THACKER v. U.S., 89-326
Decision Date | 14 November 1991 |
Docket Number | No. 89-326,89-326 |
Citation | 599 A.2d 52 |
Parties | John R. THACKER, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee. |
Court | D.C. Court of Appeals |
Appeal from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, Peter H. Wolf, J.
THIS PAGE CONTAINED HEADNOTES AND HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.
Kenneth H. Rosenau, Washington, D.C., appointed by this court, for appellant.
Shanlon Wu, Asst. U.S. Atty., with whom Jay B. Stephens, U.S. Atty., and John R. Fisher, Thomas C. Black, and G. Paul Howes, Asst. U.S. Attys., Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for appellee.
Before TERRY, Associate Judge, and KERN and BELSON, Senior Judges. *.
Judge Belson was an Associate Judge of the court at the time of argument. He was commissioned as a Senior Judge on July 24, 1991.
Appellant Thacker and a co-defendant, Joice Russell, were convicted of two counts each of first-degree burglary while armed,1 one count each of armed robbery,2 three counts each of first-degree felony murder while armed,3 and one count each of first-degree premeditated murder while armed.4 Both Thacker and Russell noted appeals from their convictions, but for reasons unknown to us (contrary to this court's usual practice) the two appeals were not consolidated. Russell's conviction was recently affirmed by another division of this court. Russell v. United States, 586 A.2d 695 (D.C. 1991). In this appeal Thacker makes several assignments of error. We reject them all, vacate those convictions that merge, see part VII, infra, and affirm the judgment in all other respects.
In August 1986 Denise Lewis lived with her mother in an apartment about a five-minute walk from the apartment of William Jefferson. On August 30, shortly before 9:00 o'clock in the evening, Lewis went to Jefferson's apartment to purchase $50 worth of cocaine. She stayed there for the next few hours, during which time the two of them smoked cocaine and engaged in oral sex.
Jefferson received three telephone calls while Lewis was in his apartment that evening. During the second call Jefferson screamed at the caller, "You owe me, you owe me, hell no, I'm not giving you shit," before banging down the receiver. The phone rang again about five minutes later. During this call Jefferson yelled even louder than before, telling the caller, "You want to come over here and get this goddamn shit and you owe me money, goddamn it, come and get it." Jefferson then slammed the phone down again and told Lewis to "clean up, clean up everything." He gave Lewis some cocaine, which she hid in a pack of cigarettes. Jefferson then went into the bedroom to prepare a package of cocaine, apparently for the person who had just called him.
Joice Russell, Thacker's co-defendant and Jefferson's former girl friend, arrived at the apartment a short time later. Russell asked Jefferson, "Where is the package?" and Jefferson responded, "Where is the money?" Russell said that she did not have the money with her, but that a woman downstairs in the car wanted to examine the package before purchasing it. Jefferson told Russell to go and get the woman. Russell left, and Jefferson sat back down on the couch with Lewis. A few minutes later there was a knock at the door, and as Jefferson began to open it, Thacker and Russell burst into the room. Lewis ran toward the kitchen after hearing Thacker yell at Jefferson, "Hold it right there, mother fucker, didn't I tell you don't fuck with Joice."5 Russell followed Lewis into the kitchen, threatening her with a knife. Lewis saw Thacker standing over Jefferson with another knife, which Thacker had pulled from a sheath he was carrying. Thacker screamed, "Where is it, goddamn it, where is it at?" at Jefferson, who was lying on the floor on his back. Jefferson insisted that he did not have anything.
Russell left Lewis in the kitchen and returned to the living room, where Thacker was asking Jefferson, "Where is it at?" Thacker told Russell to gag Jefferson, and she apparently did so; Lewis saw Russellput something in Jefferson's mouth6 and then heard Jefferson choking. After Russell removed whatever was in Jefferson's mouth, Jefferson again insisted that he did not have anything. Thacker told Jefferson, "If you don't give it to me, I will slash your goddamned eyes out." Lewis then heard Jefferson scream, "My face, my face," and saw Jefferson stumbling around with deep cuts on his face, legs, and chest. All this time Jefferson was screaming, "Don't hurt me, don't hurt me." Jefferson staggered over to some curtains by the window, but Thacker pursued him. Thacker stabbed Jefferson in the right side of his abdomen, then moved the knife over to the left side of Jefferson's abdomen before removing it. Jefferson fell face down on the floor, apparently dead or dying. Thacker felt for Jefferson's pulse and said, "He's gone."
Thacker then ransacked the apartment. Initially he threatened to kill Lewis, but after Russell talked him out of it, he merely forced Lewis to help clean up the blood, saying that he would kill her "the same way he did [Jefferson]" if she told anyone what had happened. All three then left the apartment and drove off in Thacker's van. Thacker and Russell dropped Lewis off at an abandoned building after warning her once again not to say anything to anyone.
The next day Thacker and Russell visited Monique Mitchell, Jesse Gulley, and Johnny Nelson. In the course of their visit, both of them told Mitchell in grisly detail about the murder of Jefferson and warned her that what she had just heard was to "stay in this house or else."
Jefferson's body was discovered a few days later. A deputy medical examiner, Dr. Marie-Lydie Pierre-Louis, testified at trial that there were five stab wounds to Jefferson's body and that two of them, one to the chest and one to the abdomen, were "lethal." The doctor also testified that Jefferson had received seven other wounds to his thigh, hand, and shoulder, but these were defensive wounds, resulting from Jefferson's efforts to protect himself. According to the medical examiner, Jefferson died as a result of the two main stab wounds, from which he bled to death.
Russell testified in her own defense, claiming that, to the extent she was involved in the crime at all, Thacker had forced her to participate. Thacker presented no evidence.
Thacker contends that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction of first-degree premeditated murder.7 He argues that the only evidence that could support the required finding of premeditation is Lewis' testimony about the two telephone calls to Jefferson's apartment a short time before his death. Thacker maintains that the trial court abused its discretion by allowing the testimony about these calls into evidence because there was no proof that he or Russell made either call. He urges us to hold that the evidence of the phone calls was erroneously admitted and that the remaining evidence was insufficient to support a finding of premeditation and deliberation.
We need not decide whether the trial court erred in admitting the evidence of the phone calls if we conclude that there was enough other evidence, apart from the phone calls, to support the first-degree murder verdict. We therefore examine the sufficiency of the other evidence, viewing it as we must in the light most favorable to government, and recognizing the right of the jury to assess credibility and to draw reasonable inferences from all the evidence presented. United States v. Hubbard, 429 A.2d 1334, 1337-1338 (D.C.) (citing cases), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 857, 102 S.Ct. 308, 70 L.Ed.2d 153 (1981); Byrd v. United States, 388 A.2d 1225, 1229 (D.C. 1978) (citing cases).
To prove first-degree premeditated murder, the government must show beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendantacted with premeditation and deliberation. McAdoo v. United States, 515 A.2d 412, 427 (D.C. 1986); Watson v. United States, 501 A.2d 791, 792 (D.C. 1985); Hall v. United States, 454 A.2d 314, 317 (D.C. 1982); Head v. United States, 451 A.2d 615, 623 (D.C. 1982). Premeditation requires proof that the defendant gave "thought before acting to the idea of taking a human life and [reached] a definite decision to kill." Watson, supra, 501 A.2d at 793 (citation omitted); accord, McAdoo, supra, 515 A.2d at 427; Head, supra, 451 A.2d at 623. Deliberation requires proof that the defendant acted with "consideration and reflection upon the preconceived design to kill, turning it over in the mind, giving it second thought." Watson, supra, 501 A.2d at 793 (citation omitted). Both premeditation and deliberation may be inferred from the facts and circumstances surrounding the killing. McAdoo, supra, 515 A.2d at 427; Head, supra, 451 A.2d at 623. The fact that the accused carried the murder weapon, or indeed any deadly weapon, to the murder scene is highly probative of premeditation and deliberation. McAdoo, supra, 515 A.2d at 427; United States v. Brooks, 146 U.S.App.D.C. 1, 8-9, 449 F.2d 1077, 1084-1085 (1971).
In addition to the phone calls, the evidence showed that Thacker brought a knife to Jefferson's apartment, screamed at Jefferson about his involvement with Russell, and then proceeded to stab Jefferson repeatedly while Jefferson pleaded for his life. The fact that Thacker brought the knife with him is "highly probative of premeditation and deliberation . . . as it permits the inference that appellant arrived on the scene already possessed of a calmly planned and calculated intent to kill." McAdoo, supra, 515 A.2d at 427 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).8 Furthermore, a reasonable juror could fairly conclude from Thacker's remarks to Jefferson (not to "fuck with Joice") that Thacker's motive for the murder was jealousy.9 This evidence was more than sufficient to support a conclusion that Thacker gave "thought before acting . . . and [reached] a...
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