had joined him, decided to check Ms. Brewer's residence. It was now about 8:30 p.m. and dusk. They found the back door of the darkened house ajar and the burglar alarm system disarmed. A room to room search of the house led to the discovery of Ms. Brewer's body lying in one and one-half to two inches of bloody water in the bathtub. A blue blanket was over her face, and her dress was pulled up above her hips. Ms. Brewer had been beaten over her entire body, and her throat had been cut twice. According to the forensic pathologist who testified for the State, either throat wound would have been fatal. The pathologist further stated that drowning had also played a role in her death.
There were large bloodstains at the head and foot of the bed in the front bedroom. Strips of torn sheet and a rope were lying on the floor of the bedroom. One of the strips was bloodsoaked. A used condom containing semen was found in the closet in the bedroom. One of a set of knives in a butcher block in the kitchen had type A human blood on it. The condition of another knife, found on a chair in the living room, prevented its being tested for blood. A grocery sack containing perishable items was sitting on top of a chair next to the door. Police found a crushed metal bucket and a woman's earring lying outside the door. The diamond ring which Ms. Brewer always wore was missing.
Fingerprints on the bathroom sink and on the front hood of the victim's car matched the Defendant's prints. The Defendant's sister, with whom he had lived at the time of the murder, identified the knife found on the chair in the victim's home as resembling a knife she had been missing. The Defendant's thirteen-year-old niece testified that the Defendant had told her that "he cut this lady's throat and put her in a bathtub full of water." She said that the Defendant had threatened to cut her throat if she told this to anyone.
Shortly after the murder, the Defendant had approached Willie Cox, an acquaintance, and asked if he would like to buy a lady's diamond ring and three necklaces from him. When Cox asked the Defendant where he had gotten the ring, the Defendant told him it had come "out of the lady's house on Winchester." The Defendant told Cox he had killed the woman because "he don't leave no witnesses." The Defendant said he had cut her throat, tied her hands and put her in the bathtub. The Defendant also told Cox that he had put an electric appliance in the tub with her.
When the Defendant was questioned about the murder a year later, in July of 1990, he denied any knowledge of the murder, denied knowing the victim, and denied ever being in her house. When confronted with the evidence of his fingerprints, he denied they were his.
At the guilt phase the Defendant did not testify, nor did he offer any evidence.
At the sentencing hearing, the State introduced proof that the Defendant had been previously convicted of robbery with a deadly weapon in January 1972, receiving a thirty-five-year sentence; of assault with intent to commit first-degree murder in April 1972; and of aggravated rape in May 1991, receiving a forty-year year sentence. The State also presented photographs depicting numerous bruises and the fatal wounds on the victim's body. The pathologist testified that the victim would have been alive at the time that the water entered her lungs and that she could have lived hours after her throat was cut. Either the slash wounds to her throat or the drowning, in and of themselves, would have been sufficient to have produced death.
The defense introduced the testimony of a clinical psychologist who testified that the Defendant had tested at an IQ of 54 on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale administered by him in May 1991. School records showed that in the third grade the Defendant tested at an IQ of 72, and of 67 in the fifth grade. A Beta IQ test was given to the Defendant by the Department of Corrections in 1966. The validity of this test showing an IQ of 88 was questioned by the psychologist. A parole evaluation described Defendant as having mild to moderate impairment in intellectual function. The psychologist testified that the Defendant would be classified as mentally retarded, that the Defendant's intellectual capacity was diminished, and that this impairment was a mental defect.
We first address Defendant's contention that the evidence is insufficient to support the finding of guilt and the finding of the heinous, atrocious and cruel aggravating factor. The principles which govern our review of a conviction by a jury are well settled. A jury verdict approved by the trial judge accredits the testimony of the witnesses for the State and resolves all conflicts in favor of the State's theory. State v. Williams, 657 S.W.2d 405, 410 (Tenn.1983). On appeal, the State is entitled to the strongest legitimate view of the evidence and all reasonable or legitimate inferences which may be drawn therefrom. State v. Cabbage, 571 S.W.2d 832, 836 (Tenn.1978). A verdict against the Defendant removes the presumption of innocence and raises the presumption of guilt on appeal, see State v. Grace, 493 S.W.2d 474, 476 (Tenn.1973), which the Defendant has the burden of overcoming. State v. Brown, 551 S.W.2d 329, 331 (Tenn.1977). Where the sufficiency of the convicting evidence is challenged, the relevant question for an appellate court is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, any rational trier of fact could have found Defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); State v. Duncan, 698 S.W.2d 63 (Tenn.1985); T.R.A.P. 13(e).
The Defendant's identity was established by his fingerprints found in the victim's home and on the front hood of her car, which was stuck in the mud and contained items taken from the victim's home. There was no explanation by the Defendant as to how his fingerprints could have gotten in Ms. Brewer's home and on her car. The Defendant maintained in a statement to the police that he did not know the victim and had never been in her home. This, taken in conjunction with the Defendant's statements to his niece and to Willie Cox indicating that he had committed the murder, clearly established his guilt.
The evidence indisputably supports aggravating circumstances (i)(2) [the Defendant was previously convicted of one or more felonies which involved the use or threat of violence to the person] and (i)(7) [the murder was committed while the Defendant was engaged in committing a robbery]. The Defendant argues that the evidence was insufficient to support (i)(5) [the murder was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel in that it involved torture or depravity of mind]. The evidence shows that in the course of robbing the victim, an elderly woman, the Defendant brutally beat her about her entire body, tied her up, slashed her throat and drowned her in the bathtub while she was still conscious.
The Defendant avers that the evidence is insufficient to support a finding of torture because the pathologist testified only that the victim "could have been conscious during her ordeal." The jury could have inferred from this testimony and from the use of the sheets to tie the victim and the posture of her body in the bathtub that the victim was alive and conscious during her rape and the beating, slashing and drowning. This meets the definition of...
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