Williams v. State

• Decision Date: 16 March 1990
• Docket Number: 8 Div. 300
• Citation: 565 So.2d 1233
• Parties: Billy Gray WILLIAMS v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 1233

565 So.2d 1233

Billy Gray WILLIAMS v. STATE.

8 Div. 300.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama.

March 16, 1990.

Rehearing Denied April 27, 1990.

Certiorari Denied June 22, 1990

Alabama Supreme Court 89-1184.

B.T. Gardner, Jr., Tuscumbia, for appellant.

Don Siegelman, Atty. Gen., and J. Thomas Leverette, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

BOWEN, Judge.

Billy Gray Williams was indicted and convicted for the capital murder of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett in violation of Ala.Code 1975, § 13A-5-40(a)(7) ("murder done for a pecuniary or other valuable consideration or pursuant to a contract or for hire"). The circuit court accepted the jury's recommendation and sentenced the defendant Williams to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Williams raises three issues on this appeal from that conviction.

I

The defendant contends that his oral and written statements to law enforcement officers should not have been admitted into evidence at his trial because (1) they were the product of an illegal arrest, (2) they were not voluntary, (3) he was not adequately advised of his constitutional rights, and (4) he did not knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily waive his constitutional rights. Allegations (2), (3), and (4) are not supported by the facts contained in the record before this Court and do not warrant further discussion or consideration other than that the record does positively and clearly show that the defendant was properly advised of his constitutional rights on three occasions, and that the evidence overwhelmingly supports a finding that his statements were voluntarily made after a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary waiver of those rights.

The defendant's allegation that his statements were the product of an illegal arrest requires some discussion.

Mrs. Sennett was murdered on March 18, 1988. Alabama Bureau of Investigation Investigator Harold Carson testified that an anonymous informant supplied information that the defendant, Kenny Smith, and John Parker were involved in the murder of Mrs. Sennett. The informant supplied the names of these individuals, where they lived, and a description of their vehicles. The informant also provided the following information: that the defendant lived in a residence owned by Charles Sennett, the victim's husband; that the three suspects had gone to Coffee High School together and had been close friends; that the murder was originally planned for Wednesday but on that day the victim changed her mind and went to Birmingham with Mr. Sennett, who went to a doctor; that on the day of the murder the defendant purchased a waterbed at Waterworld in Florence with part of the money he was paid to kill Mrs. Sennett; that a Samsung VCR was taken from the Sennett residence and that the informant had seen that VCR in the Smith residence; and that the VCR did not have the remote control unit.

Before the defendant was taken into custody, Investigator Carson corroborated all of this information except the location of the VCR in the Smith residence. The theft of the VCR is significant in establishing the probable cause to arrest Williams because the fact of the theft had not been made public and the crime scene, the den of the Sennett residence, had been carefully preserved and isolated. This, coupled with the fact that the VCR's remote control unit had not been taken, supports the reasonable inference that the informant was credible and his information reliable. Additionally, Investigator Carson knew that Mr. Sennett, the victim's husband, had given three statements in which he denied any involvement in his wife's murder, that a number of inconsistencies had been discovered in Mr. Sennett's account of the events, that he was a suspect, and that Mr. Sennett had committed suicide on March 25, 1988. Based on the information obtained from the informant, a warrant to search the Smith residence was obtained by Colbert County Sheriff's Investigator Ronnie May early on the afternoon of March 31, 1988.

Later, on that afternoon, a "joint" decision was made by all of the officers involved in the Sennett murder investigation to arrest all three suspects and to execute the search warrant at 3:00 that afternoon. The "team" assigned to take the defendant into custody consisted of Colbert County Sheriff John Aldridge, ABI Investigator Carson, and Florence police officer Glenn Masonia. They went to the defendant's residence in Florence around 3:00 "to take him into custody and ask him to come to be interviewed." The defendant was not at home so Sheriff Aldridge and Investigator Carson returned to the Sheriff's Office in Tuscumbia. Officer Masonia was left to watch the defendant's residence and wait for his return.

Aldridge and Carson returned to the defendant's residence around 5:00 that same afternoon, having "received a call from [the] Florence Police Department that they had made contact with [the defendant] and he was with them." When Aldridge and Carson arrived, the defendant and his girlfriend, Katherine Corbin, were sitting in the defendant's car parked on the street in a location close to the defendant's residence. Officer Masonia was sitting in his police car which was parked behind the defendant's car.

At the suppression hearing, Investigator Carson testified: "We got out of our car. Mr. Williams got out. I asked him for his driver's license for identification.... and we asked him if he would come over, come and sit down in the car with us, we needed to talk to him [about the Sennett murder] and he agreed." Carson also testified that he and the sheriff "both got out of the car and walked up to the side where Mr. Williams was sitting." Carson testified that before the defendant got into Carson's car, Carson "just patted his pockets down to make sure he didn't have a weapon on him." Once in the car, the defendant was given his Miranda rights. Carson "asked if he would accompany us to the courthouse in Tuscumbia and he said, yes and asked could he drive his car and ... we told him we would rather he rode with us and he said let me go tell my girlfriend to follow us over there." Carson stated that he "discouraged" the defendant from driving his own car because "we wanted to make sure that he came over here." The defendant got out of Investigator Carson's car and, without any officer accompanying him, went to his car and had a conversation with his girlfriend and then "voluntarily came back and got in the car."

The defendant was taken to the courthouse. His girlfriend followed in the defendant's car. By the time Investigator Carson returned to the courthouse with the defendant, suspects Smith and Parker had already been arrested and had given statements implicating the defendant. Smith's residence had been searched and the VCR taken from the Sennett residence had been discovered.

Carson testified that before he began questioning the defendant at the courthouse, he had been informed of Smith's statement but that he "didn't know anything about what Parker had said."

The information obtained from the anonymous telephone informant and corroborated by the sheriff's department satisfies the totality-of-the-circumstances test for determining probable cause set out in Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983).

In White v. State, 550 So.2d 1074 (Ala.Cr.App.), cert. denied, 550 So.2d 1081 (Ala.1989), cert. granted, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 834, 107 L.Ed.2d 830 (1990), this Court found that an anonymous telephone tip did not provide the reasonable suspicion necessary to justify a stop of a vehicle for an investigative detention. We fully recognize that "reasonable suspicion of crime is insufficient to justify custodial interrogation even though the interrogation is investigative." Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 499, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1325, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983). However, our analysis in White is applicable here, for the difference between probable cause to arrest and reasonable suspicion to stop "may lie in the degree of probability required," 3 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 9.3(b) at 431 (2d ed. 1987), and the quantum of information required, id. § 9.3(e), at 478-79.

"We begin our analysis of the instant tip with an expression of agreement with the commentator that the factors of Aguilar [v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964),] and its progeny are still 'highly relevant.' We also note that the weight of each factor cannot be set by a strict across-the-board rule, but rather depends on the totality of the circumstances of each case. However, we do declare the following two principles in determining the presence of the factors. First, corroboration of the details of the anonymous informer's tip--even innocent details--may establish the informant's veracity. See Note, Stop and Frisk Based Upon Anonymous Telephone Tips [39 Wash. & Lee L.Rev. 1437, 1450-51 (1982) ]. We strongly caution, however, that the details corroborated should be impressive, as to number and specificity, under the particular circumstances, if corroboration is to be utilized to establish the tipster's credibility. This brings us to our second principle: detail in the anonymous tip can support the inference that the informant has an adequate basis of knowledge. Id. at 1449-50. However, the detail must demonstrate that the anonymous informant had special familiarity with the affairs of the suspect. 3 W. LaFave, supra, at § 9.3(e), p. 484. For an example of cases wherein a detailed tip, which proved through corroboration to be accurate in all innocent details, can furnish the reasonable suspicion necessary for a Terry stop, see White v. United States [454 U.S. 924, 102 S.Ct. 424, 70 L.Ed.2d 233 (1981) (White, J., dissenting) ].

"In the instant case, we find that the tip exhibits no 'indicia of reliability.' The police officers knew nothing about the informer; [Officer] Davis testified that he simply assumed that the informant was a concerned citizen. The...