Wilson v. State
| Decision Date | 29 March 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. S01A1799.,S01A1799. |
| Parties | WILSON v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Jon W. McClure, J. Michael Bass, Valdosta, for appellant.
J. David Miller, Dist. Atty., Thurbert E. Baker, Atty. Gen., Madonna M. Heinemeyer, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
Paul William Wilson appeals his convictions for malice murder, false imprisonment, theft by taking an automobile, and concealing the death of another, in connection with the death of Carol Sue Gibbs. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.1
Construed to support the verdicts, the evidence showed that Gibbs, while married to Scott Gibbs, began dating Wilson. Gibbs was divorced on December 8, 1995. However, Gibbs expressed to friends a desire to reconcile with her ex-husband and break off her relationship with Wilson. She asked a friend to go to Wilson's house to get her possessions and Christmas gifts, but despite the friend arranging with Wilson to do so, and telling Wilson that Gibbs wanted nothing more to do with him and that he should leave her alone, the friend did not retrieve Gibbs's possessions. On December 29, 1995, Gibbs told another friend that she wanted to break up with Wilson. The previous day, Gibbs had told yet another friend that she would go to Wilson's home the next night to break up with him; the friend, who feared for Gibbs's safety, asked Gibbs to telephone before doing so in order for the friend to accompany Gibbs, but Gibbs did not do this. Gibbs's car was seen at 10:00 p.m. December 29, 1995, at Wilson's house. Gibbs was not seen alive again.
On January 1, 1996, her ex-husband, who had two of the couple's children for the holiday, had not heard from Gibbs about exchanging the children, and in fact had not heard from her since the afternoon of December 29. This was unusual as she frequently telephoned the children when they were with him. The family began searching for Gibbs and her brother visited Wilson, who stated that he had last seen Gibbs at about 7:00 p.m. on December 29, but that she had left and not returned to watch videos as they had planned. The family later found Gibbs's car at a Ramada Inn. Luminol tests were done on the car to determine if blood residue was present, and there was a small reaction in the passenger seat and a large reaction in the backseat.
Bennett, the driver of a taxicab, accompanied by her boyfriend Ganzer, picked Wilson up at a Quality Inn on December 30, at 5:49 a.m. and took him to a church near his house. The Quality Inn is next to the Ramada Inn where Gibbs's car was found. A security videotape from a gas station next to the motels showed Wilson several times, from 4:53 to 5:46 a.m. on December 30, 1995, and the gas station clerk testified that Wilson spent approximately two hours there.
Wilson was interviewed on January 2, 1996; he was not in custody at that time. There were scratch marks on his arms. He said that Gibbs had brought rental movies to his house on December 29, they went out for some fried chicken, returned and watched movies, Gibbs left at 12:30 a.m. on December 30, and she was to call him when she got home, but did not. However, the receipt from the fried chicken restaurant found in Gibbs's car, and the surveillance videotape from the videotape rental store did not confirm Wilson's version of events. On January 3, the police attempted to speak with Wilson again. Wilson told one officer on the telephone that he would speak with them, but when another officer, who was half-a-mile away during the telephone call, arrived, Wilson was absent. On January 5, Wilson was placed in custody for violating his probation on prior unrelated charges. He was interviewed again, and confronted with the contradictions to his story. Wilson admitted that he had lied earlier and stated that a sleeping bag was missing from his house because a cousin had borrowed it. When asked what he thought had happened to Gibbs, he said that after she left, she may have encountered someone she knew, and that he "felt" that she had been tied up against her will. On January 6, Wilson said that it was possible that "the bad Paul" may have killed Gibbs, but he did not remember. Wilson's January 7 statement to police was suppressed by the trial court. In his January 8 statement, Wilson told police in pertinent part that his family told him he had a bad temper but that he had never hurt anyone; Wilson had removed Gibbs's bra while she sat on the sofa but did not know where it was; if Gibbs had accused him of doing something he did not do, he could have become agitated about it, but he did not remember that happening; that he recalled an incident in a shed behind his house in which Gibbs had blood on her, which he wiped off with an old white rag; and that in response to a question about why towels were in the sleeping bag in which Gibbs was found, he responded that he used them to try and stop the bleeding from her head.
Gibbs's body was found on January 7, in a green sleeping bag. The body was at a church cemetery near Wilson's home, and in which his parents were buried. An extension cord was tied around Gibbs's wrists, there were bruises on her face, and she had a fractured skull; she had been hit in the head at least four times and blunt force trauma to the head was the cause of death. She was alive when she was bound. A search warrant for Wilson's home was executed on January 4, and a Luminol test revealed blood splatters, some with a wiping motion to them, on the floor, doors and walls. DNA from bloodstains inside Wilson's home, including on a flier for a pizza restaurant, matched that of Gibbs. Blood splatters inside the house, together with autopsy evidence, indicated that Gibbs was seated on the floor, hands bound, when she was struck on the side of the head.
1. Wilson contends that the evidence was insufficient to support the verdicts, contending that the evidence against him was completely circumstantial and did not exclude every reasonable hypothesis save that of his guilt. See OCGA § 24-4-6. Specifically, Wilson contends that the State's evidence did not exclude the possibility that Gibbs was killed by her former husband, Scott Gibbs.
Pretermitting whether the evidence against Wilson was solely circumstantial, evidence showed that Scott Gibbs would have gained financially by the death of his ex-wife. It was also shown that he was in possession of her wedding ring when first interviewed by police, that he had removed money from Gibbs's dresser when looking for information about her whereabouts, and that when first interviewed by police, he gave an incorrect account of his actions and whereabouts on the night of December 29, 1995. However, Gibbs testified how he found the wedding ring, that he removed the money for safekeeping, and that in his initial recounting to the police of his whereabouts for a period of several days, he had mistaken what nights he had been helping his brother in working on his kitchen. Further, evidence showed that Scott Gibbs was approximately the same size as the victim and had had two back surgeries that limited the weight he could lift to fifty pounds, and it was clear that the victim's body had been moved.
[Q]uestions as to the reasonableness of hypotheses are generally to be decided by the jury which heard the evidence and where the jury is authorized to find that the evidence, though circumstantial, was sufficient to exclude every reasonable hypothesis save that of guilt, that finding will not be disturbed unless the verdict of guilty is insupportable as a matter of law. [Cit.]
Robbins v. State, 269 Ga. 500, 501(1), 499 S.E.2d 323 (1998). The jury was properly charged on the use of circumstantial evidence under OCGA § 24-4-6. The evidence authorized the jury to exclude all reasonable hypotheses other than Wilson's guilt and to find Wilson guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes of which he was convicted. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).
2. Wilson contends that the statement he made to police while in custody on January 8, 1996 should have been suppressed. Wilson argues that the trial court erred by admitting the January 8 statement despite the fact that the court suppressed Wilson's statement made to police on January 7, 1996 because the police failed to cease interrogating Wilson after he told them he was "through talking" to them. The trial court determined that Wilson's "right to cut off questioning" had not been "scrupulously honored" by police as required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966) and Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96, 96 S.Ct. 321, 46 L.Ed.2d 313 (1975). The trial court, however, determined that Wilson's January 8 statement was admissible because a "significant period of time" had passed between his invocation of his right to silence on January 7 and the interview conducted sixteen to seventeen hours later on January 8. Although we disagree with the trial court's reasoning, we find that Wilson's January 8 statement was admissible on different grounds and find no error in the trial court's ruling.
In Michigan v. Mosley, supra, the United States Supreme Court considered under what circumstances custodial interrogation may be resumed after a person in custody has indicated a desire to remain silent. The Mosley Court found that the defendant's "right to cut off questioning" was "scrupulously honored" where the police immediately ceased the interrogation [after the defendant indicated he no longer wanted to talk], resumed questioning only after the passage of a significant period of time and the provision of a fresh set of [Miranda] warnings, and restricted the second interrogation to a crime that had not been a subject of the earlier interrogation.
(Emphasis supplied.) Id., 423 U.S. at 106, 96 S.Ct. 321.
We disagree with the trial court that Wilson's invocation of his right to remain silent was no longer...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Pauldo
...invoking his right to remain silent); Morgan v. State , 275 Ga. 222, 223-24 (4), 564 S.E.2d 192 (2002) (same); Wilson v. State , 275 Ga. 53, 58-59 (2), 562 S.E.2d 164 (2002) (same). As this Court recently explained, "initiation" under these circumstances6 "requires not only that the defenda......
-
Mack v. State
...17–hour overnight time lapse between assertion of the privilege and further police communications was not sufficient. Wilson v. State, 275 Ga. 53(2), 562 S.E.2d 164 (2002). In Wilson, the defendant's initial statements had been suppressed because they were taken after he had invoked his rig......
-
King v. State, A15A1878.
...constitutionally inadmissible if it does not depend upon the prior identification but has an independent origin." Wilson v. State, 275 Ga. 53, 59(3), 562 S.E.2d 164 (2002). "The primary evil to be avoided is the substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification." Id. (citing Coleman v......
-
Hart v. The State, A10A0337.
...(2009) (citations omitted; emphasis in original). 4. See Jackson, supra; Merritt, supra at 779-780, 683 S.E.2d 855; Wilson v. State, 275 Ga. 53, 56(1), 562 S.E.2d 164 (2002); Williams v. State, 164 Ga.App. 621, 622(1), 298 S.E.2d 306 (1982) (“mere possibility that someone other than defenda......