State v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 19 March 1997
• Docket Number: No. 96-119,96-119
• Citation: 78 Ohio St.3d 15,676 N.E.2d 82
• Parties: The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. TAYLOR, Appellant.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 15

78 Ohio St.3d 15

676 N.E.2d 82

The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. TAYLOR, Appellant.

No. 96-119.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted Sept. 25, 1996.

Decided March 19, 1997.

On November 24, 1992, defendant-appellant, Michael N. Taylor, shot and killed Marion "Donny" Alexander in a bar. Despite appellant's self-defense claims, the jury found prior calculation and design, convicted appellant of aggravated murder, and recommended the death penalty.

Between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m. on November 24, 1992, appellant, his girlfriend Sandra Paul, and David Roseborough arrived at the Club Seville, a bar in Garfield Heights. Shortly thereafter, Marion "Donny" Alexander came in. Alexander, a regular in the bar, greeted Darlene Youngblood and Debra Lymore, who both worked at the bar, as well as Denise Shephard, another regular. They all sat around the main bar, but Alexander later took a seat alone at the nearby piano bar. Alexander did not talk with Paul, whom he had formerly dated, nor to appellant, whom he had previously met.

According to Shephard, Alexander acted quietly, and did not complain to or argue with appellant that night. However, appellant, Paul, and Roseborough described Alexander as loud and boisterous. Appellant and Paul claimed Alexander stared at them when they were dancing that night soon after they arrived at the club. According to Roseborough, Alexander flashed a large roll of bills and said, "If a nig * * * ain't getting it like this, he ain't suppose[d] to be in here." Paul recalled Alexander saying, "Any nig * * * [who] did not have any money, wasn't shit." Appellant believed Alexander was trying to humiliate him.

Later, some twenty to thirty minutes after appellant, Paul, and Roseborough had arrived, Paul went to the jukebox to play music. Alexander asked her to play a song for him. Appellant, still seated at the main bar, objected to Alexander's request. Youngblood testified that appellant told Alexander, "Put your own goddamn dollar in the box. My woman is not playing you no music." Roseborough recalled appellant said, "Man, I give her the money so she could play the music that we want to hear. * * * If you want to hear some music, put your money in there like I did * * *."

According to Youngblood, Alexander replied, "It ain't no problem. I have got a dollar here. * * * I just asked her to play * * *." According to Lymore, Alexander replied, "What's the problem? I have been knowing her. I talk to her when you are not around." Appellant again told Alexander, "Put your own goddamn dollar in there." Alexander and appellant glared at each other for a "couple of seconds," but did not approach each other. Then Paul walked back to where appellant was sitting.

According to appellant's friends, Alexander told appellant after the jukebox incident that "this is his bar, and he do[es] what * * * he wants to do, [and] says what * * * he wants," and if appellant had "a problem with anything, I'm saying you can see me today, tomorrow." Alexander also allegedly cursed appellant as a "punk, hip mother fucker." It was asserted by the defense that when Paul was leaving the bar, Alexander said, "Bitch * * * [I told] you not to bring this mother fucker up here to my bar."

When Paul got back to her seat, appellant told her, "Get your goddamn coat. We're getting out of here." Paul asked, "Can I drink my drink first * * * [and] hear my music." Appellant told her he did not "have time for this 'Kid's shit,' Let's go." Within a minute, Paul had put her coat on and left the bar. Roseborough and appellant started to follow her, but Roseborough changed direction and walked over behind Alexander to the jukebox. Appellant stopped a little past Alexander. Roseborough said to appellant, "Look out," and Alexander stood up and raised his hands. Alexander told appellant, "Don't start no shit and it won't be no shit."

Appellant replied, "What did you say, mother fucker," pulled out a semiautomatic 9 mm pistol, and shot Alexander several times. After being shot three times, Alexander fell face down and tried to crawl away. Then appellant walked closer to Alexander and fired three or four more shots into his back.

Appellant testified that Alexander had blocked his way and pulled a gun on him as appellant walked out of the bar. Appellant claimed he "thought [Alexander] was going to shoot * * * [or] kill me." Roseborough testified that Alexander was reaching into his coat when appellant shot him.

However, of those present, only appellant claimed that he saw Alexander with a gun. Paul testified that Alexander always carried a gun, but she did not claim that she saw one that night. Testimony from police officers suggested that they did not find any gun on the premises.

Appellant and Roseborough left after appellant shot Alexander. As appellant left, he leaned out of Paul's car window and yelled to Youngblood, "It was self-defense." Youngblood called 911, and police and paramedics quickly arrived.

At 11:26 p.m., patrolman Michael Naso received a radio call, and he arrived at the bar within two minutes. Naso found Alexander on the floor bleeding, and Shephard was "straddling his back [in] near hysteria." Naso found seven 9 mm shell cartridges in the club and a spent bullet inside the men's room.

Although appellant and his friends claimed that Alexander had a wad of money, "two grand or close," police found only thirteen dollars on him. Shephard testified she had given Alexander fifty dollars earlier that day, and that he usually did not have a lot of money on him.

Deputy Coroner Dr. Robert Challener found that Alexander had been shot seven times, the bullets perforating the body, including once in each thigh, twice in the abdomen, and twice in the back. Alexander died as a result of these wounds. At least three bullets entered from the back, and the path of one or more bullets was consistent with the victim's lying on the ground with the assailant standing.

Rejecting appellant's self-defense claim, the jury convicted him of aggravated murder with a death penalty specification for a prior murder conviction. R.C. 2929.04(A)(5). The jury also found appellant guilty of a firearms specification and a prior aggravated-felony specification. After considering mitigation evidence, the jury recommended the death penalty, and the trial court sentenced appellant to death. The court of appeals affirmed.

The cause is now before this court upon an appeal as of right.

Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, George J. Sadd and Winston Grays, Assistant Prosecuting Attorneys, for appellee.

David L. Doughten and John P. Parker, Cleveland, for appellant.

ALICE ROBIE RESNICK, Justice.

In his appeal to this court, appellant raises eighteen propositions of law for our review. We have thoroughly reviewed each, and find that none warrants a reversal of appellant's conviction or of his death sentence. In addition, we have conducted an independent review of the record, have weighed the aggravating circumstance against the mitigating factors, and have examined the proportionality of the death sentence to the penalty imposed in similar cases. For the reasons which follow, we affirm appellant's conviction and sentence of death.

I Sufficiency of Evidence

In proposition of law I, appellant argues that "prior calculation" and "design" are separate elements of "aggravated murder" as defined in R.C. 2903.01(A). Appellant claims the evidence is insufficient to prove those separate elements; hence, he contends he is not guilty of aggravated murder.

However, appellant cites no case holding that "prior calculation and design" are two separate elements, and we reject such a view. Rather, the phrase "prior calculation and design" is a single indivisible term, describing the mens rea element of proof necessary to find a violation of R.C. 2903.01(A). Having rejected that claim, we now consider whether the trial evidence was sufficient to prove that appellant murdered Alexander "with prior calculation and design."

In reviewing a record for sufficiency, "[t]he relevant inquiry is whether, after reviewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime proven beyond a reasonable doubt." State v. Jenks (1991), 61 Ohio St.3d 259, 574 N.E.2d 492, paragraph two of the syllabus (in part), following Jackson v. Virginia (1979), 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560.

A. The Meaning of "Prior Calculation and Design"

Under former R.C. 2901.01, "murder in the first degree," aside from murder by poison or felony-murder, required proof of "deliberate and premeditated malice." See State v. Stewart (1964), 176 Ohio St. 156, 27 O.O.2d 42, 198 N.E.2d 439. Effective January 1, 1974, the General Assembly reclassified first-degree murder as "aggravated murder" and substituted a requirement of "prior calculation and design" to replace the more traditional "deliberate and premeditated malice." (134 Ohio Laws, Part II, 1866, 1900, Am.Sub.H.B. No. 511.) See State v. Jenkins (1976), 48 Ohio App.2d 99, 2 O.O.3d 73, 355 N.E.2d 825. R.C. 2903.01(A), amended in 1981, retained the term "prior calculation and design" as a necessary element of aggravated murder. (139 Ohio Laws, Part I, 1, 3.)

According to the 1973 Technical Committee Comment to Am.Sub.H.B. No. 511, a Legislative Service Commission summary, R.C. 2903.01 "restates the former crime of premeditated murder so as to embody the classic concept of the planned, cold-blooded killing while discarding the notion that only an instant's prior deliberation is necessary. By judicial interpretation of the former Ohio law, murder could be premeditated even though the fatal plan was conceived and executed on the spur of the moment." See, e.g., State v. Stewart; State v. Schaffer (1960), 113 Ohio App. 125, 17 O.O.2d 114, 177 N.E.2d 534.

According to the committee comment, "the phrase 'prior calculation and design' ...