Miller v. State

2004 OK CR 29, 98 P.3d 738, 75 O.B.A.J. 2505, 2004 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 32, 2004 WL 2073286
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedSeptember 17, 2004
DocketD 2002-782
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 2004 OK CR 29 (Miller v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Miller v. State, 2004 OK CR 29, 98 P.3d 738, 75 O.B.A.J. 2505, 2004 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 32, 2004 WL 2073286 (Okla. Ct. App. 2004).

Opinions

OPINION

JOHNSON, Presiding Judge:

T1 Appellant, Victor Cornell Miller, was tried by a jury and convicted of two counts of First Degree Murder (Counts 1 and 2), by malice aforethought, or alternatively, felony/murder, in violation of 21 0.8.1991, § 701.7(A) and (B), in the District Court of Tulsa County, Case No. CF 1999-4583.1 On [740]*740both Counts, the jury found the existence of four aggravating circumstances: (1) the defendant was previously convicted of a felony involving the use or threat of violence; 2 (2) the defendant knowingly created a great risk of death to more than one person;3 (8) the murder was committed for the purpose of avoiding or preventing lawful arrest or prosecution;4 and (4) the existence of a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society.5 The jury recommended life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on Count 1 and imposed a death sentence on Count 2. Appellant was sentenced in accordance with the jury's verdicts on June 17, 2002.6

T2 Mary Bowles was abducted from the Promenade Mall in Tulsa, Oklahoma, sometime between 4:15 pm. and 5:50 p.m. on August 31, 1999. She drove a tan Buick LeSabre. Her body was found on September 8, 1999, in a secluded area near the 9000 block of North 66th Street in Tulsa County. Her car was found on September 9, 1999, in the parking lot of the Oasis Motel in Tulsa. Bowles died from multiple gunshot wounds.

T3 Around 5:50 p.m. on August 31, 1999, Jerald Thurman called his nephew Jim Mose-by from a dirt pit he operated near the 6800 block of North Mingo. Thurman told Mose-by he had seen a car inside the pit area and was going to lock the gate to the pit if the car was not gone by the time he finished dumping his load. Moseby drove to the dirt pit, saw his uncle's dump truck outside the gate, and discovered Thurman lying on the ground nearby. Thurman had been shot several times. He died two weeks later.

T 4 Sundeep Patel, owner of the Oasis Motel, saw the co-defendant John Hanson on August 31, 1999, sometime between 6:00 and 6:30 p.m. Hanson asked to borrow some tools because his car would not start. From his office window, Patel saw Hanson and another man working on a champagne-colored Buick LeSabre in the motel parking lot. Patel described the other man as 6'2" or taller and said he weighed around 240 pounds. Hanson rented a motel room and provided Patel with identification when he filled out the motel registration card. At trial, Patel was not asked to identify and did not identify Appellant as the other man whom he saw with Hanson.

T5 On September 7, 1999, Brandi Wilson was robbed by two men while working at Signature Loan Service. On September 8, 1999, Bobbie Filak was robbed by two men while working at the Tulsa Federal Employees Credit Union. Both women identified Appellant as one of the men who robbed them.

1 6 Appellant's wife Phyllis Miller said she and Appellant lived at a Motel 6 from late August until September 9, 1999. Co-defendant John Hanson was her husband's friend and lived with them briefly before August 1999. Phyllis said Hanson always carried a paper bag with a nine millimeter gun in it. She had also seen Appellant with a silver revolver that he had taken during the robbery of the Apache Liquor Store on August 23, 1999.7 Phyllis drove Appellant and Hanson when they committed robberies. Phyllis testified she argued with Appellant on August 31, 1999, when he wanted to use the car for another robbery; then he disabled the car. Appellant and Hanson left after the argument, around 8:00 p.m., and did not return until after midnight.

[741]*741T7 The next morning, Appellant "put the wires back" on her car and asked Phyllis to take him and Hanson to the Oasis Motel. At the motel, she saw Appellant get into the driver's side of a beige car carrying a blue towel; he moved around some and got out with the towel and some cassette tapes. When they left, Appellant threw the cassette tapes out of the car window. She drove Appellant and Hanson to North 54th Street and Hartford, where Hanson got out and walked to a car by the side of a house.

T8 When Phyllis drove Appellant and Hanson to commit a robbery in September 1999, both men had guns.8 When they returned to the car after the robbery, the envelope Hanson carried exploded with dye. Appellant told Phyllis to drive to Muskogee. There, she and Appellant had another argument about the car and Appellant again disabled the car. Phyllis had the car towed back to Tulsa. When she got back around 2:00 a.m. on September 9, 1999, Phyllis phoned the police and told them Hanson and Miller had robbed the credit union and were at the Muskogee Econolodge Motel.

{ 9 An officer investigating Bowles' disappearance and the discovery of her vehicle overheard the police dispatch about the credit union robbery and recognized Hanson's name. Law enforcement officers from various jurisdictions coordinated this information and served warrants on Appellant and Hanson at Room 135 of the Econolodge Motel in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Appellant came out of the motel room almost immediately, but Hanson remained inside the motel room for several hours until he was driven out by tear gas.

110 Officers found Six Hundred Fifty, Five dollars ($655.00) of red dye-stained money in Appellant's shoes. In the motel room, officers found a Taurus Model 85 .88 caliber silver revolver and a Star Firestar 9 millimeter semi-automatic pistol, duct tape, plastic sacks, gloves, envelopes, ammunition and other items associated with the robberies.

T11 A forensic firearms examiner examined two projectiles recovered from Jerald Thurman's body during autopsy and said they were fired from the Taurus Model 85 .38 caliber revolver. A projectile recovered from Bowles' body and two 9 millimeter bullet casings found at the scene were fired from the Star Firestar 9 millimeter.

T 12 A fingerprint examiner matched a single fingerprint found in Bowles' car on the driver's side seat belt to Hanson's known prints. One print found on the passenger's side seat belt matched Appellant's right thumb print.

113 Prior to trial, Appellant's motion to sever his trial from Hanson's, based on Hanson's confession and antagonistic defenses, was granted. At trial, over strenuous and repeated objections, the State called Rashad Barnes, and Barnes was allowed to testify to Hanson's confession.

[ 14 Rashad Barnes 9 said Hanson lived in an old car parked in his parents' back yard. Barnes said sometime in early September 1999, around 8:80 or 4:00 p.m., Hanson walked up to him acting nervously and said, "It went all bad." Barnes was allowed to tell the jury a number of things Hanson allegedly told him. He said Hanson said "he had to kill somebody." Hanson told Barnes he and Victor Miller went to the Promenade Mail to carjack someone. They saw an old woman, carjacked her and put her on the floor in the back seat of her car. Hanson rode in the back seat her while Victor Miller drove. Hanson told Barnes Appellant drove them to a back road and when Hanson tried to put the old woman out of the car, someone saw them and Hanson put her back in the car. Appellant said he "was going to handle it." Hanson said Appellant "got out of the car and shot the man" and "Vic got back to the car, told him he knew what he had to do.

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Miller v. State
2004 OK CR 29 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 2004)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2004 OK CR 29, 98 P.3d 738, 75 O.B.A.J. 2505, 2004 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 32, 2004 WL 2073286, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/miller-v-state-oklacrimapp-2004.