State v. Snodgrass, 69109

• Decision Date: 14 March 1984
• Docket Number: No. 69109,69109
• Citation: 346 N.W.2d 472
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Sherryl Ann SNODGRASS, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 472

346 N.W.2d 472

STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Sherryl Ann SNODGRASS, Appellant.

No. 69109.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

March 14, 1984.

Michael G. Shepherd and G. Gregory Kelly, Des Moines, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen., Teresa Baustian, James W. Ramey, and Selwyn Dallyn, Asst. Attys. Gen., and Thomas F. Kintigh, County Atty., for appellee.

Considered en banc.

McGIVERIN, Justice.

Defendant Sherryl Ann Snodgrass and Michael L. Hood were jointly charged, tried, and convicted of first-degree murder in violation of Iowa Code sections 707.1-.2 (1981) for the death of defendant's husband, Gregory Snodgrass. Defendant raises several grounds of prejudice that allegedly resulted from her joint trial with codefendant Hood--principally that she was prejudiced by Hood's alleged antagonistic defense. We affirm. This is a companion case of State v. Hood, 346 N.W.2d 481 (Iowa 1984), which we also file today.

The shooting death of Gregory Snodgrass occurred on September 20, 1981. Prior to that time, defendant, who was estranged from her husband, had become involved in an amatory relationship with Hood. On September 20, she drove with her three children and Hood from Missouri to her farmhouse near Ottumwa. Defendant testified she intended to pick up her children's clothes and then return to Missouri to live.

They travelled to Iowa with three loaded guns--a .30 caliber carbine, a 16-gauge sawed-off shotgun, and a .357 revolver. According to defendant, she did not believe the presence of the weapons was unusual because Hood usually carried guns. She said Hood told her he intended to sell the guns after they returned from Iowa. The 16-gauge shotgun was found to have been the weapon that killed defendant's husband.

When they arrived near the farmhouse, according to trial testimony, defendant asked Hood to stay away from the house. At first he did, waiting in a nearby field as defendant went into the house. Defendant's husband arrived later and an argument developed after defendant told him she was leaving. Hood, who had been waiting in the field for more than two hours, then approached the house and heard arguing and the sound of slapping. He entered the house through the back door and into the kitchen. Hood testified he was then unarmed; defendant testified she did not then see him carrying a gun.

At this point, according to trial testimony, the stories of defendant and Hood diverge as to the events leading up to and culminating in the fatal shooting of Gregory Snodgrass. According to defendant, she, Gregory, and Hood began arguing. Defendant then went to the bedroom to quiet the children. While in the bedroom, she heard her husband go to the hall closet where his 12-gauge shotgun was kept. She heard a shot and someone yell. She testified she remained in the bedroom because she was numb and scared. After some time the telephone rang and Hood came to the bedroom door and told her to open it. She said Hood told her to answer the phone, that it was probably neighbors who heard the gun go off.

She did answer the phone. The caller was Hood's mother and, at Hood's direction, defendant talked with her, denying Hood's presence there. It was after this, according to defendant, that she learned from Hood that he had shot her husband. When defendant picked up the phone to call for help, Hood told her that her husband was dead. Hood also told her they couldn't call the police because he violated parole for even coming to Iowa.

According to Hood's trial testimony, when he entered the farmhouse Gregory Snodgrass was standing by the entry from the kitchen to the living room. Defendant, according to Hood, did not go into the bedroom but remained beside the dishwasher in the kitchen. Gregory was armed with a shotgun and saw Hood enter. Hood claims to have frozen; he testified he merely stood there unarmed. He said he heard a gun discharge and saw Gregory was wounded in the chest. He testified he did not actually see defendant shoot her husband but did see her with a shotgun in her hand after the shooting. Defendant then ran to the bedroom where the children were.

Wounded, Gregory walked around the kitchen. Hood claims to have still feared for his own safety, and so stabbed Gregory. He stabbed Gregory three times, once in the head, and, as Gregory turned away, twice in the back.

Forensic evidence showed that Gregory had to be standing in the doorway area between the kitchen and living room when he was shot. The shooter had to be standing between Gregory and the west wall of the living room.

Following the shooting, defendant and Hood cleaned the premises and wiped off fingerprints. Hood then put the body in the trunk of the Snodgrass car. Hood, Snodgrass, and the children then drove to Missouri. With the help of some fellow Ku Klux Klan members, Hood subsequently dumped the body into the Mississippi River.

For the next few days defendant and Hood stayed at various hotels and Hood laid out the story they were to tell police. The record is unclear about the details but apparently Hood instructed defendant to tell the authorities that she saw her husband and Hood fighting over a knife and saw her husband get his shotgun out of the closet. Hood was to claim he shot Gregory in self-defense.

On September 25, defendant and Hood turned themselves in to a Missouri sheriff. They both gave taped oral statements. Defendant's statement was consistent with her trial testimony. Hood's was not; at that time Hood's story was consistent with defendant's. Prior to trial, however, Hood was no longer verifying defendant's version of the events. In support of motions by both defendants to separate the trial it was pointed out that their testimony would be hostile to each other.

The State's theory, and there was evidence from which it could readily be derived, was that defendants acted jointly in planning the murder and disposing of the body.

Both defendants attempted to exculpate themselves to some extent by inculpating the other. They each contended that the other shot the victim. However, they both asserted, in agreement, that the shooting was either in self-defense or in defense of a third person, and thus was a justifiable killing under Iowa Code section 704.3. Defendant and Hood made objections during trial that the trial of each should be severed from their joint trial due to the conflicting accounts of the shooting which they alleged amounted to antagonistic defenses. The jury found both defendant and Hood guilty of first-degree murder.

Snodgrass asserts several grounds of prejudice that allegedly resulted from her joint trial with codefendant Hood.

The main question is whether the trial court abused its discretion under Iowa R.Crim.P. 6(4)(b) in refusing to sever the trial of the codefendants, thereby resulting in a denial of defendant's due process rights to a fair trial. Her principal contention on that question is that she was prejudiced by Hood's alleged antagonistic defense. She also asserts several additional grounds of claimed specific prejudice that arose during the joint trial.

I. Allowance of joint trials. Iowa R.Crim.P. 6(4)(b) (1982) ¹ in effect at the time of trial provides:

When an indictment charges a defendant with a felony, and the same indictment charges two or more defendants, those defendants jointly charged may be tried jointly, if in the discretion of the court a joint trial will not result in prejudice to one or more of the parties; otherwise the defendant shall be tried separately. Where jointly tried, each defendant shall be judged separately on each count.

(Emphasis added.)

We interpreted rule 6(4)(b) in State v. Belieu, 288 N.W.2d 895 (Iowa 1980). We noted that rule 6(4)(b) vests the decision of a motion to sever in the discretion of the trial court and that when a trial court denied severance in the exercise of its discretion, the ruling will be reversed on appeal only if the defendant demonstrates an abuse of discretion. Id. at 900. To establish an abuse of discretion, the defendant must show sufficient prejudice to constitute denial of a fair trial. Id. To cause the type of prejudice that prevents codefendants from obtaining a fair trial, the defenses must be more than merely antagonistic, they must conflict to the point of being irreconcilable and mutually exclusive. ² United States v. Bovain, 708 F.2d 606, 610 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 251, 78 L.Ed.2d 238 and cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 497, 78 L.Ed.2d 690 and cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 551, 78 L.Ed.2d 724 (1983); United States v. Riola, 694 F.2d 670, 672 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 1532, 75 L.Ed.2d 953 and cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 118, 78 L.Ed.2d 117 (1983); United States v. Crawford, 581 F.2d 489, 492 (5th Cir.1978). The test for irreconcilability of defenses has been established in the federal courts as follows:

[T]he defense of a defendant reaches a level of antagonism (with respect to the defense of a co-defendant) that compels severance of that defendant, if the jury, in order to believe the core of testimony offered on behalf of that defendant, must necessarily disbelieve the testimony offered on behalf of his co-defendant.... Where two defendants present defenses that are antagonistic at their core, a substantial possibility exists " 'that the jury will unjustifiably infer that this conflict alone demonstrates that both are guilty.' " If the essence of one defendant's defense is contradicted by a co-defendant's defense, then the latter defense can be said to "preempt" the former. This sort of conflict between defendants creates the compelling prejudice that mandates severance.

United States v. Berkowitz, 662 F.2d 1127, 1134 (5th Cir.1981) (citations omitted).

It is well established, however, that the mere presence of conflict, antagonism or hostility among defendants or the desire of one to exculpate himself by inculpating another are...