Trueblood v. State, 79S00-9004-DP-00304

• Decision Date: 28 February 1992
• Docket Number: No. 79S00-9004-DP-00304,79S00-9004-DP-00304
• Parties: Joseph L. TRUEBLOOD, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below).
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 105

587 N.E.2d 105

Joseph L. TRUEBLOOD, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below).

No. 79S00-9004-DP-00304.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Feb. 28, 1992.

Rehearing Denied May 6, 1992.

Thomas J. O'Brien, Donahue, O'Brien & Morrissey, Michael J. O'Reilly, Lafayette, for appellant.

Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen., Arthur Thaddeus Perry, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.

SHEPARD, Chief Justice.

Joseph L. Trueblood pled guilty to three counts of murder. Ind.Code Sec. 35-42-1-1(1) (West Supp.1991). The trial court sentenced him to death for these murders. We affirm.

In this direct appeal, Trueblood has raised two issues:

I. Whether the court erred in refusing to allow Trueblood to withdraw his guilty pleas, and

II. Whether the court failed to consider available mitigating circumstances and found an aggravating circumstance which was not supported by the evidence.

The facts most favorable to the judgment are as follows. Trueblood, a former boyfriend of Susan Bowsher, was upset with Susan because she was going to return to her ex-husband. He took a gun from his parents' house. A few days later on August 15, 1988, he picked up Susan and her two children, Ashlyn, age two and a half, and William, age seventeen months. While they were in his automobile Trueblood shot each of them in the head, killing all three. He then drove to his brother's home and borrowed a shovel. He took the victims to a secluded area and buried them in a shallow grave.

Trueblood pled guilty to the murder of Susan on October 6, 1988. On December 6, 1989, he filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea, which the trial court denied. In February 1990, he went to trial on the charges of murdering the children. After several prosecution witnesses testified before the jury, Trueblood informed the court that he wanted to plead guilty to the murders of the children. The court took the plea and then discharged the jury. Within two or three days, Trueblood changed his story while giving his version of events to the probation officer for the pre-sentence investigation report. On March 2, 1990, he asked the court to allow him to withdraw the guilty pleas with respect to the children and proceed with a new trial. The trial court denied his request, expressly finding Trueblood was telling the truth when he pled guilty to the murders of the children and was not being truthful about the withdrawal of these pleas. The court subsequently heard evidence and argument relative to the imposition of the death penalty, and sentenced Trueblood to death for the three murders.

I. Withdrawal of Guilty Pleas

Trueblood now asserts that Susan shot her children and then shot herself twice. He says he shot her a final time because she indicated she was in pain and wanted him to kill her. He cites this Court's decision in Patton v. State (1987), Ind., 517 N.E.2d 374, to support his argument that the trial court should have allowed him to withdraw his guilty pleas after he asserted he was innocent of the charges against him.

In Indiana's courts, "a judge may not accept a plea of guilty when the defendant both pleads guilty and maintains his innocence at the same time. To accept such a plea constitutes reversible error." Ross v. State (1983), Ind., 456 N.E.2d 420, 423. This rule is designed to heighten the reliability of the guilty plea. It also serves to prevent a practice which we believe would diminish respect for the court system: conviction and sentencing without trial of citizens who tell the judge they committed no crime. The Ross rule represents a policy decision made by this Court; it is not grounded in the eighth amendment or any other federal jurisprudence. See North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 91 S.Ct. 160, 27 L.Ed.2d 162 (1970) (admission of guilt is not constitutional requisite to imposition of criminal penalty). The rule generally applies only to defendants who plead guilty and maintain their innocence at the same time. Moredock v. State (1989), Ind., 540 N.E.2d 1230; Patton, 517 N.E.2d 374.

In one capital case, however, we applied the Ross rule to a protestation of innocence which took place after the guilty plea was accepted. We held in Patton, 517 N.E.2d 374, that the trial court should set aside a guilty plea when the defendant denied at the sentencing hearing that he knowingly killed the victim. In Patton the defendant pled guilty to murder and to other charges. At the guilty plea hearing, the court read the information which alleged that Patton had knowingly killed the victim; Patton admitted these facts were true. The prosecutor read the probable cause affidavit, and Patton again acknowledged the facts were true. At the sentencing hearing, however, Patton maintained he did not intend to kill the victim, and in fact did not know anyone was sitting in the car at which he shot. This Court reversed his murder conviction and death sentence and remanded for trial. Id. ¹

The case before us now poses anew the application of Ross in capital cases and places Patton in between two polar and facile approaches. At one extreme, Ross could be used to institute a per se rule that trial courts cannot accept guilty pleas in capital cases. A single emphatic sentence in Patton ² has caused some to read Patton as doing just that. Defendants should have the option, however, to plead guilty if they so choose. They may want to do so for a multitude of reasons that may be favorable to them. The chance to present a case for life to the judge without running the risk of a jury recommendation for death is one such reason.

Alternatively, the Ross principles might be used to permit a defendant to plead guilty to a capital offense and withdraw the guilty plea at any time. This approach could create havoc. A defendant could go to trial, wait until substantial time, energy and resources have been invested in the trial, and decide to plead guilty. Then if he changed his mind again he would be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea, go to trial, and possibly decide to plead guilty again. The potential for this sort of manipulation makes this approach unacceptable. The rational approach lies between the two extremes, and both Patton and this case illustrate it well.

The most important consideration in applying the Ross rule to capital cases is the need for heightened reliability of the guilty determination. There can be no per se rule, however, to evaluate the reliability of these determinations. It is a decision that must be made upon the facts of each case. It almost goes without saying that a plea in a capital case must be more carefully and fully explored on the record with the defendant than a plea which subjects the defendant only to a term of years. A later request to withdraw such a plea calls for examining whether the plea was given truthfully and intelligently and whether the request to withdraw arises out of genuine misapprehension or out of a desire to manipulate.

Patton was a case in which the defendant chose to waive trial and take his chances with the judge on sentencing. The sole evidence of Patton's guilt came from his acknowledgments that the information and affidavit of probable cause were true. Patton, 517 N.E.2d at 374. It appeared that Patton had shot through a car window late one autumn night. The trial judge read Patton an information which alleged a knowing killing of the occupant and asked if he wanted to admit that the facts were true. Patton simply answered yes. At the later sentencing hearing, Patton testified that the windows were misted and that he had not seen anyone inside. It appeared possible to us that Patton never really believed he knowingly shot the victim. In light of the apparent strategy to contest "intentional" killing ³ and in view of the thin nature of the dialogue between the judge and the defendant, we were not satisfied that the defendant's plea to a knowing murder was reliable.

In this case, there is much more evidence of Trueblood's commission of the murders. He did not simply acknowledge the truth of the charging information and the probable cause affidavit. Trueblood responded affirmatively to individual and distinct questions about whether he knowingly killed Susan and the children by shooting bullets into their heads and whether he intended to end their lives. Moreover, the circumstances of Trueblood's plea suggest a strategic decision to plea and a desire to manipulate.

Several days of the jury trial had taken place before Trueblood asked to plead guilty to the murders of the children. Four witnesses had given testimony damaging to Trueblood and were subject to cross-examination by his attorney before he decided to plead guilty.

Susan's former in-laws testified first. Mr. William Hughes testified that two weeks prior to the murder Susan and the children moved in with him, his wife, and son (Susan's ex-husband). He indicated Susan and his son were planning to get back together. William Hughes last saw Susan on the day of the murder. He testified that she was in good spirits when she left that day to go pay a deposit on an apartment. Mrs. Christine Hughes also testified that her son and Susan were going to get back together. Additionally, she related a story reflecting on Trueblood's temper: a few months after her son and Susan were divorced Trueblood followed her and Susan in his car and hit Christine's car with his several times.

The most damaging testimony was given by the next witness, Trueblood's twin brother William. William testified that Trueblood came to his apartment on August 14 or 15 and told him that he had "just shot Susan and the kids were dead." Record at 821. When asked who killed the children, Trueblood responded that he had killed them. Trueblood said he shot Susan first and then the kids, using motions to describe the manner in which he shot them. He told William he took the gun he used to kill Susan and the children from his father's lockbox. He...