Case Title: Kampff v. State

Citation: 371 So. 2d 1007

Docket Number: 

State: florida

Court: Florida Supreme Court

Date: 1979-03-29T00:00:00Z

Document:
371 So. 2d 1007 (1979)
John A. KAMPFF, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 48895.

Supreme Court of Florida.
March 29, 1979.
Rehearing Denied July 9, 1979.
Joel Hirschhorn of Hirschhorn & Freeman, Miami, for appellant.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and Charles W. Musgrove, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellee.
PER CURIAM.
John Kampff was found guilty by a jury of the crime of murder in the first degree. The Circuit Court of the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, in and for St. Lucie County, rendered a judgment of conviction. The jury recommended that Mr. Kampff be sentenced to death, and the court followed the jury's recommendation. This Court has appellate jurisdiction to review the judgment and the sentence. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.; § 921.141(4), Fla. Stat. (1975).
The evidence, which included direct eye-witness testimony, established that the appellant killed Josephine Kampff, his former wife, by shooting her with a pistol, with a premeditated design to effect her death. *1008 The shooting was done at the victim's place of employment, a bakery and retail store. Five shots were fired, three of which entered the victim's body. The third bullet to enter her body was a direct shot to her head. The bullets were fired in rapid succession. There were two persons present besides the appellant and the victim when the shooting took place.
The appellant and the victim were married when he was twenty-one and she seventeen years of age. They reared four children. They were divorced after seventeen years of marriage. For three years after the divorce, the appellant begged his former wife to remarry him. The children testified to his continual harassment of her and his obsessive desire to regain his former status as husband. The obsession was intensified when he began to suspect that she was becoming involved romantically with another man.
There was testimony that the appellant had an extreme and chronic problem with alcoholism. During the last few days before the murder and on the day of the murder, the appellant visited at various times with his children and their friends. He continually brought up the subject of his former wife's involvement with another man, and the children vehemently defended their mother. They also demanded that he not bring up the matter, but he was incapable of complying.
The appellant raises several points on appeal from the judgment of conviction. Each of them has been given careful consideration. We hold that the evidence was sufficient to support the jury's verdict and that there was no reversible error in that portion of the trial at which appellant's guilt was adjudicated.
The appellant also challenges the sufficiency of the trial court's findings as to aggravating and mitigating circumstances and the propriety of the sentence of death.
As is required by the capital felony sentencing law, section 921.141, Florida Statutes (1975), the trial judge issued written findings of fact in support of the sentence:
This court, by order of April 18, 1977, directed that the trial court judge, among other things, clarify his findings by disclosing the statutorily enumerated aggravating circumstances which he found to exist and delineating the mitigating circumstances, if any, that he found to be outweighed by the aggravating circumstances. In his response, the trial court judge recited the following considerations:
We consider first the finding that the firing of five shots at close range under the circumstances established that the appellant knowingly created a great risk of death to many persons. There was evidence that two persons besides the appellant and the victim were present in the store at the time of the shooting. There were other people in the building and in the general area. One of the bullets appellant fired ricocheted and lodged in a wall.
When the legislature chose the words with which to establish this aggravating circumstance, it indicated clearly that more was contemplated than a showing of some degree of risk of bodily harm to a few persons. "Great risk" means not a mere possibility but a likelihood or high probability. The great risk of death created by the capital felon's actions must be to "many" persons. By using the word "many," the legislature indicated that a great risk of death to a small number of *1010 people would not establish this aggravating circumstance. We hold that the trial court erred in finding that the appellant created a great risk of death to many persons.
We now turn our consideration to the court's finding that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel. In State v. Dixon, 283 So. 2d 1, 9 (Fla. 1973), it is explained that:
There is no support in the evidence for the conclusion that the appellant "planned" the murder for three years. The evidence showed, rather, that he spent three years brooding over his divorce. Directing a pistol shot straight to the head of the victim does not tend to establish this aggravating circumstance. The appellant's expression of satisfaction at his former wife's death can be interpreted as an indication of concern over whether she died quickly or lingered and suffered. We hold that the trial court erred in finding that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.
On review of the record we conclude that there was evidence which could have and should have been considered, tending to establish the following two mitigating circumstances:
§ 921.141(6), Fla. Stat. (1975); see Halliwell v. State, 323 So. 2d 557 (Fla. 1975).
In consideration of these mitigating circumstances, and in view of the fact that no aggravating circumstances were sufficiently established, we hold that the sentence of death imposed by the trial court was improper.
This cause is remanded to the trial court with directions to vacate the sentence of death and to impose a sentence of life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for twenty-five years.
It is so ordered.
ENGLAND, C.J., and BOYD, OVERTON, SUNDBERG and HATCHETT, JJ., concur.
ADKINS, J., concurs in result only.