Wright v. State

2001 OK CR 19, 30 P.3d 1148, 72 O.B.A.J. 1998, 2001 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 20, 2001 WL 721729
Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma·Decided June 28, 2001·No. F-98-1385·Published·Cited by 26 cases

Opinions

OPINION

LUMPKIN, Presiding Judge:

T1 Appellant, Jackie Leland Wright, was tried by jury in the District Court of Tulsa County, Case No. CF-97-4687, and convicted of two counts of First Degree Murder (malice or, alternatively, felony murder), in violation of 21 0.8.1991, § 701.7. The jury recommended a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on both counts. The trial judge sentenced Appellant in accordance with this verdict and ordered the sentences to run consecutively,. Appellant now appeals his convictions and sentences.

2 On the morning of May 8, 1991, Tulsa firefighters received a report of a residential house fire. They converged on the scene and found a smoldering fire and two dead bodies. The victims, Coy and Tonya Wilkerson, had both been shot in the head.

[ 3 Investigators discovered phone lines at the back of the house had been cut and evidence of a robbery inside the home. The perpetrators had used an accelerant in an attempt to burn down the house and destroy incriminating evidence. The fire never caught fully due to the damp weather.

T4 Later that same evening, Vickie Holt saw two young men, later identified as Mah-lon Bastion and Appellant, attempting to burn some documents by a rural road near her house. She had a short confrontation with the young men regarding the dangers of lighting fires. The young men left, but Ms. Holt took down the tag number of their two door sedan. She gathered the charred items the young men had been burning and placed them in a shoe box. The charred items included a checkbook belonging to Coy and Tonya Wilkerson.

15 That same evening, Wagoner County Deputy Sheriff Douglas London pulled over two young men in a Monte Carlo for speeding. The driver was Mahlon Bastion, and the passenger was Appellant. Deputy London issued a warning and allowed the young men to go.

T6 On the day after the crime, Ms. Holt saw a television report about the murders and recognized the Wilkersons' names from the charred checkbook. She called the police. Detective Heim ran the tag number Ms. Holt gave to him and found a car registered to Mahlon Bastion that was only one number off.

[1150] T7 Bastion was a former employee of Tulsa Expediting, Inc., where both Coy and Tonya Wilkerson worked. Tulsa Expediting, Inc. is owned by Tonya Wilkerson's father, Jim Phillips, and Bastion had been fired by Phillips in January of 1990. Bastion filed for unemployment, and the company opposed his claim. Bastion later told his wife he intended to get even with the Wilkersons by breaking into their building and then burning the evidence.

[ 8 The Tulsa police proceeded to Bastion's apartment, but Bastion refused to come outside. He began firing shots at the police. Bastion ultimately committed suicide with his 9 mm handgun.

T 9 Police then obtained a warrant for Appellant's arrest. When the police confronted him, Appellant spoke to them briefly and then fled. After a brief chase, he was tackled to the ground and placed in custody.

10 When questioned by police, Appellant, then 16, admitted he had been with Bastion on the night of the murders. He claimed he left Bastion at about eleven to twelve o'clock and rode around on his bike until 6 a.m. the following morning. He also admitted going for a ride with Bastion the next night and observing Bastion pull over to set some items on fire. Appellant thought this was "weird."

4 11 The physical evidence collected at the scene did not link Appellant to the crime. However, Pauline Neal testified that Appellant had admitted killing Tonya Wilkerson by putting a pillow over her face and shooting her.1 Appellant also told Neal he had taken a necklace off Tonya Wilkerson's neck and a ring from her finger, Charlene White testified that she heard Appellant speaking about the incident and say, "We went to rob a house but I didn't know anybody was going to get killed."2

[ 12 Perhaps the most damaging evidence came from Jason Poorboy, who was Appellant's close friend and also a friend and next-door neighbor of Bastion. Poorboy testified that Appellant and Bastion had asked him to rob an undisclosed residence in the days prior to the murder and that "if people were there, we'd have to kill them."3 Poorboy declined.4 Poorboy also testified that Appellant confessed to being the shooter in both murders.5 According to Poorboy, Appellant told him that Bastion's gun had jammed and so Appellant shot both victims. Poorboy claimed Appellant also said he shot the Wilk-ersons just to see what it felt like.6

118 In his first proposition of error, Appellant claims the State's delay in filing first degree murder charges against him until he was twenty three years old7 denied him his rights to be certified as a child under Oklahoma's reverse certification statute, 10 ©.S.1991, § 1104.28 Appellant claims this delay amounted to a violation of the fourteenth amendment's due process clause because it was an "arbitrary deprivation" of a reverse certification hearing. Underlying this proposition is an allegation, implied or otherwise, of a deliberate delay by the State in order to prejudice Appellant's rights. In other words, the State allegedly waited six and a half years to file this case for the sole purpose of avoiding the statutory protections afforded to juveniles. At one point Appellant also argues, without supporting authority, that a "presumption of prejudice should arise" when such a lengthy delay occurs.

[1151]*115114 We find no support in the record of any sort of deliberate, prejudicially-motivat-ed delay by the State in waiting to file charges against Appellant until October of 1997. The record clearly reflects the delay was based upon a lack of evidence and that murder charges were promptly filed when incriminating evidence was obtained.9 We do not find any legal support for Appellant's requested "presumption of prejudice" by mere delay in filing alone, and Appellant has not cited relevant authority to support such a presumption.10

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Wright v. State, 2001 OK CR 19, 30 P.3d 1148, 72 O.B.A.J. 1998, 2001 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 20, 2001 WL 721729 (Okla. Ct. App. 2001).

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