Foye v. State

153 So. 3d 854, 2013 WL 5966888, 2013 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 94
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Alabama
DecidedNovember 8, 2013
DocketCR-12-0308
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 153 So. 3d 854 (Foye v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Foye v. State, 153 So. 3d 854, 2013 WL 5966888, 2013 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 94 (Ala. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

KELLUM, Judge.

The appellant, Jertavis Foye, was convicted of murder made capital because it was the intentional murder of two individuals during one act or pursuant to one scheme or course of conduct, see § 13A-5-40(a)(10), Ala.Code 1975. The circuit court sentenced Foye to life in prison without the possibility of parole and ordered Foye to pay $100 to the crime victims compensation fund and court costs.

The evidence presented at trial established the following pertinent facts. On the night of August 9, 2008, the bodies of a black male and black female were found [856]*856lying on Macon County Road 2. Both individuals had shotgun wounds to the head. Special Agent Lee McWaters with the Alabama Bureau of Investigation was called to the scene of the murders. The female was identified as Erika Black and the male was identified as Clint Donner. Donner’s right front pants pocket had been pulled inside out. A spent 20-gauge shotgun shell was found on the scene. A Ford Crown Victoria automobile was found “[o]ff of County Road 2 and in a private drive ... a subdivision but it was in the small area and the condition of the car was totally burned down.” (R. 57.)

Agent McWaters interviewed Foye on August 19, 2008, at the Lee County Juvenile Detention Center where Foye was being held on a probation violation. Foye, who was 17 years old and a minor at the time, was advised of his juvenile Miranda1 rights, and he elected to waive those rights. In a subsequent statement, Foye told Agent McWaters that “he did not know Donner or [Bjlaek” and “that he had been playing basketball [on August 9, 2008,] all day until dark and then he went to a club that evening then after the club around 2 o’clock in the morning he went home.” (R. 36.) After that interview, Agent McWaters gathered evidence that indicated Foye had been involved in the murders, and he obtained a warrant for Foye’s arrest.

On August 30, 2008, after being told that Foye wanted to speak with him, Agent McWaters went to the Macon County Sheriffs Office where Foye signed a waiver of his Miranda rights. Foye then told Agent McWaters that Donner and another individual had “tied up [Foye] and took him to a drug house where they were cooking dope.” (Supp. R. 14.) Foye also said that, after transferring Foye from house to house and holding him for a week, Donner picked him up. Donner wanted Foye to ride with him to Columbus, Georgia, to provide protection during a drug deal. The drug deal was not consummated, and Donner and Foye returned to Macon County, where they picked up Black. That night, Donner put a shotgun and a pistol on the front seat of the car and later “Donner gave [Foye] a comment about kill or be killed.” (Supp. R. 18.) After hearing a “click,” Foye pushed “Donner’s face towards the windshield.” (Supp. R. 17-18.) Donner braked and Black held the steering wheel and got the handgun; Foye fired the shotgun. Black then got out of the car and Foye got out to look for her. Foye found Black and shot her.

On September 4, 2008, the Macon County Sheriffs Office contacted Agent McWa-ters and informed him that Foye wanted to speak with him again. Agent McWa-ters went to the sheriffs office to interview Foye. This time Agent McWaters “did not have any more juvenile rights waiver forms” and used a standard Miranda form before interviewing Foye. (R. 46.) In that interview, Foye told a similar version of events that he had given in the August 30, 2008, interview. This version, however, differed in that he stated that he had been “sexually assaulted by the four gentlemen or men that followed him” to the house where he was held captive. (Supp. R. 21.) He also said that, after he had first fired the shotgun in the car, he grabbed more shotgun shells and then fell out of the car. While on the ground, Foye said, he shot Black. After shooting Black, Foye crawled to the front of the car and opened the door. Donner then fell out and Foye used a knife he found to cut the ropes that [857]*857had been tied around his ankles. As Foye drove off, Black fell “out of the car on the passenger side because the door was open.” (Supp. R. 23.)

Foye took Agent McWaters and Marcus Walker, an investigator with the Macon County Sheriffs Office, to where a 20-gauge shotgun was located.2 The shotgun was several feet off a dirt road in the woods. The shotgun contained a spent shell casing.

Doctor Steven Boudreaux, a senior medical examiner with the State of Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, performed the autopsies on Donner and Black. “Donner had a shotgun entry wound in the right side of his neck.” (R. 66.) The “pellets went through his neck lacerating his carotid artery, his jugular vein and actually penetrated his spinal cord in his neck.” (R. 66.) This gunshot wound was the cause of Donner’s death. Doctor Boudreaux was able to remove the pellets and wadding3 from Donner’s neck. The characteristics of the entry wound on Donner’s neck indicated that the muzzle of the shotgun had been more than three feet from Donner’s neck when the shotgun was discharged.

Doctor Boudreaux determined that Black had “sustained a shotgun injury to the right side of [her] head.” (R. 70.) The characteristics of the entry wound on Black’s head caused Dr. Boudreaux to conclude that Black had been more than three feet from the muzzle of the shotgun when the shotgun was discharged. He was able to recover pellets and wadding from Black. Doctor Boudreaux determined that Black “died as a result of a shotgun wound.” (R. 73.)

The burned Ford Crown Victoria automobile in which Donner and Black had been riding was taken to Montgomery where Jimmy Graham, a fire marshal with the Alabama State Fire Marshals Office, inspected it. Graham testified that “[e]very combustible [part of the car] burned, which is unusual for an ordinary fire.” (R. 132.) The “metal brackets that hold[ ] the window glass up [were] down on the driver’s side in the front end to the back.” (R. 132.) Leaving a window down is “one thing that people do when they want to burn [a car] good.” (R. 133.) The fact that the fire burned hot enough to burn all combustible parts of the car indicated to Graham that an accelerant was used to start it.

Jason Williams, Black’s brother-in-law, testified that between noon and 4:00 p.m. on August 9, 2008, Black came to his house to pick up her daughter. Donner and Foye were with her.

Officer Walker testified that, following the murders, he executed a search warrant at Foye’s home. Two 20-gauge shotgun shells were found in a building on that property. In that same building “two subpoenas for the juvenile court ... in Macon County” listing Foye as the defendant were also found. (R. 180.)

Jeffery Floyd, Foye’s cousin, testified that after the murders Foye told Floyd that he had been with “some other people ... on a dark back road” and the people had robbed someone. (R. 238.) Foye told Floyd that he had seen the robbery and that the plan had been to rob Donner [858]*858because he had $30,000 in cash on his person. Floyd also testified that Foye had told him that Foye had “made a mistake” and that he had been “riding down a dark road with the girl and the boy, and he saw the girl pass a pistol over to the boy. He heard the pistol come off safety, so he shot the boy with the gun and the girl said, You shot Clint,’ and then he shot the girl in the face.” (R. 240.)

Foye called several witnesses to testify on his behalf.

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Bluebook (online)
153 So. 3d 854, 2013 WL 5966888, 2013 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 94, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/foye-v-state-alacrimapp-2013.