State v. Jameson

461 S.E.2d 67, 194 W. Va. 561, 1995 W. Va. LEXIS 148
CourtWest Virginia Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 11, 1995
DocketNo. 22685
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 461 S.E.2d 67 (State v. Jameson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering West Virginia Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Jameson, 461 S.E.2d 67, 194 W. Va. 561, 1995 W. Va. LEXIS 148 (W. Va. 1995).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

The defendant in this proceeding, Homer Eugene Jameson, Jr., was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in the State penitentiary, with recommendations of mercy, for the felony murders of his wife’s grandmother and grandfather, who died in an incendiary or set fire. On appeal, he claims that during his jury trial, the trial court erred in admitting into evidence a confession which he gave two days after the fire. He further argues that the statements in the confession were not corroborated by independent evidence offered by the State; that the trial court erroneously allowed two lay witnesses to express expert opinions during his trial; and that the indictment in his case was prejudi-cially rendered after the prosecutor delivered an unsupervised instruction on felony murder to the grand jury. After reviewing the issues presented and the record filed, we can find no reversible error. The judgment of the Circuit Court of Kanawha County is, therefore, affirmed.

At around 1:00 a.m. on February 9,1993, a fire erupted in the St. Albans home of the defendant’s wife’s grandfather and grandmother, Riley and Opha Dawson. The Daw-sons were overcome by smoke and died in the fire.

On the morning of the fire, various investigators from the West Virginia Fire Marshall’s Office, the St. Albans Fire Department, and an insurance company all independently determined that the cause of the fire was arson, and officers Paul Ritchie, an Assistant State Fire Marshall, Criminal Enforcement Division, and Rick Fulmer of the St. Albans Fire Department, decided to question, among others, the defendant, who had been present, observing, while the fire was raging. Accordingly, officers Ritchie and Fulmer went to the defendant’s apartment at approximately 11:30 p.m. on the night of February 10, 1993, and asked the defendant if he was interested in answering some questions about the fire. He was cooperative and agreed to accompany them to the St. Albans City Hall.

Shortly after the parties arrived at the St. Albans City Hall, at the suggestion of officers Ritchie and Fulmer, the defendant voluntarily went to a South Charleston State Police office, where he was given a polygraph test. Following the test, he was questioned at length by police officers.

At 6:33 a.m. on February 11, 1993, some seven hours after officers Ritchie and Ful-mer contacted the defendant at his apartment, he gave the tape-recorded confession [564]*564in issue in the present case. In the confession he stated that he entered the house which burned, knowing that his wife’s grandparents were sleeping upstairs, poured accel-erant in the kitchen and den, and ignited it.

After the defendant gave his confession, a grand jury in Kanawha County indicted him for the felony murders of the Dawsons. The defendant was tried from October 4, 1993, until October 19, 1998. At the conclusion of the trial, the jury found him guilty of the felony murders and recommended that he receive mercy in conjunction with his sentences.

In the course of the defendant’s trial, the State not only introduced evidence of the events which led to the arrest and conviction of the defendant, but also introduced the testimony of Joseph L. Dryden, who worked for INS Investigation Bureau, Inc., an organization that specialized in fire investigations. Mr. Dryden was qualified as an expert on the cause and origin of fires.1 Mr. Dryden testified that, in his opinion, the fire which killed the Dawsons was an “incendiary” or set fire. He stated that there were very distinct liquid accelerant “pour patterns” on the floor of the Dawsons’ house and such things as melted aluminum strips at the floor level. These facts, in his view, were consistent with an “incendiary” or set fire. The State, of course, also introduced the defendant’s confession, the same having been ruled admissible after a lengthy in camera suppression hearing.

In the present appeal, the defendant’s first assignment of error is that the trial court erred in admitting into evidence the tape recorded confession which he gave at 6:33 a.m. on February 11, 1993. The defendant’s brief does not succinctly delineate the basis for this assignment of error, but it appears to this Court that he is arguing that he was interrogated after he was taken into custody in an illegal arrest and that he is a suggestible person of low intellect who, at the time of the giving of the confession, was under the influence of drugs. He also claims that the confession was extracted early in the morning after an all-night interrogation, during which his interrogators made various misrepresentations of fact.

The record shows that during the in camera suppression hearing, the State adduced the testimony of four witnesses, and the defendant also called four witnesses. Additionally, the trial court viewed a videotape made of the defendant’s remarks at the St. Albans City Hall and the audiotapes of the defendant’s actual confession.

The first witness for the State was Paul Ritchie, from the Fire Marshall’s Office, who testified that he informed the defendant of his Miranda rights at 11:35 p.m., approximately five minutes after he and Rick Ful-mer went to the defendant’s residence to inquire whether he was interested in answering, some questions about the fire. He explicitly testified that the defendant was not placed under arrest or detained in any manner. Witness Ritchie also indicated that the defendant was cooperative and later agreed to take a polygraph test.

The second witness for the State, Rick Fulmer, of the St. Albans Fire Department, testified that he spoke briefly with the defendant at the fire scene and that he later accompanied Paul Ritchie to the defendant’s residence on the night of February 10, 1993. His evidence relating to the contact with the defendant supported that of Paul Ritchie, except that he, unlike Paul Ritchie, indicated that the defendant was a suspect in the setting of the fire. He further indicated that at the St. Albans City Hall the defendant was again informed of his Miranda rights and that he signed a written waiver of those rights.

According to officer Fulmer, at the St. Albans interview the defendant denied any knowledge of the cause of the fire, and when he was asked if he would avail himself of an opportunity to prove his innocence, he said that he would, and he agreed to go to a South Charleston police center to take a polygraph test.

Mr. Fulmer testified that at the interview at the St. Albans City Hall, the defendant was not threatened, did not ask for a lawyer, and was free to leave. He also testified that [565]*565Paul Ritchie advised the defendant that he was free to leave.

Sergeant Steve Young, the third witness for the State, was a detective-polygraph operator who administered the polygraph test to the defendant at the South Charleston police center and who, with Serg’éant Joe Crawford of the St. Albans Police Department, questioned the defendant after the polygraph test. Sergeant Young’s testimony indicated that arrangements were made for the administration of a polygraph tqst to the. defendant at around 7:30 or 8:00 p.m. on February 10, 1993, some four hours before Mr. Ritchie and Mr. Fulmer initially asked the defendant if he was interested in answering questions about the fire.

Sergeant Young testified that after administering and scoring the polygraph test, he concluded that the defendant was not telling the truth, and:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
461 S.E.2d 67, 194 W. Va. 561, 1995 W. Va. LEXIS 148, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-jameson-wva-1995.