State v. Trimble

• Decision Date: 31 August 1982
• Docket Number: No. 62523,62523
• Citation: 638 S.W.2d 726
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Patrick E. TRIMBLE, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 726

638 S.W.2d 726

STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Patrick E. TRIMBLE, Appellant.

No. 62523.

Supreme Court of Missouri En Banc.

Aug. 31, 1982.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 7, 1982.

Cynthia S. Holmes, St. Louis, for appellant.

John Ashcroft, Atty. Gen., John M. Morris, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.

MORGAN, Judge.

The appellant, Patrick E. Trimble, was tried to a jury which found him guilty of capital murder and assessed his punishment at death. Secs. 565.001, 565.008 and 565.012, RSMo 1978. Judgment was entered accordingly and he has appealed to this Court which has exclusive appellate jurisdiction by reason of Section 3 of Article V of the Constitution of Missouri. Having reviewed and considered all errors enumerated by way of appeal and the sentence as mandated by § 565.014, RSMo 1978, the same is affirmed.

At the trial, evidence was presented from which the jury could find the following facts beyond a reasonable doubt:

The victim, Jerry James Everett, a white male, twenty years of age, had been arrested on charges of stealing a van and placed in the St. Charles County jail around October 28, 1979. Appellant, also a twenty year old white male, arrived approximately two days later to await disposition of charges of kidnapping, raping and sodomizing two nine year old girls.

The evidence shows that appellant was dissatisfied with the prospect of serving time under the pending charges because he believed that penitentiary inmates have little use for those "up" on such charges and would make life difficult and dangerous for him. He stated, to three different inmates of the St. Charles County Jail, that he intended to "catch something bigger" and would commit a "capital murder," killing either another inmate or a guard.

Sometime during the week or so before November 12, 1979, appellant, who weighed approximately 210 lbs. and was 6'1"' tall, settled upon Jerry Everett, who weighed approximately 145 lbs. and was 5'10"' tall, as his victim. The evidence shows that Everett was mentally slow and may never have fully comprehended what was happening to him. Several inmates observed that he was mentally slow, and his mother testified that he had had some drug problems, had run away from home on numerous occasions, had begun to withdraw at around age 16, had become a loner and had received inpatient counseling in a hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. She also stated that he had difficulty writing and that it was unlikely that he knew his jail address. She had even had to send him the address for the home where he had lived.

On numerous occasions, appellant, with the jail's other inmates, took Everett's food after winning it in card games that the victim did not understand and could not play competently. Appellant placed burning matches between his victim's toes while he slept and at one point burned what appeared to be letters into Everett's right forearm by using a burning plastic shampoo bottle to administer this torture. Expert testimony indicated that these burns were one half inch deep at the autopsy.

The evidence showed that appellant treated the victim as his "punk" or homosexual partner. He forced the victim to have both oral and anal intercourse with him, compelled him to wear a "bra" around the jail for the entertainment of the other inmates, and forced him at one point to display to the other inmates a rag that had been stuffed into his anus. Appellant made his victim offer kisses to the other inmates and offered to sell him to a jail trustee for a carton of cigarettes. He completed this pattern of torture and homosexual abuse by repeated beatings and by compelling Everett to sweep and mop the four jail cells in the block on several different occasions, following Everett around while he worked and beating him with his fists when he failed to comply.

On Sunday, November 11, appellant told Kenneth Schwab and John Rice that he intended to kill Everett to keep him from informing the authorities, when he went to court on November 13, of the sexual abuse he had suffered. This motive appears to have superseded his earlier motive because appellant devised a scheme to hide his crime rather than publish it to the penitentiary society. The day before the killing, he compelled Everett to write a suicide note to his parents, explaining that he could not live away from them and telling them not to cry for him because he had accepted the Lord into his life. The evidence showed that the victim was quite religious, having accepted Jesus into his life years before; that he spent much of his time in jail reading the Bible; and, that appellant had initially maneuvered himself into the victim's confidence by representing himself as a minister. The note was written on paper and placed in an addressed and stamped envelope, both of which the victim's mother had given him. Appellant dictated its contents after telling Donald Hill he was going to have Everett write a suicide note.

Appellant further prepared for the slaying by tying strips of towels together and had one of the inmates assist him in testing their strength. Shortly after dinner on November 12, 1979, appellant took Everett to Everett's cell and there placed a blanket around him, which he described as Everett's "dress." He told his victim that they were going to play the "hangman's game." Appellant compelled Everett to sit in front of him on the floor while appellant sat on one of the bunks with Everett's back and head braced against appellant's knees. Appellant placed a towel in his victim's mouth; and then, in the course of fifteen to twenty minutes, he strangled Everett by twisting a towel around his neck. At some point, Everett's neck was fractured. Appellant made the remark to one inmate that it took a very long time to kill Everett.

Several inmates testified in addition to the above facts that they saw appellant trying to lift Everett's body up to where appellant had tied a strip of towel on the upper bars of the cell. None, however, ever observed Everett hanging from this towel.

Shortly after the strangulation, appellant called the inmates to his cell and told them that his plan was to make the death look like a suicide and that they were to say they were all watching t.v. when it occurred. He told them that he had connections on the outside and indicated that he would have them killed if they told on him. He then returned to Everett's cell and directed one of the inmates, John Rice, to call the guards. When they arrived, they observed appellant removing a towel from Everett's neck and appellant and Alvin Tate, who was Everett's cell mate, lifting Everett's body into the hallway. The guards ordered the inmates into their cells and unsuccessfully attempted to revive Everett. Initially, the inmates told the authorities that they had been watching t.v. and thought Everett had committed suicide. Later, however, a total of nine inmates made statements to the police investigators establishing the above facts: three who heard appellant express his intention to commit a "capital murder" to avoid going up on charges of raping, sodomizing and kidnapping children and who were released from the jail a week before the slaying; and six who were eyewitnesses to the torture, sexual abuse and strangulation.

POINT I

Appellant contends, in his first point, that the trial court erred in overruling his motion for a new trial and sentencing him to death because the jury conducted itself improperly in that its verdict that appellant should receive the death penalty was not clearly based upon a finding of a statutory aggravating circumstance.

At the trial, after the jury had returned a guilty verdict on the charge of capital murder, the court instructed the jury that it could assess the death penalty if it found either of two aggravating circumstances: (1) that at the time of the murder of Jerry James Everett the defendant was in the lawful custody of a place of confinement; or (2) that the murder of Jerry James Everett was committed for the purpose of avoiding a lawful arrest of defendant. The jury returned the following verdict on punishment:

"We, the jury, having found the defendant Patrick E. Trimble guilty of the capital murder of Jerry James Everett, fix the defendant's punishment at death, and we designate the following aggravating circumstance or circumstances which we find beyond a reasonable doubt: that at the time of the murder of Jerry James Everett the defendant was in the lawful custody of a place of confinement and as a deterrent to further acts of violents [sic]." This verdict was returned at 10:14 p. m. At 10:06 p. m., the jury had sent a note to the court with the following inquiry: "The jury would like to know, if all we have to put on the verdict form is 'that at the time of the murder of Jerry Everett the defendant was in the lawful custody of a place of confinement.' We are referring to the form for the death penalty. Or do we have to go into lengthy detail." The court sent the following answer at 10:10 p. m.: "I have received your communication. I cannot make any comment or further instructions to you. I can only refer you to the instructions which you already have with you."

The question presented is whether the jury based its verdict upon a statutory aggravating circumstance or whether it exceeded the bounds of its discretion and based its verdict upon a rationale of its own devising. Appellant contends that the verdict is ambiguous on its face and that it is unclear whether the jury would have assessed the death penalty upon a finding of the designated statutory aggravating circumstance alone. He argues that this court is unable to review the action of the jury and must, therefore, find that it has acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner. We disagree.

Requiring that the jury find a statutory aggravating circumstance is designed to prevent the arbitrary and capricious imposition of death sentences. Finding a statutory...