Teal v. State
| Decision Date | 25 June 2007 |
| Docket Number | No. S07A0124.,S07A0124. |
| Citation | 647 S.E.2d 15,282 Ga. 319 |
| Parties | TEAL v. STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
David Burroughs, Gainesville, for Appellant.
Lee Darragh, Dist. Atty., Alison Wilson Toller, Asst. Dist. Atty., Gainesville; Thurbert E. Baker, Atty. Gen., Benjamin Henry Pierman, Asst. Dist. Atty., Dept. of Law, Atlanta, for Appellee.
Appellant Steven Zane Teal was convicted of the 2002 malice murder of Lou Ann Shatto and the theft of her motor vehicle. On appeal he contends the trial court erred when it did not limit the number of photographs of the victim admitted into evidence and when it denied his motions to suppress and his motion in limine. He also maintains he was not afforded his right to effective representation of counsel at trial. 1
1. The body of Lou Ann Shatto was discovered about 10:30 p.m. on November 27, 2002, lying face-down on the floor of a motel room in Oakwood, Georgia, that she had occupied with appellant for six weeks. Her wrists were tied together behind her back and her wrists were tied to her legs by means of a dog choker chain, a dog lead, and a belt. On the bed was an axe handle with bloodstains that proved to be a DNA match with a sample of the victim's blood. There were blood spatters on the room's walls and television, and a pool of blood on the carpet underneath the victim. The forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy testified the woman had died as a result of multiple blunt force head injuries with cranial cerebral trauma. Material found under the victim's fingernails was subjected to DNA analysis and determined to match DNA samples taken from appellant as well as the victim. The emergency medical technician who responded to the scene testified the body was in rigor mortis, leading him to believe she had been dead for several hours.
Neither appellant nor the victim's pickup truck was at the motel where the victim was found. A friend of appellant testified appellant drove the victim's pickup truck to the witness's house just after midnight November 27-28 and the front of his shirt was wet. Appellant left the pickup truck parked behind the friend's house and borrowed the friend's truck. When appellant did not return, the friend reported his truck as stolen. The victim's truck abandoned by appellant contained on an interior panel a transfer bloodstain which DNA analysis matched to that of the victim. Another friend of appellant testified appellant came to her home during this time period seeking her help because he had purportedly wrecked his truck. Without her permission, appellant took the second friend's car, and the first friend's truck was found .25 miles from the second friend's home. A week later, appellant called the second friend and asked if the police were looking for him. During this time, appellant and another friend spent the night at an apartment shared by two women, one of whom testified appellant's face was scratched and his finger injured. The woman testified appellant said he and the victim had taken drugs, he had lost consciousness, awakened to find the victim dead, and "he didn't mean to do it."
Appellant was arrested on December 2, 2002, when he was found in the crawl space underneath the mobile home occupied by a former girlfriend who had called police when appellant had returned to her home that morning. The former girlfriend testified appellant told her the victim had bitten his finger in an argument. As appellant was being transported to the local jail by a deputy sheriff, he told the deputy he had messed up this time and wondered how long a sentence he would receive. Due to the injury to appellant's finger, he was taken for medical treatment where, in response to an inquiry from the treating physician whether the bite was from an animal or a human, appellant told him his ex-girlfriend had bitten him on November 27 or November 28.
The manager of a motel in Indiana where appellant and the victim lived for several weeks in mid-2002 testified appellant and the victim had an "unstable" relationship in which they frequently yelled and screamed at each other. The witness recalled an incident in August 2002 where the victim had called for help and the witness saw that appellant had the victim pinned against a wall, with one hand around her throat and the other hand in her pockets. When appellant released the victim, she ran into their motel room and locked the door, and appellant broke a window of the motel room and broke the back window of the victim's pickup truck. Appellant's former girlfriend testified that appellant and the victim spent four or five nights with her in Georgia in October 2002, during which time the ex-girlfriend called police to report that appellant was choking the victim while he had her pinned against a car.
1. The evidence was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to conclude appellant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the malice murder of the victim and the theft of her pickup truck. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).
2. Appellant filed a motion to suppress evidence obtained in and derived from a warrantless search of the motel room in which appellant and the victim had been living for six weeks and in which the victim's body was found. After conducting a hearing, the trial court denied the motion, concluding the evidence inevitably would have been discovered since the process of obtaining a search warrant had begun at the time the GBI agent had entered the motel room and the search warrant that issued while the agent was in the room was based on information obtained from sources unconnected with the warrantless search of the room. See Taylor v. State, 274 Ga. 269, 275 553 S.E.2d 598 (2001). Appellant contends the trial court erred in its application of the holding in Taylor.
The application for a search warrant for the room was completed at 6:45 a.m., and the warrant was issued by a magistrate at 6:45 a.m. Prior to its issuance, two police officers were dispatched to the motel at about 10:30 p.m. after receipt of a call reporting a bound, motionless body visible through the window of a motel room. Through the motel window, the officers observed the bound victim lying on the floor and "lots of blood" on clothing, furniture, the television, walls, and the floor, and they gained entry to the room with the aid of the motel manager. Once in the room, one officer checked the rest of the room for the presence of additional victims and/or the perpetrator and the other officer held one of the dogs found in the room with the victim while a paramedic attended the victim. When the paramedic confirmed the victim was dead, the trio left the room. Both officers and the paramedic testified at trial to their observations of the room and the victim.
A GBI investigator entered the room at 2:00 a.m. to collect forensic evidence. He visually examined the position of the victim's body and took swabbings of blood from a wooden axe handle and the interior door knob of the door to the room. He testified at trial to his observations, and the swabbings were admitted into evidence. The swabbings were submitted to the GBI Crime Lab for DNA analysis, and the expert analyst testified to the results. The victim's body was removed from the room at 4:15 a.m., and nail clippings were taken from the body later that day by the forensic pathologist conducting the autopsy in Decatur, Georgia. The forensic pathologist testified about the results of the autopsy, and the nail clippings were introduced into evidence. The nail clippings were submitted to the GBI Crime Lab for DNA analysis, and the expert DNA analyst testified to the results. The GBI crime scene investigator concluded his examination of the motel room after 7:30 a.m.
A motel guest is entitled to the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, and an otherwise unlawful search of a motel room cannot rest upon the consent of motel management. Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 489-490, 84 S.Ct. 889, 11 L.Ed.2d 856 (1964). See also Shue v. State, 129 Ga.App. 757(1), 201 S.E.2d 174 (1973). A warrantless search of a site protected against unreasonable searches and seizures is not constitutionally permissible simply because a homicide recently occurred there, as there is no "murder scene exception" to the warrant requirement. Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 395, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978). The Fourth Amendment proscribes all unreasonable searches and seizures, and searches conducted without prior judicial approval are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment, subject to specifically established and well-delineated exceptions. Id., at 390, 98 S.Ct. 2408. The need to protect or preserve life or avoid serious injury serves as such an exception, so the Fourth Amendment does not bar officers from making warrantless entries into and searches of protected areas when they have an objectively reasonable basis for believing a person within is in need of immediate aid (Brigham City, Utah, v. Stuart, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S.Ct. 1943, 1947-1948, 164 L.Ed.2d 650 (2006)) or, at the scene of a homicide, to search the area for the presence of other victims or the killer. Mincey v. Arizona, supra, 437 U.S. at 392-393, 98 S.Ct. 2408. Thus, the testimony of the officers who initially responded to the scene concerning their observations upon entering the room was admissible.
The exclusionary rule prohibits introduction into evidence of tangible material seized during an unlawful search, testimony concerning knowledge acquired during an unlawful search, and both tangible and testimonial derivative evidence that is the product of the primary evidence or that is otherwise acquired as an indirect result of the unlawful search, up to the point where the taint is dissipated by its attenuated connection with the unlawful search. Murray v. United States, 487 U.S....
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