Wright v. State

• Citation: 633 A.2d 329
• Parties: Jermaine M. WRIGHT, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee. . Submitted:
• Decision Date: 08 September 1993
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Delaware

Page 329

633 A.2d 329

Jermaine M. WRIGHT, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Submitted: Sept. 8, 1993.

Decided: Nov. 17, 1993.

Appeal from Superior Court. AFFIRMED.

Joseph M. Bernstein, Wilmington, for appellant.

Richard E. Fairbanks, Jr. (argued), Chief of Appeals Div., and Timothy J. Donovan, Jr., Deputy Atty. Gen., Dept. of Justice, Wilmington, for appellee.

Before VEASEY, C.J., HORSEY, MOORE, WALSH, and HOLLAND, JJ., constituting the Court en banc.

WALSH, Justice.

This is an appeal from the imposition of the death sentence in the Superior Court. The appellant, Jermaine Wright, was convicted of two counts of Murder First Degree, Robbery First Degree and related weapons offenses. Pursuant to 11 Del.C. § 4209(c)(3), a jury unanimously found the existence of circumstances statutorily mandating the imposition of the death sentence and the Superior Court concurred in that determination. Wright asserts various claims of error in this appeal with particular emphasis on the Superior Court's refusal to suppress his statement to police after a prolonged detention. We find no merit in any of the claims asserted and affirm the convictions. After performing our statutorily mandated review, we also affirm the sentence imposed.

I

The essential facts underlying Wright's conviction are not in serious dispute. On the evening of January 14, 1991, Debra Milner was working at the bar of the Hi-Way Inn, a combination bar and liquor store located on Governor Printz Boulevard near Wilmington. Philip Seifert was working in the adjacent liquor store. At around 9:20 p.m., Milner observed a black man in his mid-twenties enter the bar, look around, and leave without making a purchase. At about 10:20 p.m., the liquor store door bell rang, indicating that someone had entered. Seifert went to wait on the customer while Milner answered the telephone.

While she was on the telephone, Milner heard the bell ring again and assumed that the customer had left the liquor store. She then heard the bell ring a third time followed by a noise that she thought sounded like a firecracker. Assuming someone was playing a prank, Milner walked toward the passageway to the liquor store to investigate. Through the passageway, she saw Seifert slumped across the counter. She could not see the customer area of the liquor store from her vantage point. She then heard a gunshot and upon a closer view saw blood around Seifert. Fearing for her safety, Milner ran and hid in a room near the kitchen. Later, she ran back through the bar and out its front door where she saw a customer she recognized, George Hummell, making a telephone call.

Hummell, a machinist inspector employed by Amtrak, was on his way to work and intended to stop at the Hi-Way Inn to cash a check. He was a regular customer and knew both Milner and Seifert. As he was waiting to make a left turn into the parking lot, he saw two men leave the liquor store. Hummell observed one of the men, the shorter of the two, return to the store while the other ran across the parking lot. After a short interval, the man who had re-entered the liquor store came back outside, ran across the road and entered a black Volkswagen in a parking lot across the street. The other man ran down the sidewalk and disappeared into the night. According to Hummell, the man who returned to the store and then left again was black, about 5' 8"' tall, while the other man was also black and about 6' tall.

Suspicious of what he had observed, Hummell walked into the bar area, which was empty. He called out the names of several employees of the Hi-Way Inn, but there was no response. Hummell walked out of the bar and into the liquor store. He then saw Seifert with his head on the counter and bleeding from a head wound. Hummell immediately walked to the vestibule and dialed 911.

Sergeant Gary Kresge, the first police officer to arrive at the scene, saw Seifert lying on his back on the floor behind the counter. The cash register drawer was open and approximately $30 had been stolen. Later Seifert was pronounced dead as a result of gunshot wounds. He had been shot three times, once in the neck and twice in the head.

Detective Edward Mayfield of the Delaware State Police was assigned to investigate Seifert's murder and robbery. Through an employee of the Hi-Way Inn, which had offered a reward for information leading to an arrest for the crimes, Mayfield received a tip that the perpetrators were "Marlo," an alleged drug dealer who lived on East 28th Street in Wilmington, and another man, "Tee." With the help of Wilmington police, Mayfield learned that "Marlo" was Jermaine Marlo Wright, while "Tee" was the "street name" of Lorinzo Dixon. On the basis of this tip and Hummell's description of the men he saw leaving the scene, Wright was developed as a suspect in the Hi-Way Inn murder/robbery. However, police did not have probable cause to arrest him for those crimes at that time.

In addition to the Hi-Way Inn murder/robbery, Wright was a suspect in two random shootings under investigation by Wilmington police. One shooting, being investigated by Detective Robert Merrill, involved a young boy, Emil Watson, who had been shot in the foot while riding his bicycle. The other, being investigated by Detective Robert Moser, involved the shooting of a young girl in a nearby park. Merrill obtained a warrant to arrest Wright for the Watson shooting and a warrant to search Wright's residence for guns and ammunition.

On January 30, 1991, at approximately 6:00 a.m., the warrants were executed. ¹ Because of a belief that Wright was heavily armed, a SWAT team entered and secured the premises and its occupants. Detectives Mayfield, Merrill, and Moser were among those executing the warrants. Wright was arrested for assault and transported to the Wilmington Police Department between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. He was then processed while the detectives were involved in a number of activities including a SWAT team debriefing, securing evidence that had been seized, interviewing another person who had been arrested at the Wright residence, and attending strategy sessions.

At approximately 12:00 p.m., Wright was first interviewed. After reading Wright the Miranda ² warnings, Detective Merrill questioned him for about 45 minutes regarding the Emil Watson shooting. Detective Moser then entered the room to interview Wright about the park shooting. After again receiving his Miranda warnings, Wright talked with Moser about that shooting for about 45 minutes. The interview then turned to other subjects, with Wright volunteering information regarding other criminal activity about which he had knowledge. Except for a few short breaks, during which Wright was provided with sodas, a sandwich, and opportunities to use the restroom, Moser was alone with Wright from the time the interview started until approximately 7:30 p.m. Detective Mayfield was listening to the conversation in an adjoining room through a speaker system and conferred with Moser during breaks in the questioning.

Most of this six hour discussion focussed on the Hi-Way Inn murder/robbery. Eventually, Wright implicated himself in the crimes. At that point, about 7:00 p.m., Mayfield came to the interview room and told Wright he wanted to take a videotaped statement from him concerning what he had told Moser. Mayfield conducted the videotaped interview from 7:35 to 8:20 p.m., at the beginning of which Wright was again given Miranda warnings. ³

In his statement to police, Wright claimed that on the night of the murder Dixon ⁴ came to him and told him he knew of a place where someone was working alone. They drove to the Hi-Way Inn in a stolen black Volkswagen Jetta. Seifert refused to cooperate when they demanded money, and Dixon told Wright to shoot Seifert or he (Dixon) would kill Wright. Wright then shot Seifert once in the back of the head and then fled. ⁵ Following his videotaped statement, Wright was arrested for the Hi-Way Inn killing and taken to Municipal Court where bail was set on the assault charge and then to Justice of the Peace Court No. 11 for presentment on the Hi-Way Inn charges.

Based on the foregoing, Wright was convicted of two counts of Murder First Degree (intentional and felony-murder), Robbery First Degree, and three counts of Possession of a Deadly Weapon During the Commission of a Felony. The jury unanimously found that the State had established two statutory aggravating circumstances--the murder was committed in the course a robbery, 11 Del.C. § 4209(e)(1)(j), and the victim was 62 years of age or older, 11 Del.C. § 4209(e)(1)(r)--and that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances.

The Superior Court, charged with the ultimate responsibility for determining whether the death sentence should be imposed, also found that the State had established the two statutory aggravating circumstances in addition to three non-statutory aggravating circumstances--Wright's career as a drug dealer, the Emil Watson shooting, and the brutality of the Seifert murder. The trial court, which had ordered a presentence investigation of Wright, also discussed Wright's "evolving pattern of violence" in its sentencing decision and concluded that the aggravating circumstances "completely overwhelm[ed]" the mitigating circumstances. Therefore, in accordance with 11 Del.C. § 4209(d), the Superior Court sentenced Wright to death by lethal injection on both murder convictions. ⁶

II

Wright raises five separate claims on appeal: (1) his incriminating statements should have been suppressed because they were obtained following an unreasonable delay between arrest and initial presentment; (2) jury instructions during the penalty phase of his trial were insufficient in defining mitigating circumstances; (3) the trial judge erred in her determination of non-statutory aggravating circumstances and mitigating...