The Tennessee Supreme Court has upheld the convictions and death sentence William Glenn Rogers received for the 1996 rape and murder of 9-year-old Jacqueline Beard, who was abducted as she picked blackberries near her Clarksville home.
“We have reviewed all of the issues raised by Rogers and conclude that they do not warrant relief,” Justice Janice M. Holder wrote for the majority. “Rogers’ convictions and sentence of death are affirmed.”
Chief Justice William M. Barker and Justices E. Riley Anderson and Cornelia Clark joined Holder in the opinion, filed Friday, which upheld a Court of Criminal Appeals decision in the case.
Rogers, who also was sentenced to 48 years in prison for the kidnaping and rape, met his young victim while she and her brother and cousin played near a mud puddle on July 3, 1996. He identified himself as “Tommy Robertson” and said he was an undercover police officer. He also told the girl’s mother, Jeannie Meyer, he was a police officer before he left in his car.
Five days later, Rogers showed up at the Meyer home and said he had lost a key. Shortly after he left, Jacqueline went outside to pick blackberries. When she failed to return, her mother searched the area and then notified authorities.
Rogers, 34 at the time, was first questioned on July 11. He told police several different stories, finally saying he had accidently run over the child. He signed a statement saying he put her in his car, drove to a bridge and threw her body into the Cumberland River.
Her skeletal remains and clothing were discovered four months later in a wooded area of Stewart County. Human semen stains and fibers consistent with carpet in Rogers’ house were discovered on the shorts she had been wearing the day she disappeared.
“Rogers made several additional, sometimes contradictory, statements about his involvement in the victim’s death,” Holder wrote.
He was convicted of first degree premeditated murder, first degree felony murder in the perpetration of a kidnaping, first degree felony murder in the perpetration of a rape, especially aggravated kidnaping, rape of a child and two counts of criminal impersonation. The trial court merged the felony murder convictions with the premeditated murder conviction.
During the sentencing phase of the trial, jurors found four aggravating circumstances as defined by state law. They also found that the aggravating circumstances outweighed mitigating evidence, which included testimony that Rogers was physically and sexually abused as a child.
In his automatic appeal, Rogers argued that the evidence presented at his trial was insufficient to support his convictions.
“When a defendant challenges the sufficiency of the convicting evidence, the standard of appellate review is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the offense charged beyond a reasonable doubt,” Holder wrote. “… Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the state, we conclude that the proof points the finger of guilt unerringly at Rogers and Rogers alone.”
In a separate concurring and dissenting opinion, Justice Adolpho A. Birch, Jr., wrote that he also would affirm Rogers’ convictions, but not the death sentence jurors imposed for the girl’s murder.
“As to the sentence of death, however, I respectfully dissent,” Birch wrote. “I continue to adhere to my view that the comparative proportionality review protocol currently embraced by the majority is inadequate to shield defendants from the arbitrary and disproportionate imposition of the death penalty.”
By state law, the court is required to conduct “proportionality review” when jurors sentence a defendant to death. The review determines whether the sentence was arbitrarily imposed; whether evidence supported the jury’s finding of statutorily-defined aggravating circumstances and whether they outweighed mitigating circumstances; and whether the death sentence was excessive or disproportionate to penalties imposed in similar cases.
Holder wrote that the court conducted an “exhaustive review” of the record in Rogers’ case and records concerning similar crimes and defendants. The majority concluded that “the sentence of death imposed in this case is not excessive or disproportionate,” she wrote.
The court set a June 28, 2006, execution date for Rogers, who has state and federal appeals remaining.