State v. Madison

160 Ohio St.3d 232

155 N.E.3d 867

2020 Ohio 3735

The STATE of Ohio, Appellee,

v.MADISON, Appellant.

No 2016-1006

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted September 11, 2019

Decided July 21, 2020

Michael C. O'Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Christopher D. Schroeder, Katherine E. Mullin, and Anna M. Faraglia, Assistant Prosecuting Attorneys, for appellee.

Law Office of Timothy Farrell Sweeney, and Timothy F. Sweeney, Cleveland,; and John B. Gibbons, for appellant.

DeWine, J. {¶ 1} This is a direct appeal in a capital case. Over a nine-month period, Michael Madison murdered three women in his East Cleveland apartment. A jury found Madison guilty of three counts of aggravated murder, and he was sentenced to death on each count. We affirm the convictions and the death sentences.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Three Bodies Are Discovered in East Cleveland

{¶ 2} Madison lived in a second-floor apartment on Hayden Avenue in East Cleveland. A cable-television company occupied the ground floor. In July 2013, workers at the cable company noticed a foul odor coming from a garage behind the building and called the police. In the garage, which was used by Madison and several others, the police discovered a large garbage bag jammed between Madison's car and the wall. The officers cut open the bag and found inside the decomposing body of Shirellda Terry. The body had been wrapped in a paisley bedsheet and then enveloped in multiple layers of garbage bags.

{¶ 3} Searching further, officers discovered another garbage bag under a brush pile located behind the garage. In that bag was the decomposing body of Shetisha Sheeley. Another garbage bag was discovered in the basement of an abandoned house, just 15 to 20 yards from the brush pile. This one held the body of Angela Deskins. Like Terry's body, the bodies of Sheeley and Deskins had been placed inside multiple garbage bags. In addition, a sheet and a sports-themed blanket were wrapped around the body of Deskins.

{¶ 4} Autopsies revealed that Terry and Deskins had been strangled to death with a belt. Terry had a severe laceration penetrating her vagina and her anus that was inflicted while she was still alive. Sheeley had a deep bruise on her face, also inflicted while she was alive, but her body was too badly decomposed for the medical examiner to determine a precise cause of death. Each victim's body had been bent at the waist, and the head had been bound to the legs.

B. The Victims and Their Disappearances

{¶ 5} All three women had gone missing within the past year. Twenty-eight-year-old Sheeley had last communicated with her family in September 2012. At trial, Brittney Darby, one of Madison's girlfriends, testified that around that time, she had noticed a fresh scab on Madison's nose. When she asked him about it, he told her he had broken up a fight between two girls.

{¶ 6} The father of 38-year-old Angela Deskins lost contact with her around May 2013. At trial, a friend of Deskins testified that around this same time, he had dropped Deskins off at an abandoned barbeque spot in East Cleveland where Madison was waiting for her.

{¶ 7} In the same time period, Darby noticed a strong smell in Madison's apartment. Madison claimed that the smell came from two raccoons who had died in the front closet. But when Darby pressed him on the point, Madison began sweating profusely and seemed nervous. "You don't want to see that," he told her. Later that week, Darby could still smell the odor near the closet. She asked Madison if that was where the raccoons had been, and he said that it was in an irritated tone.

{¶ 8} Eighteen-year-old Shirellda Terry was last seen alive on July 10, 2013. She had met Madison a week earlier and exchanged phone numbers with him. Over the following days, they texted back and forth. Madison told Terry that he was 25 years old and had no kids. (He was actually 35 and had two kids.) Madison also lied about what he did for a living.

{¶ 9} The two discussed when and where they might "hang[ ] out." Madison suggested that Terry "come to [his] place." Terry replied: "We can hang[ ] out but I'm not going to your house[;] I don't trust you like that yet." On the afternoon of July 10, she texted to Madison: "Do you wanna hang[ ] out now[?]" Madison asked if she was headed to his street and she replied that she was "on 152[nd] and [St.] Clair right now." That was Terry's last message.

{¶ 10} A few days later, Darby noticed a long, deep scratch on Madison's shoulder. He claimed that he had been in a fight and his adversary's girlfriend had scratched him. Subsequently, another girlfriend of Madison's, Shawnta Mahone, noticed a foul smell in his apartment. Madison claimed he did not know what the odor was but said it might be a dead animal. Around the same time, Mahone saw several deep scratches on Madison's face. According to Mahone, Madison told her that "he got into a fight and a girl jumped in and scratched his face."

C. Madison's Confession and DNA Evidence

{¶ 11} Detectives interrogated Madison over the course of several days, and on July 21, 2013, he signed a four-page confession. He admitted that he had choked a woman to death in October 2012 and then left her in his apartment while he went out drinking. When he returned, he "folded her up," put her into multiple layers of trash bags, and moved her to the garage. He left the body there for months, then moved it outside behind the garage. He did not know this victim's name.

{¶ 12} Madison claimed he did not recall actually killing the other victims. He admitted that he had invited Terry to his apartment. He was "really drunk and high" that night, he said, and did not remember killing her. But he did recall waking up next to her dead body and later putting the body in the garage. As to the third victim, Deskins, Madison said he did not recall anything about her death or what he did with the body.

{¶ 13} A search of Madison's apartment turned up a few personal items that yielded a DNA profile consistent with Terry's profile. A piece of bloodstained carpet found in the closet where Darby had noticed an odor in May had a DNA profile consistent with Deskins's. And a pillowcase in the apartment had a paisley pattern matching the sheet Terry had been wrapped in.

D. Indictment, Verdicts, and Sentences

{¶ 14} The grand jury returned a 14-count indictment against Madison. The indictment included two counts of aggravated murder for each victim—one premised on R.C. 2903.01(A), for murder committed with prior calculation and design, the other on R.C. 2903.01(B), for felony murder.

{¶ 15} For the state to impose the death penalty, an indictment must include—and the state must prove—one of the specifications set forth in R.C. 2929.04(A). Here, each aggravated-murder count included a specification alleging that the murder was part of a course of conduct involving the purposeful killing or attempt to kill two or more victims, see R.C. 2929.04(A)(5), and a felony-murder specification predicated on kidnapping, see R.C. 2929.04(A)(7). Additionally, the aggravated-murder counts involving Terry each included a felony-murder specification predicated on rape.

{¶ 16} The table below shows all the indicted offenses, the death specifications, and the other specifications:

Counts	Offenses	Death Specifications	Other Specifications
Count 1	Aggravated murder of Shetisha Sheeley under R.C. 2903.01(A) (prior calculation and design)	Each included a course-of-conduct specification, R.C. 2929.04(A)(5), and a felony-murder specification, R.C. 2929.04(A)(7), predicated on kidnapping	Counts 1 through 10 each carried a sexual-motivation specification, R.C. 2941.147(A); a sexually-violent- predator specification, R.C. 2941.148(A); a repeat-violent-offender specification, R.C. 2941.149(A); and a notice of prior conviction, R.C. 2929.13(F)(6).
Count 2	Aggravated murder of Sheeley under R.C. 2903.01(B) (felony murder predicated on kidnapping)
Count 3	Kidnapping of Sheeley under R.C. 2905.01(A)(3)
Count 4	Aggravated murder of Angela Deskins under R.C. 2903.01(A) (prior calculation and design)	Each included a course-of-conduct specification, R.C. 2929.04(A)(5), and a felony-murder specification, R.C. 2929.04(A)(7), predicated on kidnapping.
Count 5	Aggravated murder of Deskins under R.C. 2903.01(B) (felony murder predicated on kidnapping)
Count 6	Kidnapping of Deskins under R.C. 2905.01(A)(3)
Count 7	Aggravated murder of Shirellda Terry under R.C. 2903.01(A) (prior calculation and design)	Each included a course-of-conduct specification, R.C. 2929.04(A)(5), and two felony-murder specifications, R.C. 2929.04(A)(7), predicated on kidnapping and rape.	Counts 1 through 8 and 10 each carried a firearm specification, R.C. 2941.141(A).
Count 8	Aggravated murder of Terry under R.C. 2903.01(B) (felony murder predicated on kidnapping)
Count 9	Kidnapping of Terry under R.C. 2905.01(A)(3)
Count 10	Rape of Terry under R.C. 2907.02(A)(2)
Count 11	Having a weapon under a disability under R.C. 2923.13(A)(2)	Counts 11 through 14 each carried a firearm-forfeiture specification, R.C. 2941.1417(A).
Count 12	Gross abuse of a corpse under R.C. 2927.01(B) (Sheeley)
Count 13	Gross abuse of a corpse under R.C. 2927.01(B) (Deskins)
Count 14	Gross abuse of a corpse under R.C. 2927.01(B) (Terry)	Counts 12 through 14 each carried a firearm specification, R.C. 2941.141(A).

{¶ 17} A jury found Madison guilty on Counts 1 through 10 and 12 through 14, as well as all the death specifications and sexual-motivation specifications. The jury found him not guilty of the firearm specifications. Count 11, the weapon-under-a-disability charge, and the remaining specifications were tried to the judge, who found Madison guilty of Count 11 and the sexually-violent-predator specifications.

{¶ 18} At the close of the penalty phase, the jury recommended death for each aggravated-murder count. The trial court merged the aggravated-murder counts for each victim, and the state elected to proceed on the counts alleging prior calculation and design: Counts 1, 4, and 7. The...