State v. Stanley
| Decision Date | 25 June 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. C-950392,C-950392 |
| Parties | The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. STANLEY, Appellant. * |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
Joseph T. Deters, Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney, and Susan Laker, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, Cincinnati, for appellee.
Cathy R. Cook, Cincinnati, for appellant.
Defendant-appellant, Fred Stanley, appeals from the judgment of the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas entered pursuant to a jury verdict in which appellant was found guilty of the murder of Thelma Beck. Mrs. Beck was found dead in her home on April 9, 1990. She had been stabbed more than ten times, and her throat had been slit. The cause of death was determined to have been massive internal bleeding from one of the stab wounds to her abdomen.
Mrs. Beck had last been seen alive by a neighbor at approximately 8:15 a.m., and other neighbors discovered her body at approximately 9:30 a.m. They immediately called the police. No one saw any other person enter or leave Mrs. Beck's home between 8:15 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.
The Cincinnati Police Department secured and inspected Mrs. Beck's home, and they searched the surrounding area for possible suspects and for the weapon used upon Mrs. Beck. They could find neither. Numerous fingerprint lifts were taken at the scene, and all except two were identified as belonging to persons later eliminated as suspects. The police were unable to identify the remaining two prints at that time.
In 1992, the Cincinnati Police Department began using a Fingerprint Identification System ("FIS"), a computer system which contained images of fingerprints taken by the police in the course of processing a person arrested for a crime. The FIS was capable of matching a print scanned in by an operator to an existing print image and could thereby identify the person who made the scanned print.
Usually, the FIS identified several possible matches, and a fingerprint expert would then compare the unidentified print on the lift with the actual inked print of the matches. This identification process involved matching distinguishing characteristics of both of the prints. When several unique attributes of the prints were identified as being identical, the expert would confirm that the two prints were made by the same person.
In 1992, the unidentified prints from Mrs. Beck's home were scanned into the FIS. The FIS indicated that a print on file matched one of the prints found at the home. A fingerprint expert compared the fingerprint lifts from Mrs. Beck's home to the inked prints of the person identified by the FIS and found that the prints were indeed made by the same person: appellant Fred Stanley.
The police then went to appellant's home and requested that appellant accompany them to the police station for questioning. Appellant is deaf, mildly retarded and unable to communicate verbally. However, his brother was able to convey the officers' message to appellant through sign language. Appellant agreed to go with the officers.
At the station, Detective Feldhaus attempted to communicate with appellant by writing messages to him. However, it soon became clear to Detective Feldhaus that appellant could neither read nor write competently. Unfamiliar with sign language himself, Detective Feldhaus called Brian Stricker, another Cincinnati Police Officer, who was believed to be able to communicate in sign language.
Officer Stricker arrived at the station and began to "sign" to appellant. After determining for himself that he and appellant were effectively communicating, Officer Stricker signed the Miranda warnings to appellant and had appellant put his signature on a form that stated that he had been given the warnings and understood them. Detective Feldhaus then began interrogating appellant through Officer Stricker.
Appellant was shown pictures of the victim and her house, but he initially indicated that he did not recognize the victim or the house. Uncertain that appellant understood what the officers were asking, the officers decided to take appellant to the scene of the crime. Even when appellant was standing in front of the house, he responded in the negative when Officer Stricker asked him if he knew the place or had been there.
While the officers and appellant were in front of the house, a car drove by and someone in the car allegedly called out to appellant. Officer Stricker stated that appellant's demeanor changed after the car drove by. Detective Feldhaus noted where the car stopped and proceeded to question the occupants of the car to see how they were acquainted with appellant. Detective Feldhaus testified that these persons told him that appellant had frequently been in that neighborhood and had, on occasion, performed odd jobs for the victim.
With this information, the officers and appellant returned to the station, where Officer Stricker informed appellant that they knew he was not telling the truth about being at the house. At that point, according to Officer Stricker, appellant confessed to killing the victim, allegedly because of a dispute concerning work he had performed for her. 1
Following further interrogation, the officers decided to videotape their communications with appellant. On tape, Officer Stricker repeated the Miranda warnings he had given appellant, and appellant, in sign language, indicated that he understood what Officer Stricker was communicating. Officer Stricker then questioned appellant about the murder. On tape, appellant indicated by a stabbing motion how the victim had been killed, and also indicated by pointing on his body the places where the victim had been stabbed: in the abdomen, the chest, the left leg, and the throat.
Appellant was charged with the murder of Thelma Beck. Because appellant was under the age of eighteen when the crime was committed, he was at first under the jurisdiction of the Hamilton County Juvenile Court. He was then bound over to the common pleas court to be tried as an adult. Because of his indigence, the court appointed an attorney for him.
Counsel for appellant notified the trial court that the competency of appellant to stand trial was in question. Appellant was subsequently examined by several medical experts. Following a hearing on March 5, 1993, appellant was found incompetent to stand trial and not restorable to competency within one year. Pursuant to R.C. 2945.38(G), 2 the indictment against appellant was dismissed.
The next item reflected in the record after the dismissal of the original indictment is the reindictment of appellant. The record discloses that on March 19, 1993, the Hamilton County Prosecutor's office reindicted appellant pursuant to R.C. 2945.38(H) for the crime of murder. Counsel for appellant filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, claiming that appellant had been found incompetent and could not be reindicted unless his condition had changed. Acknowledging the reindictment provisions of R.C. 2945.38(H), counsel also argued that the requirements of that statute could not be established by hearsay. Appellant's counsel did not, however, argue that the requisites for reindictment were not met; counsel argued only that the state could not prove that they were met by using hearsay evidence.
Without a record hearing, the trial court denied the motion to dismiss. The court sua sponte raised the issue of appellant's competency to stand trial and ordered another hearing on the issue. The transcript of the proceedings indicates that counsel for appellant, counsel for the state, and the trial judge met in the judge's chambers, at which time the trial court considered the motion to dismiss. However, only the results of that meeting (denial of the motion to dismiss the indictment and setting the case for a competency hearing) were made part of the record. No reasons were given for denying the motion to dismiss, and no evidence admitted of what action, if any, was taken by the probate court.
Thus, there is nothing in the record that specifically demonstrates what happened after the trial judge initially found appellant incompetent to stand trial and ordered that "the procedures set forth in Revised Code Section 2945.38(C) shall be instituted."
The second competency hearing was held on May 13, 1993. After this second hearing, the court found that appellant was competent to stand trial. Following a jury trial, appellant was found guilty of murder. When it was discovered that the court bailiff had answered a question regarding the case posed by the jurors during deliberation, appellant moved for and was granted a retrial. The case was reassigned to a different judge.
Counsel for appellant again raised the issue of appellant's competency to stand trial, and the trial court held a third hearing. On December 23, 1994, the court found appellant competent to stand trial. Appellant was again tried for the murder of Thelma Beck, and again a jury returned a guilty verdict. From the judgment entered on this second verdict, appellant now appeals, raising twelve assignments of error. We find no reversible error in this case and affirm the judgment of the trial court.
Appellant's first assignment of error concerns the validity of the reindictment after he was initially found incompetent to stand trial:
"The original trial court erred to the prejudice of defendant-appellant by failing to grant defendant-appellant's motion to dismiss indictment."
The record demonstrates that appellant moved the first trial court to dismiss his reindictment, but that motion was denied without a hearing. Appellant again sought to have the indictment dismissed prior to the second trial, but the second trial court concluded that it was bound by the decision of the first trial court on the issue of the validity of the reindictment.
After the first competency hearing on March 5, 1993, ...
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