Scarbrough v. State

687 S.W.3d 557

2024 Ark. 71

Daryl Jason SCARBROUGH, Appellant

v.STATE of Arkansas, Appellee

No. CR-23-574

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Opinion Delivered: May 2, 2024

APPEAL FROM THE PULASKI COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT [NO. 60CR-21-4137], HONORABLE CATHLEEN V. COMPTON, JUDGE

Willard Proctor, Jr., P.A., Little Rock, by: Willard Proctor, Jr., for appellant.

Tim Griffin, Att’y Gen., by: Jacob H. Jones, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee.

JOHN DAN KEMP, Chief Justice

₁Appellant Daryl Jason Scarbrough appeals a Pulaski County Circuit Court order convicting him of capital murder and aggravated robbery and sentencing him to a term of life imprisonment with a consecutive term of forty-years’ imprisonment, respectively. For reversal, Scarbrough argues that the circuit court erred in granting the State’s motions for continuance, denying his motion for continuance, denying his motion to suppress, permitting alleged prejudicial remarks by the prosecutor, and admitting a map into evidence. We affirm.

I. Facts

Because Scarbrough does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence, we provide only a recitation of the facts relevant to the arguments on appeal. See Williams v. State, 2024 Ark. 7, at 1, 682 S.W.3d 313, 315. On September 8, 2021, Scarbrough knocked on the front door of Sharon Dawson’s home in Hensley. When Dawson answered the door, ₂Scarbrough said that he had been mowing and asked if he could get a drink of water from the water hose. Dawson grew suspicious when she saw no lawn equipment and asked for his name. Scarbrough became angry and began to cuss at her, and she asked him to leave. As he walked toward Ivy Chapel Road, Dawson called her partner, David Dunn; recounted what had happened; and told him that she was upset. Dunn, who worked nearby, told her that he would come home. Dawson then called 911 and reported the encounter. Afterward, she called her daughter and heard several gunshots. Dawson called 911 again and reported the gunshots. Meanwhile, as Terrence Reed was driving down Ivy Chapel Road, he saw a man lying in the street. Reed stopped, called 911, witnessed the man gasp his last breath, and stayed until police arrived at the scene. There, Deputy Brace Scott found Dunn, who had been shot six times, including a shot to the back of his head, lying face-down in the middle of the road. Scarbrough fled the scene in Dunn’s red track, which contained Dunn’s cell phone. Unbeknownst to Detective Scott at the time, his dashboard camera captured Dunn’s track being driven away from the scene at 6:39 p.m. as he drove toward it. Police later found Dunn’s track abandoned in the woods approximately seven miles from where Dunn’s body was found.

After a two-day search, law enforcement located Scarbrough hiding in a flower bed on property belonging to homeowners on Highline Road. When the officers pulled him out of the flower bed, Scarbrough stated, "You guys are pretty rough on a hitchhiker out here, huh?" Scarbrough had active outstanding full-extradition warrants from Missouri and California, and the police arrested him on an active parole-absconder warrant.

₃Detective Jeff Allison of the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office transported Scarbrough to the Pulaski County jail and escorted him to an interview room, which was monitored on closed-circuit television. Detective Allison instructed him to take off his civilian clothing, put it in an evidence bag, and put on jail clothing. The detective stepped out of the interview room and watched the closed-caption television as Scarbrough changed clothes. According to the detective, Scarbrough took off his jeans, "held them up and looked at them from front to back and from the waist to the ankles and shook his head and then folded them like he was trying to maybe hide something." The detective retrieved the jeans, saw "stains that [he] believed to be blood," secured and sealed them, and sent them to the crime lab for DNA testing.

The State charged Scarbrough with capital murder and aggravated robbery and later nolle prossed felon-in-possession and habitual-offender allegations. It amended its felony information to include one count of capital murder, one count of possession of firearms by certain persons, and one count of aggravated robbery.

Prior to trial, on March 30, 2022, Scarbrough filed a motion to suppress evidence of DNA evidence obtained from the blood on his jeans, arguing that he was objecting not to the seizure of the jeans but, specifically, to the blood testing. He claimed that "police collected the evidence and had it examined without a search warrant"; that there was no exception to the warrant requirement; and that his arrest "was not legal."

The State responded to Scarbrough’s motion to suppress and asserted that Scarbrough was arrested on active outstanding full-extradition warrants from Missouri for new charges committed in Missouri and from California for absconding his parole. The State asserted ₄that Scarbrough was lawfully arrested pursuant to those active warrants and pursuant to Rule 4.1 of the Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure. It stated that the clothes seized from Scarbrough at the time of his arrest were seized pursuant to Arkansas Rule of Criminal Procedure 12.1 involving a search incident to arrest and Arkansas Rule of Criminal Procedure 12.6 involving the taking of property pursuant to an arrest.

On April 20, 2022, the State filed a motion for continuance, stating that it had sent numerous pieces of evidence to the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory ("the crime lab") but that the crime lab’s caseload was backlogged, and it had not yet completed testing on DNA and ballistics. The State contended that it had been diligent in seeking the test results and that DNA and ballistics testing was material to the State’s case. On April 28, the circuit court conducted a hearing during which the State represented that "[i]n this case there was a lot of DNA" and that "DNA swabs are still out for testing." The State reminded the circuit court that "the crime lab ha[d] been very, very backed up" and that the DNA and ballistics were "both crucial to the State’s case." Defense counsel objected and argued that Scarbrough had been continuously in custody and that DNA evidence would not "necessarily change the outcome of the case one way or the other[.]" The circuit court granted the State’s motion for continuance.

On April 29, 2022, the State filed a motion for Scarbrough’s saliva samples, pursuant to Rule 18.1(a)(vii) of the Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure, to be used for DNA analysis. In its motion, the State averred that the crime lab had determined that the blood on Scarbrough’s jeans matched the victim’s DNA and that of an unknown male. The State stated that the crime lab requested a "known DNA sample" from Scarbrough to compare ₅to the unknown sample found on the jeans and from swabs taken from the victim’s truck. The circuit court granted the State’s motion for a DNA sample pursuant to Rule 18.1(a)(vii) and, alternatively, ruled that the California search waiver executed by Scarbrough when he was released on parole "would separately authorize such sample." The crime lab later determined that Dunn’s blood was on the light leg of Scarbrough’s jeans.

On October 3, 2022, the circuit court conducted an omnibus hearing on Scarbrough’s motion to suppress. Detective Allison testified that Missouri police had contacted him and relayed that Scarbrough had committed armed home invasions in Missouri and had stolen a car. Detective Allison also received information from California police that Scarbrough had committed numerous invasions and robberies in California and had absconded on parole. Detective Allison confirmed that Scarbrough had an active warrant for his arrest in San Bernardino County in California. According to the detective, as a condition of his parole in California, Scarbrough had signed a search waiver approximately five months before Dunn’s murder. Detective Allison testified that he collected Scarbrough's jeans when he was arrested because he could not wear civilian clothing in jail. According to the detective, Scarbrough closely examined his jeans when he took them off, and the detective noticed blood on those jeans and submitted them to the crime lab for DNA testing. At the close of the hearing, Scarbrough argued that his arrest was not lawful and that the police should have obtained a warrant to seize his personal property and conduct DNA testing, particularly when he was arrested on a warrant from California and not for Dunn's murder. The State responded that Scarbrough was lawfully arrested; that the jeans were lawfully searched and seized pursuant to Rule 12.1 as a search ₆incidental to arrest; and that the officers had a valid California search waiver on file and were authorized to search pursuant to Arkansas Code Annotated section 16-93-106 (Supp. 2023). On October 14, the circuit court entered an order denying Scarbrough’s motion to suppress the blood evidence. Specifically, the circuit court made the following findings of fact and conclusions of law.

11. Defendant was wearing a pair of jeans with blood that were taken as evidence by police. Numerous witnesses described the jeans. DNA swabs were taken from both the jeans and the victim’s truck, which was left in the woods less than a mile from where the defendant was later found and arrested.

….

15. Second, Defendant filed a Motion to Suppress Physical Evidence of Blood on Defendant’s Pants. Defendant argued that he was objecting not to the seizure of the pants, but specifically to testing the blood on them. Defendant claims that there was not probable cause to arrest the Defendant, regardless of the California Parole absconder warrant and mirroring search waiver with California.

16. The State counters that Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure 4.1 and 4.2 govern here and under both circumstances—whether with a warrant or without—the Defendant was lawfully arrested and detained, and the search and...