Lockett v. State

459 So. 2d 246
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 3, 1984
Docket54431
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 459 So. 2d 246 (Lockett v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lockett v. State, 459 So. 2d 246 (Mich. 1984).

Opinion

459 So.2d 246 (1984)

Margie Diann LOCKETT
v.
STATE of Mississippi.

No. 54431.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

October 3, 1984.
Rehearing Denied December 5, 1984.

*247 Thomas M. Fortner, Pascagoula, for appellant.

Bill Allain, Atty. Gen. by Walter L. Turner, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

En Banc.

DAN M. LEE, Justice, for the Court:

This is an appeal from the Circuit Court of Jackson County, wherein the appellant, Margie Diann Lockett was found guilty of the murder of Luke Broderick. Ms. Lockett was indicted for capital murder with the underlying felony of armed robbery. The jury returned a verdict of murder and she was sentenced to life imprisonment in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. From her conviction and sentence, *248 she brings this appeal and assigns as error:

1. That the Court erred in overruling Defendant's motion to suppress her pre-trial statements made to law enforcement officers for the reason that said statements followed immediately an illegal arrest in violation of Defendant's Fourth Amendment guarantees, and said statements were not separated from the initial illegality by any attenuating circumstances which might make them admissible.
2. That the Court erred in overruling Defendant's motion to suppress her pre-trial statements made to law enforcement officers for the reason that said statements were made in violation of Defendant's Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights.
3. That the Court erred in overruling Defendant's motion to delete from her pre-trial statement to law enforcement officers all references to acts of prostitution by Defendant, said references being evidence of other crimes of Defendant and therefore inadmissible.

The only facts necessary for a resolution of this appeal are those surrounding the pair of statements Ms. Lockett gave to authorities. As she has not assigned any error regarding the weight of the evidence, the proof at trial as to how the shooting occurred is not particularly significant for purposes of this appeal. It is sufficient to state that Luke Broderick owned a bar called "Luke's Angle Inn." On September 9, 1981, Ms. Lockett called Broderick and asked to borrow some money. He told her that he would lend her the money and for her to come to his bar. She arrived late in the evening and stayed until he closed the bar at approximately 1:30 a.m. At that time he cleaned up the bar and the two of them went into a back room where he kept a bed and had sex. At some point Broderick loaned Ms. Lockett $40. She testified that the loan was not in payment for the sex. Thereafter the two of them got into an argument and Ms. Lockett used Broderick's gun to shoot him five times. She then ran out of the bar naked with the gun and Broderick's cash box containing $437.25.

Ms. Lockett was arrested for auto theft on November 24, 1981 by the Hernando County Sheriff's Department in Florida. The Ocean Springs Police Department received word that Ms. Lockett was being held in Florida and they sent two officers with an arrest warrant to interrogate her and bring her back to Ocean Springs.

During a hearing on Ms. Lockett's motion to suppress her two statements, Kevin Alves, the Chief of Detectives of Ocean Springs Police Department, testified that he and Captain Mulvaney, also of the Ocean Springs Police Department, journeyed to Florida to interrogate Ms. Lockett. Alves testified that he and Mulvaney took with them an arrest warrant signed by Ann Bridges, a desk sergeant and dispatcher for the Ocean Springs Police Department.

Alves testified that he and Mulvaney advised Ms. Lockett of her Miranda[1] rights as soon as they came into the interrogation room. "Moments" later, before taking any statement, they served her with the arrest warrant signed by Ann Bridges. Ms. Lockett was then presented with a written form entitled "Waiver of Rights" which she read herself and then she and Alves read together. According to Alves she stated that she had no questions regarding her rights and then signed the waiver. Detective Alves stated that no threats or promises were made to induce the subsequent statement. At that point a rather lengthy statement in question and answer form was given by Ms. Lockett. At Ms. Lockett's request that statement was tape-recorded so that she could be sure that there were no alterations to it.

That afternoon only a short time after the first statement was concluded, Ms. Lockett was again advised of her rights, signed a second waiver of those rights and at her request, gave a handwritten statement to Officers Alves and Mulvaney. Officer *249 Alves testified that there were no threats made against Ms. Lockett to induce this second statement. Officer Alves did testify that he and Officer Mulvaney explained to Ms. Lockett that she was wanted for a capital offense and that it carried the death penalty. This explanation was given to her after the first statement and before the second.

Captain Mulvaney testified that he was present during the entire interrogation of Ms. Lockett except for brief periods when he left the room to get Cokes and cigarettes. He stated that the charge of capital murder was mentioned to Ms. Lockett after she concluded her first statement; however, that charge was never used as a threat to make her continue talking. He denied that he and Officer Alves had used any coercion to get Ms. Lockett to sign the waivers of rights or to give her statements.

Ms. Lockett testified that between the taped statement and the written statement, the officers told her they were going to charge her with capital murder because her taped statement gave them nothing else to go on. She stated that she understood Officer Mulvaney to say that he was going to charge her with capital murder unless she gave a second statement. She admitted that he did not use those words and later changed her mind and said that it was Officer Alves who told her that. Ms. Lockett testified that she understood that if she gave a second statement "then they could possibly drop it."

Ms. Lockett further testified that no threats were made against her and that she understood her Miranda rights as read to her. She stated that in between her statement she was trying to question Alves and Mulvaney about the capital murder charge because she didn't know that Broderick was dead. She again stated that no threats or promises had been made to induce her second statement.

Following the taking of the above detailed testimony, the trial judge determined that Ms. Lockett's statements were the results of knowing and intelligent waivers of her right against self-incrimination and further that the arrest warrant signed by the Ocean Springs Police Department Desk Sergeant did not render them inadmissible.

Ms. Lockett's first assignment of error is that the trial court erred in overruling her motion to suppress her pre-trial statement because they were results of an illegal arrest based on an invalid arrest warrant. Ms. Lockett's argument is founded in the Fourth Amendment which is applicable to the states by way of the Fourteenth Amendment. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 84 A.L.R.2d 933 (1961).

The state does not seriously argue that the arrest warrant signed by Sgt. Bridges was valid even though she purported to be signing for Municipal Court Judge Russell Reed. Indeed, under the guidelines the United States Supreme Court has set down in Shadwick v.

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Bluebook (online)
459 So. 2d 246, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lockett-v-state-miss-1984.