Williams v. State

• Decision Date: 20 April 2010
• Docket Number: No. 2008–KA–00695–COA.,2008–KA–00695–COA.
• Citation: 53 So.3d 761
• Parties: David Jackson WILLIAMS, Appellant,v.STATE of Mississippi, Appellee.
• Court: Mississippi Court of Appeals

53 So.3d 761

David Jackson WILLIAMS, Appellant,

v.STATE of Mississippi, Appellee.

No. 2008–KA–00695–COA.

Court of Appeals of Mississippi.

Dec. 15, 2009.Rehearing Denied April 20, 2010.

David G. Hill, Oxford, attorney for appellant.Office of the Attorney General by John R. Henry, attorney for appellee.EN BANC.IRVING, J., for the Court.

¶ 1. A Lafayette County jury found David Jackson Williams guilty of murder. Thereafter, the Lafayette County Circuit Court sentenced Williams to life in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Feeling aggrieved, Williams appeals and asserts that the circuit court erred when it: (1) refused his request for an assisted-suicide instruction; (2) allowed a priest to claim the priest-penitent privilege regarding conversations that the priest had had with the victim; (3) allowed Dr. Steven Hayne to testify as an expert in the field of forensic pathology; and (4) denied his motion to dismiss based on the allegation that he had been denied his right to a speedy trial. Additionally, Williams claims that he received ineffective assistance of counsel.

¶ 2. Finding no reversible error, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court.

FACTS

¶ 3. This appeal centers on the untimely death of Demetria Bracey, who was a student at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi. The events that led to Demetria's death were set into motion when Demetria met Williams on the Internet during January 2005.¹ Shortly after they met, Demetria and Williams formed a romantic relationship.

¶ 4. Demetria and Williams maintained their relationship throughout the early months of 2005. However, during the summer of 2005, Demetria left the United States for an opportunity to study abroad in Paris, France. Demetria and Williams broke up before she left and remained separated for the summer. Sometime after Demetria returned to Oxford, she and Williams resumed their romantic relationship. The events central to this appeal occurred during the second week of November 2005.

¶ 5. At the beginning of the week, Demetria uncharacteristically failed to report for band practice and failed to report for her duties as a dorm resident advisor. Later in the week, one of Demetria's close friends, Jessica Smith, became concerned for Demetria. Jessica called Williams on his cellular telephone and asked him whether he knew where she could find Demetria. Williams reported that Demetria's father was dying and that Demetria had gone home to Jackson, Mississippi, so that she could be with him. Jessica was not able to reach Demetria on her cellular telephone, so she asked Williams for Demetria's father's telephone number. However, Williams would not give Jessica a telephone number. Williams told Jessica that Demetria's father would not want Williams to give out his telephone number.

¶ 6. Undeterred, Jessica asked Williams whether he would set up a three-way conference call so she could at least speak to Demetria. Shortly afterward, Williams arranged a conference call, and Jessica was able to talk to Demetria for a short period of time. According to Jessica, Demetria sounded as though she had been crying. Jessica attributed Demetria's emotional state to her father's illness. However, Demetria was not at her father's house. She was not even in Jackson. Instead, Demetria was with Williams at his apartment in Oxford. She had been with Williams in his apartment since Sunday, November 6.

¶ 7. Sometime between late Thursday night and early Friday morning, Demetria died in Williams's apartment after a kitchen knife penetrated her chest and punctured her right ventricle. Demetria and Williams were the only people in his apartment at that time. During an interview with the Oxford Police Department, Williams claimed that Demetria had killed herself pursuant to a mutual suicide pact.

¶ 8. According to Williams, sometime between Thursday night and Friday morning, he and Demetria both went into one of his closets. During its case-in-chief, the prosecution introduced a transcript of Williams's interview with the police. In that interview, Williams claimed that he and Demetria each consumed substantial amounts of alcohol and that they each swallowed ten Klonopin tablets. Williams stated that Demetria then stabbed herself with one of his kitchen knives.² Williams stated that he was supposed to stab himself at the same time. According to Williams, he tried to stab himself, but his knife did not go in far enough, and he lost consciousness because of the pain, alcohol, and prescription drug he had taken.

¶ 9. Williams claimed that he regained consciousness a couple hours later and discovered that Demetria was dead. Williams told authorities that he removed the knife from Demetria's chest and threw it across the room. Williams reported that he attempted to kill himself again when he discovered Demetria, but could not do so.

¶ 10. Williams spent the next few days holed up in his apartment drinking beer, watching television, and playing video games. According to Williams, he drank “a lot” during that time. Williams hoped the alcohol would help him find the courage to kill himself. On Saturday, Williams ordered pizza, and around the same time, he received a notice that apartment inspectors would be visiting his apartment. Williams pushed Demetria's legs into his closet and covered her body with clothes. He slept in another closet so he would not be easily discovered if an inspector entered his apartment.

¶ 11. On the following Tuesday, November 15, 2005, Williams decided to go to his parents' house in Olive Branch, Mississippi. Williams reportedly asked his parents what he should do. His parents consulted an attorney and subsequently contacted authorities and informed them that they should examine Williams's apartment. In any event, Williams's parents had Williams admitted to the Baptist–DeSoto Hospital in Southaven, Mississippi.

¶ 12. On November 15, 2005, Lieutenant Wes Hatcher of the Oxford Police Department was dispatched to Williams's apartment. Lieutenant Hatcher went inside Williams's apartment and discovered Demetria's body. Lieutenant Hatcher secured Williams's apartment so that it could be examined by crime-scene investigators. The Oxford Police Department met with Williams the very next day.

¶ 13. On November 16, 2005, Williams was released from the hospital. Two members of the Oxford Police Department drove Williams to Oxford. Williams and his attorney met with Investigator Jimmy Williams of the Oxford Police Department and Master Sergeant John Marsh of the Mississippi Highway Patrol's criminal investigation bureau. Williams agreed to be interviewed with his attorney present.

¶ 14. During the interview, Williams claimed that Demetria had killed herself. Williams stated that he and Demetria had a suicide pact and that they had started discussing suicide during the summer.

¶ 15. Regarding the night that Demetria died, Williams presented the following version of events:

We had kind of talked about committing suicide together and stuff like that and we decided we were going to do it last week and she came over, it was Sunday. We just hung out together, didn't go to class, she didn't work, um and we just hung out for a couple of days and decided that we were going to do it that night and she, we both drank a lot and took some pills but it wouldn't help the pain, you know. And we decided to do it in the closet so it would take longer for people to find us if somebody showed up looking for us and we got knives and went in there and we decided to do it at the same time and mine didn't go as far in.

Williams also said:

I woke up later and saw that [Demetria] was already dead. And I got the knife out of her and checked if she was alive and she wasn't. I stabbed myself again with that knife and I just couldn't do it hard enough to make it work. The next few days I was drinking and trying to do it at every night but I couldn't do it.

¶ 16. Williams was indicted on March 2, 2006, by a Lafayette County grand jury on the sole charge of murder. He pleaded not guilty, and on September 24, 2007, he went to trial. The prosecution called nine witnesses. Three of those witnesses testified regarding Demetria's personality, Williams's personality, or the relationship between Demetria and Williams.

¶ 17. Jessica testified regarding Demetria's personality, Demetria's relationship with Williams, and the events that transpired during early November 2005. Demetria's mother, Glenda Hill, also testified regarding Demetria's personality and relationship with Williams. Enjoli Canankamp testified that, during the spring and early summer of 2005, she and Williams dated “off and on.” Canankamp also testified that she had spoken with Williams about Demetria's death. According to Canankamp, Williams said that he and Demetria had a suicide pact.

¶ 18. The prosecution also called law enforcement witnesses who had participated in the investigation. Lieutenant Hatcher testified as to his participation in the investigation, as did Investigator Williams and Agent Marsh, who had left the Mississippi Highway Patrol's criminal investigation bureau and joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Dywana Broughton, an employee of the Mississippi Highway Patrol's criminal investigation bureau's crime scene unit, testified that she found twenty-three separate blood stains throughout Williams's apartment.

¶ 19. Dr. Hayne, a forensic pathologist, also testified for the prosecution. Dr. Hayne testified that on November 16, 2005, some five days after Demetria's death, he performed an autopsy on Demetria. Dr. Hayne testified that at the time he performed his autopsy, it was his belief that Demetria had been dead for approximately three days. According to Dr. Hayne, the cause of Demetria's death was the stab wound to her heart. Dr. Hayne testified that the manner of her death was a homicide. Dr. Hayne went on to testify regarding why he did not believe that...