State v. Williams
| Decision Date | 12 September 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. S-96-266,S-96-266 |
| Citation | 253 Neb. 111,568 N.W.2d 246 |
| Parties | STATE of Nebraska, Appellee, v. Robert E. WILLIAMS, Appellant. |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
1. Postconviction: Proof. In a motion for postconviction relief, the defendant must allege facts which, if proved, constitute a denial or violation of his or her rights under the U.S. or Nebraska Constitution, causing the judgment against the defendant to be void or voidable.
2. Postconviction: Appeal and Error. On appeal from a proceeding for postconviction relief, the trial court's findings of fact will be upheld unless such findings are clearly erroneous.
3. Judgments: Appeal and Error. Regarding questions of law, an appellate court is obligated to reach a conclusion independent of determinations reached by the trial court.
4. Courts: Appeal and Error. When a cause is remanded with specific directions, the court to which the mandate is directed has no power to do anything but to obey the mandate. The order of the appellate court is conclusive on the parties, and no judgment or order different from, or in addition to, that directed by the appellate court can be entered by the trial court.
5. Evidence: Records: Appeal and Error. A bill of exceptions is the only vehicle for bringing evidence before an appellate court; evidence which is not made a part of the bill of exceptions may not be considered.
6. Rules of Evidence: Juries. The underlying policies in support of Neb. Evid. R. 606(2), Neb.Rev.Stat. § 27-606(2) (Reissue 1995), are so vital to the preservation of the jury system and so basic to the interest of justice that the courts of this state must be able to apply the rule sua sponte.
7. Motions for New Trial: Juror Misconduct: Proof. In order for a new trial to be granted because of a juror's use of extraneous information, the party claiming the misconduct has the burden to show by a preponderance of the evidence that prejudice has occurred.
8. Jury Misconduct: Proof. Extraneous material or information considered by a jury may be deemed prejudicial without proof of actual prejudice if the material or information relates to an issue submitted to the jury and there is a reasonable possibility that the extraneous material or information affected the verdict to the detriment of a litigant.
9. Jury Misconduct. The question of whether prejudice resulted from jury misconduct must be resolved by the trial court's drawing reasonable inferences as to the effect of the extraneous information on an average juror.
10. Judgments: Appeal and Error. Where the record adequately demonstrates that the decision of a trial court is correct, although such correctness is based on a ground or reason different from that assigned by the trial court, an appellate court will affirm.
Paula Belford Hutchinson, Lincoln, for appellant.
Donald Stenberg, Attorney General, and J. Kirk Brown, Lincoln, for appellee.
Robert E. Williams appeals the Lancaster County District Court's denial of his motion for postconviction relief under Neb.Rev.Stat. §§ 29-3001 to 29-3004 (Reissue 1995). We are asked to determine whether Williams was denied a fair trial because a juror used maps to check Williams' postshooting "flight path" and testified that she factored this extraneous information into her predeliberation consideration of Williams' drug and/or alcohol-induced insanity defense.
We conclude that the district court did not err in not considering the juror's testimony or in its finding that Williams was not prejudiced by the juror's use of the maps. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's denial of Williams' motion for postconviction relief.
Sometime between 10:30 a.m. on August 10, and 1:30 a.m. on August 11, 1977, Williams shot and killed Patricia A. McGarry and sexually assaulted and killed Catherine M. Brooks in a Lincoln, Nebraska, apartment. Brooks' naked body was found with two bullet wounds behind her left ear and one in her back. Later medical examinations revealed spermatozoa in her vaginal and rectal tracts. McGarry was shot three times, once under her right ear and twice in her neck.
On August 11, at approximately 1:30 a.m., Williams drove to the Lincoln residence of George Ellis, an acquaintance. Ellis testified that Williams stayed at his residence for approximately 45 to 50 minutes and that he observed nothing out of the ordinary about Williams. Williams then went home and slept. Between 9:30 and 9:45 a.m., Williams drove to the Lincoln residence of a woman who was an acquaintance. Williams entered the woman's residence under false pretenses and remained there until approximately 4 p.m. While Williams was in the woman's residence, he sexually assaulted her on numerous occasions, physically assaulted her with a handgun, slept, and had her prepare him two meals. Other than for the physical and sexual assaults, the woman described Williams' demeanor and physical characteristics as being normal.
At approximately 5 p.m., Williams was observed with his car at a gas station in Fremont, Nebraska. Fremont was described at trial as being north of Lincoln. At the gas station, Williams was seen by two people, each of whom did not notice anything unusual in his mannerisms or conduct.
At 10:15 p.m., a deputy sheriff of Cherokee City, Iowa, which is located approximately 140 miles northeast of Omaha, Nebraska, observed Williams' car abandoned and the motor running in a county park known as Martin's Access. Sometime between 11:30 p.m. on August 11, and 6 a.m. on August 12, a car and two blankets belonging to Jack and Mary Ann Montgomery were stolen from their farm. Martin's Access is on the same highway as the Montgomery farm, and the distance between the two is 11/2 miles by road and less than 1 mile cross-country. Williams' checkbook was found in the Montgomery driveway. The Montgomery car was discovered abandoned in a ditch at 10 a.m. on August 12, 1 mile east of Cornell, Iowa. Cornell is approximately 20 miles northeast of the Montgomery farm.
Around 7:15 a.m. on August 12, Elbert Bredvick saw Williams approaching his farmyard, which is approximately 5 miles southwest of where the Montgomery car was discovered. Williams had two blankets rolled on his back, said he was lost, and asked for directions to the closest town. Bredvick observed nothing unusual about Williams and described him as "perfectly normal." Bredvick directed Williams west to Sioux Rapids, Iowa.
At approximately 12:20 p.m. on August 12, Wayne Rowe discovered his wife's naked dead body in their farmhouse. She had been shot in her side and back with a shotgun and in her neck with a .22-caliber bullet. Later examination established that Rowe's wife had also been sexually assaulted.
The Rowe farmhouse is located approximately one-half mile west of the Bredvick farmhouse down the same road which Bredvick directed Williams. The Rowes' car was missing and was later discovered in St. Paul, Minnesota. The blankets which Bredvick had seen in Williams' possession were found on the Rowes' property. On August 13, at around 1:30 p.m., Walter Behun was working in his yard in Fridley, Minnesota, a suburb of St. Paul, when he saw Williams pointing a gun at him. Williams abducted Behun and had Behun drive him to St. Paul. Behun drove Williams to a railroad freight yard, where Behun was left bound in a caboose. Williams took Behun's car, which was later found in the Como Avenue and Dale Avenue area in St. Paul. Except for pointing a gun at him and abducting him, Behun observed Williams to be normal.
At approximately 3 p.m. on August 13, Katherine Billings was leaving a liquor store at the intersection of Como Avenue and Dale Avenue in St. Paul, when she was kidnapped by Williams. Prior to driving away with Billings in her car, Williams shot her in the arm and behind her left ear. Billings was taken to a secluded rural area where she was sexually assaulted, bound, and left for dead.
On August 14, Williams arrived by car in Chicago, Illinois. He stayed in Chicago until late August 17, when he jumped on a train heading west. He arrived in Lincoln either late on August 17 or early on August 18 and was arrested at 4 a.m. on August 18, 1977.
Williams was charged with two counts of first degree murder for the killings of McGarry and Brooks and with the first degree sexual assault of Brooks. Williams confessed to the killings but pled not guilty by reason of insanity or mental derangement. Jury instruction No. 9 stated:
The defendant contends that he was insane or mentally deranged at the time he is alleged to have committed the offenses charged in the Information. Insanity is a defense recognized by law and the evidence relating thereto should be considered by you and weighed the same as any other evidence.
The burden is upon the State to establish the fact of defendant's sanity beyond a reasonable doubt.
If from all of the evidence you are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the act or acts charged and that at the time of the commission of the alleged crime he was of sufficient mental capacity:
1. To understand what he was doing and the nature and quality of his act;
then the defendant would be legally responsible for his acts and you should return a verdict of "guilty," although you might find that at the time he was suffering from some degree of insanity or impairment of the mind.
If from the evidence or lack of evidence in this case a reasonable doubt is raised in your minds as to the defendant's mental capacity at the time of the commission of the alleged crime:
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