State v. Williams
| Decision Date | 14 January 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. SC 83934.,SC 83934. |
| Citation | 97 S.W.3d 462 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Marcellus WILLIAMS, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Rosemary E. Percival, Assistant State Public Defender, for Appellant.
Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Atty. Gen., Evan J. Buchheim, Assistant Atty. Gen., for Respondent.
A jury convicted Marcellus Williams of one count of first degree murder, first degree burglary, and first degree robbery, and two counts of armed criminal action. Williams was sentenced to death on the murder conviction. Because Williams was sentenced to death, this Court has exclusive appellate jurisdiction under article V, section 3, of the state constitution. The judgment is affirmed.
On direct appeal, this Court accepts as true all evidence favorable to the verdict, including all favorable inferences from the evidence. State v. Wolfe, 13 S.W.3d 248, 252 (Mo. banc 2000). Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence is as follows:
On August 11, 1998, Williams drove his grandfather's Buick LeSabre to a bus stop and caught a bus to University City. Once there, he began looking for a house to break into. Williams came across the home of Felicia Gayle. He knocked on the front door but no one answered. Williams then knocked out a window pane near the door, reached in, unlocked the door, and entered Gayle's home. He went to the second floor and heard water running in the shower. It was Gayle. Williams went back downstairs, rummaged through the kitchen, found a large butcher knife, and waited.
Gayle left the shower and called out, asking if anyone was there. She came down the stairs. Williams attacked, stabbing and cutting Gayle forty-three times, inflicting seven fatal wounds. Afterwards, Williams went to an upstairs bathroom and washed off. He took a jacket and put it on to conceal the blood on his shirt. Before leaving, Williams placed Gayle's purse and her husband's laptop computer and black carrying case in his backpack. The purse contained, among other things, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch ruler and a calculator. Williams left out the front door and caught a bus back to the Buick.
After returning to the car, Williams picked up his girlfriend, Laura Asaro. Asaro noticed that, despite the summer heat, Williams was wearing a jacket. When he removed the jacket, Asaro noticed that Williams' shirt was bloody and that he had scratches on his neck. Williams claimed he had been in a fight. Later in the day, Williams put his bloody clothes in his backpack and threw them into a sewer drain, claiming he no longer wanted them.
Asaro also saw a laptop computer in the car. A day or two after the murder, Williams sold the laptop to Glenn Roberts.
The next day, Asaro went to retrieve some clothes from the trunk of the car. Williams did not want her to look in the trunk and tried to push her away. Before he could, Asaro snatched a purse from the trunk. She looked inside and found Gayle's Missouri state identification card and a black coin purse. Asaro demanded that Williams explain why he had Gayle's purse. Williams then confessed that the purse belonged to a woman he had killed. He explained in detail how he went into the kitchen, found a butcher knife, and waited for the woman to get out of the shower. He further explained that when the woman came downstairs from the shower, he stabbed her in the arm and then put his hand over her mouth and stabbed her in the neck, twisting the knife as he went. After relaying the details of the murder, Williams grabbed Asaro by the throat and threatened to kill her, her children and her mother if she told anyone.
On August 31, 1998, Williams was arrested on unrelated charges and incarcerated at the St. Louis City workhouse. From April until June 1999, Williams shared a room with Henry Cole. One evening in May, Cole and Williams were watching television and saw a news report about Gayle's murder. Shortly after the news report, Williams told Cole that he had committed the crime. Over the next few weeks, Cole and Williams had several conversations about the murder. As he had done with Laura Asaro, Williams went into considerable detail about how he broke into the house and killed Gayle.
After Cole was released from jail in June 1999, he went to the University City police and told them about Williams' involvement in Gayle's murder. He reported details of the crime that had never been publicly reported.
In November of 1999, University City police approached Asaro to speak with her about the murder. Asaro told the police that Williams admitted to her that he had killed Gayle. The next day, the police searched the Buick LeSabre and found the Post-Dispatch ruler and calculator belonging to Gayle. The police also recovered the laptop computer from Glenn Roberts. The laptop was identified as the one stolen from Gayle's residence.
Williams was tried for Gayle's murder and convicted. On appeal, Williams alleges ten points of trial court error relating to evidentiary rulings, voir dire, instructional error, and closing argument. He does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence.
Williams argues that the trial court erred by refusing to allow defense counsel to elicit Glenn Roberts' hearsay testimony that Williams told him he was selling the laptop computer on behalf of Laura Asaro. By not allowing Roberts to testify to Williams' hearsay statements, Williams maintains that the trial court violated the rule of completeness by taking the transaction out of context and allowing the jury to draw the inaccurate inference that he obtained the computer by committing the charged crimes.
Trial courts have broad discretion to admit or exclude evidence at trial. Appellate courts review decisions to admit or exclude evidence for abuse of discretion. State v. Mayes, 63 S.W.3d 615, 627 (Mo. banc 2001).
During the guilt phase, the state elicited testimony from Glenn Roberts regarding his acquisition of the laptop from Williams. Roberts testified that Williams sold him the laptop in August of 1998. On cross-examination, defense counsel tried to elicit hearsay testimony from Roberts regarding Williams' alleged statement that he was selling the laptop on behalf of Laura Asaro. The state objected that Roberts' testimony regarding Williams' statement was inadmissible hearsay. Defense counsel argued that the testimony was admissible under the rule of completeness:
When the State introduces part of a confession or admission into evidence, the defendant is authorized to introduce the remaining portion, although it may be self-serving. State v. Collier, 892 S.W.2d 686, 695 (Mo.App.1994); State v. Easley, 662 S.W.2d 248, 252 (Mo. banc 1983). The rule is violated only when admission of the statement in an edited form distorts the meaning of the statement or excludes information that is substantially exculpatory to the declarant. State v. Skillicorn, 944 S.W.2d 877, 891 (Mo.1997).
Through Roberts' testimony, the state established the fact that Williams was in possession of the laptop and that he sold it to Roberts shortly after Gayle's murder. The prosecutor did not ask Roberts about any statements that Williams made to him. The questions were limited to the mechanics of the transaction. Although Roberts did volunteer that Williams told him he was selling the computer because of financial difficulties, the trial court sustained the state's objection that Roberts' answers were nonresponsive. The state does not waive its objection to hearsay evidence on cross-examination because a witness volunteered an unsolicited remark during direct examination. State v. Riggins, 987 S.W.2d 457, 465 (Mo.App.1999).
Because the state did not introduce into evidence any statements or confessions Williams made to Roberts during the sale of the laptop, the rule of completeness does not apply. Additionally, Williams was not precluded from showing that Laura once had possession of the laptop. He introduced testimony from two witnesses who said they saw Laura with a laptop computer during the summer of 1998. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in sustaining the State's objection to Roberts' hearsay testimony.
Williams alleges that the trial court abused its discretion by overruling his objection to evidence regarding Williams' attempt to escape from the St. Louis City workhouse. The state's evidence showed that Williams attempted to escape approximately three weeks after he had been indicted on multiple charges, including the first-degree murder of Felicia Gayle. The evidence also showed that on the day of the attempted escape, Williams had been sentenced to twenty years in prison on separate charges. During the escape, Williams assaulted a guard with a metal bar. The state introduced testimony describing Williams' assault and the injuries he inflicted on the guard. Williams argues that the escape evidence should have been excluded because it was inadmissible evidence of uncharged crimes. He also argues that because he was facing other charges at the...
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