Opinion
SC-2022-0417
09-02-2022
Ex parte State of Alabama v. State of Alabama In re: Brett Richard Yeiter
Escambia Circuit Court: CC-15-42; Court of Criminal Appeals: CR-18-0599
PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OFCRIMINAL APPEALS
SELLERS, JUSTICE
This Court granted the State of Alabama's petition for a writ of certiorari to consider the Court of Criminal Appeals' decision reversing Brett Richard Yeiter's capital-murder conviction and death sentence. According to the Court of Criminal Appeals, the Escambia Circuit Court committed reversible error in admitting evidence of Yeiter's prior bad acts, including evidence of his previous criminal convictions that resulted in periods of incarceration. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
Yeiter was convicted of killing his father-in-law, Paul Phillips. The following facts and procedural history are set out in the Court of Criminal Appeals' opinion:
"On the evening of October 26, 2014, Phillips attended the Book of Acts Holiness Church, where he was the preacher. Phillips's grandson Nathan Blair also attended the church that evening. Blair's vehicle was low on oil, so he decided to leave it parked in the church parking lot until he could get some oil. The next morning, Phillips and Blair returned to the church with oil to put in the vehicle. Yeiter, who was Phillips's son-in-law and Blair's stepfather, was already in the church parking lot. Yeiter was upset because Blair's vehicle was low on oil and Blair had allowed his vehicle to run low on oil in the past.
"Blair testified that Yeiter 'would try to pour the oil into the car, but he would -- he would try to push [Phillips], you know, like trying to, I guess trying to get him to -- agitated, you know.' Blair testified that he thought Yeiter was 'trying
to start a fight with' Phillips and that Yeiter 'grabbed [Phillips's] glasses off of his face' and threw them on the ground. Blair testified that once they put oil in the vehicle, Phillips sent him to take a bill to Kristen Garner's house, which was 'around the corner' from the church. Before he left, Blair saw Phillips try to remove a lawnmower from the back of his truck and Yeiter tried to 'shake it away' from Phillips.
"In a statement he made to the police a week later, Yeiter said he was trying to help Phillips with the lawnmower but that he and Phillips 'got to tussling back and forth with the mower' and '[t]hat's when [Phillips] finally said he was going to get his gun. "Let me go get my gun," or something like that he said. Hell if I know.' Yeiter got in his truck, drove the short distance to his house, got his shotgun, and returned to the church. When he returned, Yeiter saw Phillips sitting in his parked truck, and the engine was running. Yeiter said he walked toward Phillips but did not see a weapon. Yeiter said he told Phillips to 'pull' his weapon, and then Yeiter shot Phillips. Yeiter said he 'believe[d]' he shot Phillips 'right in the chest.' Yeiter, however, shot Phillips in the side of his head, killing him.
"Blair returned to the church in time to hear the gunshot. He saw Yeiter in the parking lot holding a 'long' gun in his hand. Yeiter drove away, and Blair went to Phillips's truck and saw that Phillips was shot. He returned to Garner's house, and she telephoned 911.
"Yeiter stopped at Suncoast Sod, a business near the church. He went inside and told Toni Casey, who was Phillips's niece, that he had shot Phillips. Yeiter gave his mobile phone to Casey and told her he did not need it anymore. Casey telephoned 911 and told them the Phillips family had 'mentally abused' Yeiter for years and that they 'just drove him crazy.'
"Emergency personnel responded to the scene within 20 minutes. Phillips was still breathing, but there was no evidence showing that he regained consciousness after Yeiter shot him. Police did not find a gun on Phillips or in his vehicle.
"Yeiter drove west for a few days, using credit cards to buy gas and alcohol. He told law enforcement that he 'threw [the shotgun] out in the woods somewhere' in Arkansas. He said he kept the gun with him until then because he 'didn't know whether [he] was going to kill [himself] yet or not.' Law enforcement arrested Yeiter in Texas, and authorities returned him to Alabama.
"Law enforcement in Alabama interviewed Yeiter a week after the shooting. He told the police that he had consumed 'half a gallon' of liquor beginning around 7 a.m. the day he shot Phillips. He said that when he drove to his house to get his gun, he 'thought about it all the way [to his house] and all the way back.' When he made his statement to the police a week after the shooting, Yeiter said he 'would still [shoot Phillips] again because [Phillips has] had me over the years so fricking mad about everything.' He said, 'I did it .... Nothing is going to justify it.' He then told the police that he had 'been up there to Atmore before' on work release for first-degree theft of property and that he had a prior conviction in Michigan.
"An Escambia County grand jury indicted Yeiter for capital murder in January 2015. Before trial, Yeiter moved to suppress the statement he had made to the police, and he moved the trial court to remove any references to prior bad acts, including his prior convictions. The trial court denied the motions.
"At the end of the guilt phase of Yeiter's trial, the jury found him guilty of capital murder. The next day, after the evidence was presented at the penalty phase, the jury returned special verdict forms showing that it unanimously
found (1) that Yeiter had a prior felony conviction involving the use or threat of violence to a person and (2) that Yeiter's crime was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel as compared to other capital offense. The jury recommended, by a vote of 10-2, that the trial court sentence Yeiter to death. That same day, without holding a separate hearing or entering a sentencing order, the trial court sentenced Yeiter to death."Yeiter v. State, [Ms. CR-18-0599, Dec. 17, 2021] ___So. 3d ___, ___ (Ala.Crim.App.2021) (footnotes and citations to the record omitted). Yeiter's statement to police, the entirety of which was read to the jury and relevant portions of which were quoted in Yeiter, also revealed that Yeiter was accustomed to driving while intoxicated, that he had "flipped and rolled [his] truck" on one occasion while intoxicated, that he had gone to jail after that incident, and that he had worked multiple times on an oil or gas rig while intoxicated. He also told police that he was a "sorry motherfucker that was locked up all his damn life" and specifically that he had received 15-year prison sentences on separate occasions for armed robbery in Michigan and for stealing an automobile in Alabama.
The Court of Criminal Appeals held that the trial court's admission of evidence of Yeiter's prior bad acts was improper under Rule 404(b), Ala. R. Evid., which provides in part that "[e]vidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show action in conformity therewith." Such evidence, however, may be admissible for purposes such as proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident. Id.
This list of permissible purposes for which prior-bad-acts evidence is admissible is not exhaustive. Moore v. Alabama Jud. Inquiry Comm'n, 234 So.3d 458, 484 n.12 (Ala. 2017); Bradley v. State, 577 So.2d 541, 547 (Ala.Crim.App.1990).
The State has not attempted to show that the challenged portions of Yeiter's statement to police were admissible for any valid purpose. Instead, the State has argued that, because the admissible evidence of Yeiter's guilt was overwhelming and undisputed, the impermissible prior-bad-acts evidence could not have influenced the jury's decision and, therefore, any error in admitting it was harmless. For his part, Yeiter has argued that, although it is undisputed that he killed Phillips, the jury, because his attorneys asserted that he had acted in self-defense, nevertheless had to determine his culpability in killing Phillips, i.e., whether the shooting was justified. According to Yeiter, the jury might have concluded that, because Yeiter has committed crimes and other bad acts in the past, it was unlikely that he was acting in self-defense when he shot Phillips. A majority of the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with Yeiter and rejected the State's argument that admission of the evidence of Yeiter's prior bad acts was harmless error. Judge McCool authored a dissent, in which Presiding Judge Windom concurred.
This Court has indicated that the improper admission of evidence of prior bad acts is presumptively prejudicial to a criminal defendant. See, e.g., Ex parte Baker, 906 So.2d 277, 288 (Ala. 2004). In arguing that any error in admitting the prior-bad-acts evidence was harmless in this case, the State relies primarily on Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967); Ex parte Greathouse, 624 So.2d 208 (Ala. 1993); and Ex parte Brownfield, 44 So.3d 43 (Ala. 2009). In Chapman, a prosecutor commented repeatedly on the defendants' refusal to testify during a criminal trial, which is a violation of an accused's right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. See Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609 (1965). As the State points out, in Chapman the United States Supreme Court held that the denial of a defendant's federal constitutional right during a criminal trial does not automatically require reversal of a conviction. 386 U.S. at 22. Instead, the Court held that a conviction can be affirmed regardless of the existence of such error if the appellate court is "able to declare a belief that [the error] was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt." Id. at 24. The Court indicated that an error is not harmless if "'there is a reasonable possibility that the [error] complained of might have contributed to the conviction.'" Id. at 23 (quoting Fahy v. Connecticut, 375 U.S. 85, 86-87
The parties in this case do not provide much discussion regarding who bears the burden with respect to demonstrating whether the trial court's error was harmless. The Supreme Court in Chapman placed the burden on the state to prove whether the error involved in that case was harmless because it did not contribute to the jury's guilty verdict. 386 U.S. at 25-26. See also Wilson v. State, 874 So.2d 1155, 1159 (Ala.Crim.App.2003) (citing Chapman for the proposition that the state has the burden of proving that a violation of a defendant's constitutional right is harmless). As previously noted, the improper admission of evidence of prior bad acts has been held to be presumptively prejudicial. Ex parte Baker, 906 So.2d at 288. But this Court has also said that, "'[w]hen the evidence of the defendant's guilt is strong, the defendant must show that the trial court's error was prejudicial.'" Ex parte T.D.T., 745 So.2d 899, 907 (Ala. 1999) (quoting Ex parte Harris, 428 So.2d 124, 125 (Ala. 1983)). In any event, assuming that the State has the burden here, we conclude that it has been satisfied.
Like Chapman, Greathouse also involved improper comments on a defendant's refusal to testify during trial. The Court in Greathouse, quoting Chapman, noted that some errors "'are so unimportant and insignificant that they may, consistent with the Federal Constitution, be deemed harmless, not requiring the automatic reversal of the conviction.'" 624 So.2d at 210 (quoting Chapman, 386 U.S. at 22). According to Greathouse, "the proper question for a reviewing court to ask is: '[A]bsent the [error], is it clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury [still] would have returned a verdict of guilty?'" 624 So.2d at 210 (quoting United States v. Hasting, 461 U.S. 499, 510-11 (1983)). Because the evidence of the defendant's guilt in Greathouse was "virtually ironclad," the Court concluded that the improper comments about the defendant's refusal to testify "did not affect the outcome of the trial or otherwise prejudice [the defendant's] right to a fair trial." Id. at 211.
Chapman and Greathouse involved the violation of what is clearly a constitutional right, while the present case involves the violation of a state rule of evidence generally prohibiting the admission of evidence regarding an accused's other crimes, wrongs, or acts to prove character and action in conformity therewith. The parties do not discuss whether that rule is rooted in constitutional principles. In any event, no argument has been made that Chapman's harmless-error standard should not be applied in this case. In dissenting below, Judge McCool and Presiding Judge Windom relied in part on Chapman in concluding that the admission of evidence of Yeiter's prior bad acts was harmless error. Yeiter, ___ So.3d at ___ (McCool, J., dissenting). See also Ex parte Brownfield, 44 So.3d at 48 (citing Chapman as part of a discussion of whether the admission of a court-appointed psychologist's testimony in violation of a rule of criminal procedure governing the admission of such testimony was harmless error); Vanpelt v. State, 74 So.3d 32, 60 (Ala.Crim.App.2009) (citing Chapman and holding that, assuming statements about the defendant's character were inadmissible under Rule 404(a), Ala. R. Evid., admission of those statements was harmless).
In Ex parte Brownfield, this Court considered whether the improper admission of a court-appointed psychologist's testimony was harmless error. The psychologist testified regarding the defendant's education and work experience, as well as his recollection of events on the days surrounding the crimes he was accused of committing. The Court pointed to Rule 45, Ala. R. App. P., which provides in relevant part that a judgment cannot be reversed or a new trial granted based on the improper admission of evidence unless "the error complained of has probably injuriously affected substantial rights of the parties." 44 So.3d at 48. The Court also cited Chapman for the proposition that, for an error to be deemed harmless, the appellate court must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the verdict. Id. The Court determined that the psychologist's testimony regarding the defendant's education and work history was "not relevant to whether [the defendant] committed the offense or to his mental condition at the time of the offense" and that such testimony "could not have probably injuriously affected [the defendant's] substantial rights." Id. at 49. The Court also determined that the testimony regarding the defendant's recollection of events surrounding the alleged crimes was harmless because police statements, which had been admitted into evidence, provided much greater detail regarding the defendant's recollection. Finally, the Court noted that the properly admitted evidence of the defendant's guilt was "overwhelming." Id. at 50.
It is also worth noting that, in Floyd v. State, 289 So.3d 337 (Ala.Crim.App.2017), the Court of Criminal Appeals held that the improper admission of prior-bad-acts evidence indicating that the defendant in that case "had warrants for unspecified charges and had turned himself in on those warrants at some unspecified time before the murder" was harmless and did not rise to the level of plain error. Id. at 402. According to the Court of Criminal Appeals, "'the evidence was so innocuous that it could not have contributed substantially to the adverse verdict.'" Id. (quoting Ex parte Baker, 906 So.2d at 284). The court in Floyd also noted that, because "the jury's verdict was based on the overwhelming evidence of [the defendant's] guilt and not on … testimony that [the defendant] had previously turned himself in on outstanding warrants," the improper evidence of the defendant's prior bad acts "did not affect the outcome of [the defendant's] trial." Id. at 403. See also McCray v. State, 88 So.3d 1, 30 (Ala.Crim.App.2010) (holding that the improper admission of prior-bad-acts evidence did not amount to reversible plain error in part because "the evidence … was largely undisputed and overwhelmingly established [the defendant's] guilt"); Ex parte Crymes, 630 So.2d 125, 126 (Ala. 1993) ("[W]hen, after considering the record as a whole, the reviewing court is convinced that the jury's verdict was based on the overwhelming evidence of guilt and was not based on any prejudice that might have been engendered by the improper [admission of evidence], the admission of such [evidence] is harmless error.").
In dissenting from the Court of Criminal Appeals' decision below, Judge McCool and Presiding Judge Windom concluded that the error in admitting Yeiter's statements regarding his prior bad acts was harmless because those statements were volunteered in passing during Yeiter's police interview and because the evidence of Yeiter's guilt was overwhelming. The dissent rejected Yeiter's argument regarding the effect the prior-bad-acts evidence could have had on his self-defense claim because, the dissent concluded, "there was simply no evidence of self-defense. " Yeiter, ___ So.3d at ___ (McCool, J., dissenting). We agree with Judge McCool and Presiding Judge Windom.
The trial court gave the following unopposed jury instruction regarding a defendant's use of deadly force: "[A] person is justified in using deadly physical force against another person if it reasonably appears that the other person is about to use deadly physical force on him." To be sure, there was evidence indicating that, after the argument between Phillips and Yeiter began, Phillips mentioned something about retrieving a gun. But after Phillips allegedly suggested that he might get his gun, Yeiter drove to his house to retrieve his own gun and then made the decision to return to the church. According to Yeiter's statement to police, he "thought about it all the way [to his house] and all the way back." After arriving at the church, he approached Phillips, who was sitting in his truck with the engine running and his seatbelt on. Yeiter did not see a weapon but nevertheless demanded that Phillips "pull" one. Yeiter then shot the unarmed Phillips in the head.
Yeiter later told police that he had "[g]ot[ten] tired of [Phillips] telling [Yeiter] what to do" and "calling [Yeiter] names." Yeiter said that he "could go on and on" but admitted that "[i]t's not an excuse for what's -- I done did." He told police that "I did it" and that "[n]othing is going to justify it." Finally, Yeiter admitted that, even though Phillips was unarmed, he would shoot Phillips again if given the chance because Phillips "had [made Yeiter] over the years so fricking mad about everything."
The evidence of Yeiter's guilt was virtually ironclad and so overwhelming that the prior-bad-acts evidence could not reasonably have affected the outcome of Yeiter's trial. We are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury would have rejected Yeiter's self-defense claim and found him guilty of capital murder even if the jurors had not been made aware of Yeiter's comments to police about his prior bad acts. Ex parte Greathouse, supra. In other words, there is no reasonable possibility that the evidence of Yeiter's prior bad acts might have contributed to his conviction. Chapman, supra. If the violation of a constitutional right can be deemed harmless error under Chapman, then the admission of prior-bad-acts evidence in violation of a state rule of evidence, which protects a right that is arguably lower in the hierarchy of protected rights than a constitutional right, could be harmless error. And, under the circumstances presented here, we have no doubt that the error indeed was harmless. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals and remand the matter for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Parker, C.J., and Bolin, Wise, Bryan, Mendheim, Stewart, and Mitchell, JJ., concur.
SHAW, Justice (dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
In its petition for a writ of certiorari, the State of Alabama contended that the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeals reversing Brett Richard Yeiter's capital-murder conviction and sentence of death, Yeiter v. State, [Ms. CR-18-0599, Dec. 17, 2021] ___So. 3d ___ (Ala.Crim.App.2021), was in conflict with the holdings of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967), and its progeny. I did not believe that the State's petition demonstrated a conflict with prior caselaw for purposes of establishing a ground for certiorari review under Rule 39(a)(1)(D), Ala. R. App. P. The State's arguments instead appeared to allege nothing more than appellate-court error, i.e., the petition merely disagreed with the holding reached by the Court of Criminal Appeals without addressing the specific findings in the court's decision. Therefore, I dissented to granting the certiorari petition, and thus I now dissent to reversing the Court of Criminal Appeals' decision.
The issue whether a petition for a writ of certiorari complies with Rule 39(a)(1) is not mooted by this Court's granting of the petition; it remains an issue that may be challenged by the respondent after the writ issues. Rule 39(g)(2), Ala. R. App. P. In fact, Yeiter, the respondent in this case, has done so in this case.
In any event, I note that it is well established that evidence of a defendant's prior crimes and incarceration is highly prejudicial. See, e.g., Horton v. State, 217 So.3d 27, 46 (Ala.Crim.App.2016) ("'Evidence of prior bad acts of a criminal defendant is presumptively prejudicial. It interjects a collateral issue into the case which may divert the minds of the jury from the main issue.'" (quoting Ex parte Cofer, 440 So.2d 1121, 1124 (Ala. 1983))). I also note that evidence submitted during the guilt phase of a capital-murder trial is considered by the jury during its penalty phase. See Revis v. State, 101 So.3d 247, 299 (Ala.Crim.App.2011). In my opinion, even though a majority of this Court has determined that the admission of such highly prejudicial information was harmless as to the determination of the issue of Yeiter's guilt, on remand the Court of Criminal Appeals must still determine whether the jury's consideration of the prior-bad-acts evidence in selecting the penalty of death prejudiced the rights of Yeiter.