State v. Wilson

237 W.Va. 288

787 S.E.2d 559

State of West Virginia, Plaintiff Below, Respondent

v.Jessica May Wilson, Defendant Below, Petitioner

No. 15–0578

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted: April 20, 2016

Filed: June 2, 2016

Charles R. Hamilton, Charleston, West Virginia, Attorney for the Petitioner.

Patrick Morrisey, Attorney General, Laura Young, Assistant Attorney General, Zachary Viglianco, Assistant Attorney General, Charleston, West Virginia, Attorneys for the Respondent.

Davis, Justice:

Jessica May Wilson (“Wilson”), entered a plea of guilty in the Circuit Court of Kanawha County to a charge of murder in the first degree. In exchange for the plea, the State agreed to dismiss numerous related charges against her, including charges of burglary, conspiracy, robbery, and grand larceny. The State also agreed to stand silent at sentencing, although it specifically “reserve[d] the right to cross-examine witnesses offered in mitigation of punishment and to correct any factual inaccuracies which come to the attention of the court or which are contained in the pre-sentence investigation report.”

At the sentencing hearing, the State made no recommendation with respect to whether the court should attach a recommendation of mercy to its sentence. However, the prosecutor did dispute Wilson's version of events in certain respects, arguing to the circuit court that she was attempting to minimize her involvement in the crime and to present herself as a hapless victim of her co-defendant, the actual killer. The circuit court, after making clear that it was fully aware of the facts and circumstances of the case and had read all of the relevant reports, imposed a sentence of life imprisonment without mercy. Thereafter, Wilson filed both a motion to reduce sentence and a motion to void the plea agreement, contending that the actions of the prosecutor violated the terms of the plea agreement, specifically, the State's agreement to stand silent at sentencing.¹ The circuit court denied the motions, finding that the State had not breached the agreement and that, in any event, the prosecutor's statements had not influenced the court's decision.

Upon careful examination of the parties' briefs and oral arguments, the appendix record, and the applicable law, we affirm.

I.FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On or about January 4, 2014, Wilson and her codefendant, Timothy Paul Shafer (“Shafer”), viciously murdered Nancy Lynch–Burdette (“Ms. Lynch–Burdette”). The two had planned in advance to accost Ms. Lynch–Burdette at her home and rob her, considering her to be an “easy mark” because she was sixty-six years old, weighed only one hundred pounds, lived alone, and had been robbed on earlier occasions but had never made a report to the police.

Wilson and Shafer walked to Lynch–Burdette's home, Wilson armed with a knife and Shafer with a toy gun. While Ms. Lynch–Burdette was outside putting her basset hound on a leash, the conspirators forced her (and the dog) inside. They demanded money and drugs, which Ms. Lynch–Burdette did not have. Further, she could not remember the correct sequence of numbers in the PIN code for her debit card. This, according to Wilson, caused Shafer to become enraged and, thereafter, although the exact degree of Wilson's participation is somewhat unclear,² the conspirators beat and stabbed their victim to death.³

After killing Ms. Lynch–Burdette, Wilson and Shafer took items of value from her home, including jewelry, pills, guns, and a camera. They disposed of the knife and toy gun in an area near the victim's home. In the days that followed, Shafer and his girlfriend, Megan Hughes (“Hughes”), and possibly Wilson as well,⁴ kept returning to the home to search for more valuables, ultimately including a television, jewelry, checks (which were then written out to Shafer), mail, and the victim's two cars. While they continued to plunder Ms. Lynch–Burdette's home as though it were their personal piggy bank, they wrapped her body in a tarp, presumably so they would not have to look at it as it decomposed.

Finally, some three weeks after the murder, Ms. Lynch–Burdette's body was found after a neighbor reported to police that she had not seen Ms. Lynch–Burdette for a significant period of time. Her dog also was found dead, having been shut in an upstairs portion of the home and left to starve to death.

Acting on a tip from a cooperating individual, the police quickly focused on Wilson, Shafer, and Hughes as suspects in the crime. Wilson gave an initial statement in which she admitted that Shafer had told her of his plan to rob someone and asked her to get rid of some jewelry for him; other than that, Wilson claimed, she had no knowledge or information as to the death of Ms. Lynch–Burdette. In her second statement, however, Wilson gradually admitted more and more about her role in the crime: being with Shafer in the victim's home, holding the victim while Shafer stabbed her, waving the knife around at Shafer's insistence, and finally that “she may have stabbed the victim eight or nine times.”⁵

On May 16, 2014, Wilson was arrested and subsequently indicted, together with Shafer, on eight counts including murder, conspiracy, burglary, robbery, and grand larceny. Shafer also was charged, together with Hughes, on three additional counts of daytime burglary; and Hughes was charged as an accessory after the fact to murder. Thereafter, following extended proceedings involving the question of Wilson's competency,⁶ she agreed to plead guilty to first degree murder, in exchange for which the State agreed to dismiss the remaining seven counts against her and “to stand silent as to sentencing, however, the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney does reserve the right to cross-examine witnesses offered in mitigation of punishment and to correct any factual inaccuracies which come to the attention of the court or which are contained in the pre-sentence investigation report.”

At a plea hearing held on April 10, 2015, Wilson attempted to minimize her role in the death of Ms. Lynch–Burdette:

THE COURT: All right. Tell me what happened: who, what, when and where.

THE DEFENDANT: I knew [Shafer] was going over to rob her.

THE COURT: Okay. [Shafer] was going to rob who?

THE DEFENDANT: Nancy Lynch[-Burdette].

THE COURT: Okay. And what did you do about it?

THE DEFENDANT: Nothing. He told me if I say anything, that he'll do the same thing to me.

THE COURT: You were there?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes.

....

THE COURT: And what action, if any, did you take specifically?

THE DEFENDANT: He—I don't know. (Thereafter, following a conference between defendant and counsel). Oh, I went into the house with [Shafer], and then—

THE COURT: You guys broke in; you weren't invited in?

THE DEFENDANT: He walked in behind her.

THE COURT: Okay. But you were not invited in?

THE DEFENDANT: Right. And then he started hitting on her, and then he stabbed her.

THE COURT: And you knew the intention was to rob the house; is that correct?

THE DEFENDANT: Right. But I didn't know that he was going to kill her.

The court was satisfied that Wilson's allocution was a sufficient factual basis for her plea of guilty to felony murder, although the State expressed some qualms:

MR. GIGGENBACH: Well, for the purpose of this plea hearing I believe that's sufficient to establish the elements of felony murder. If this were to go to trial, the State would present different evidence, more inculpatory evidence of the defendant, however.

THE COURT: All right. Well, we'll take that up at the appropriate time at disposition.

Wilson's pattern of minimizing her involvement continued with the submission of her Sentencing Memorandum. Her counsel stated, inter alia, that the only reason she was even present at the scene of the crime was that she was afraid of her codefendant, Shafer; that “[Wilson] did not stab Nancy Lynch [-Burdette]”; that she had obtained none of the proceeds of the robbery, burglary, and grand larceny; and that the only reason she even touched the murder weapon was that “Shafer threw the knife towards [Wilson] and screamed at her to stab the victim. [Wilson] doesn't believe she touched the victim with the knife.”

At Wilson's sentencing hearing on May 7, 2015, the pattern continued. Defense counsel first spoke at length about her disadvantaged upbringing, her addiction to drugs, which resulted in the loss of her children, her low IQ and illiteracy, and her passive and submissive personality. Defense counsel then launched into the murder itself, which he described as follows:

[O]n January 4, Wilson learned that the male guest staying at her house intended to, to go out and to rob somebody of drugs and money. Knowing this, Wilson agreed to accompany this male. She traveled to 2327 Jefferson Avenue in St. Albans. This was her first time ever going to this house, having no idea who lived there, just knowing the intention of her male guest.

While there, a woman died. And Wilson was scared to death. She left this home and never returned after this January 4th night.

As counsel continued in this vein, the court finally interrupted, telling counsel that “you're telling me things that are not supported by anything in the record before me ... you need to confine yourself to what's in the record ... [u]nless you want to put on a witness.” Counsel declined this opportunity and went on, once again straying into the realm of speculation (as to why the police let Wilson go home even after she had incriminated herself) and once again being admonished by the court to confine his argument to information contained in the record.

Given an opportunity to speak on her own behalf, Wilson again claimed that “I knew [Shafer] was going to rob her, but I didn't know that he was going to kill her ...,” and “I didn't go back to the house, I didn't step over her body like they did.”

Called upon for the State's comment, the prosecutor reminded the court that the plea agreement required the State to stand silent as to sentencing, and therefore “[w]e're...