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Wyatt v. State

Defendant's custodial statement was admissible because he initiated communication with the interrogating officers after they stopped questioning him in response to his statement that he would wait for a lawyer.

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Dexter Ramone Wyatt was indicted on charges of malice murder and felony murder. A jury found him guilty of felony murder and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.1 He appeals from the denial of his motion for a new trial.

1. The evidence adduced at trial authorized the jury to find that Wyatt went to the home of the victim, Johnny Clarence Stephens, in order to purchase sex from a prostitute. A fight broke out between Wyatt and the prostitute and Stephens intervened, bringing with him a knife. Wyatt grabbed the knife and broke the tip by slamming it to the floor. Wyatt proceeded to strike Stephens in the head with the broken knife handle; hit the victim on the face and in his mouth with a metal pole as the victim lay on the floor; hit the victim with a coffee table, leaving wood splinters in the victim’s eye; and then stomp the victim at least twice in the chest. Expert testimony established that the victim died as a result of the stomping. Wyatt left the scene but when he later passed the victim’s home, saw police at the scene, and learned the victim was dead, Wyatt approached one of the officers and said, “Excuse me, sir, but I think you need to lock me up.” In his statement to the police Wyatt said that after Stephens cut him in the face with the knife, he became enraged and inflicted the metal pole and stomping injuries after Stephens had ceased fighting back. At trial, Wyatt testified that Stephens was still struggling when he inflicted these injuries and that the coffee table injuries occurred when Wyatt fell over the table while leaving and flipped the table onto Stephens’ body.

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