Title: Daugherty v. State

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

419 So. 2d 1067 (1982)
Jeffrey Joseph DAUGHERTY, Petitioner,
v.
STATE of Florida, Respondent.
No. 60709.

Supreme Court of Florida.
September 14, 1982.
*1068 Arthur J. Kutsche, of the Law Offices of A.J. "Sonny" Kutsche, Titusville, for petitioner.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and C. Michael Barnette, Asst. Atty. Gen., Daytona Beach, for respondent.
PER CURIAM.
Jeffrey Joseph Daugherty appeals his conviction and sentence of death for the first-degree murder of Lavonne Patricia Sailer. We affirm.
Daugherty, along with his girl friend Bonnie Heath and his uncle, left Michigan in January 1976 and traveled to Florida purportedly to look for jobs and to visit Heath's children. On February 23, 1976, he robbed an Easy Way food store and shot and killed Carmen Abrams and seriously wounded her husband. Continuing on a killing and robbing spree, on March 1, 1976, Daugherty and Heath picked up Lavonne Sailer who was hitchhiking in Melbourne, Florida. They took her to an isolated area near the Brevard County dump where Daugherty told her to get out of the car and robbed her. He then shot her five times at close range with a .22 caliber pistol. They then returned to the nearby bar to pick up Daugherty's uncle. Thereafter for a twenty-day period, Daugherty, along with Heath, continued on a course of robberies and murders, several of which he was convicted and for which he was sentenced prior to being convicted and sentenced for the Sailer murder.
Daugherty pled guilty to the first-degree murder, robbery, and kidnapping of Sailer. A jury was then impaneled for the sentencing phase. The jury recommended a sentence of death, and the judge imposed the death sentence for the first-degree murder and life sentences for the robbery and kidnapping. The trial court found as an aggravating factor that Daugherty was previously convicted of another capital felony or a felony involving the use or threat of violence to the person. It enumerated the previous convictions as follows:
The trial court also found as an aggravating circumstance that the murder was committed for pecuniary gain. Weighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, it concluded the death sentence is justified because there are sufficient aggravating circumstances and insufficient mitigating circumstances.
Daugherty does not challenge his plea of guilty to the charges against him. The transcript of the plea proceeding evidences the voluntariness of his plea. In response to the trial court's inquiry, Daugherty stated that he was neither coerced nor compelled to plead guilty nor promised any leniency, gain, advantage, probation, or any other benefit to persuade him to plead guilty; that he fully understood the charges against him to which he pled guilty and the possibility of the imposition of the death penalty; and that he was also fully advised of all the rights he waived by pleading guilty. When asked during oral argument by this Court whether there was any question as to the voluntariness of Daugherty's pleas, Daugherty's counsel answered in the negative.
Daugherty does challenge his death sentence. He contends that the court erred in allowing the State to present evidence of prior convictions as an aggravating circumstance where the offenses occurred subsequent to the capital felony for which he is now being sentenced and that the trial court erred in considering these prior convictions as an aggravating circumstance. He concedes, however, that we have resolved this argument against him in several recent decisions.
The State responds that not only have our decisions foreclosed this argument, but also Daugherty does not have standing to raise this point since one of the murders for which Daugherty was convicted was committed prior to the murder of Lavonne Sailer.
In Elledge v. State, 346 So. 2d 998 (Fla. 1977), we rejected this same argument and held that it is clear from a reading of section 921.141(5)(b), Florida Statutes (1975), that the legislature referred to "previous convictions" and not to "previous crimes." Prior conviction, we emphasized, is the important element of this aggravating circumstance. See also Lucas v. State, 376 So. 2d 1149 (Fla. 1979). We likewise held in King v. State, 390 So. 2d 315, 320 (Fla. 1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 989, 101 S. Ct. 1529, 67 L. Ed. 2d 825 (1981), that "[t]he legislative intent is clear that any violent crime for which there was a conviction at the time of sentencing should be considered as an aggravating circumstance." See also Ruffin v. State, 397 So. 2d 277 (Fla.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 882, 102 S. Ct. 368, 70 L. Ed. 2d 194 (1981).
We hold that the trial court did not err in permitting the State to introduce these prior convictions and did not err in finding the aggravating circumstance that Daugherty was previously convicted of another capital felony or a felony involving the use or threat of violence to the person.
Daugherty also argues that the court erred in not considering certain mitigating factors. He initially contends that the trial court erred in rejecting the statutory mitigating factor of no significant history of prior criminal activity. He asserts that the court erroneously premised its conclusion that this mitigating factor did not exist on the basis that Daugherty had been previously *1070 convicted of four murders. The court also noted that he had been convicted of three other robberies and two aggravated assaults. These crimes, states Daugherty, were committed after the Sailer murder. The State points out that one of these convictions was for a murder committed prior to the Sailer murder.
This prior conviction of the earlier committed capital felony is alone sufficient to negate the mitigating factor of no significant history of prior criminal activity. Moreover, in Ruffin v. State, we held that all of these prior convictions could be properly considered as a basis for rejecting this mitigating factor. In Ruffin, we said that "prior" means prior to sentencing of a defendant and does not mean prior to the commission of the murder for which he is being sentenced. We explained:
397 So. 2d  at 283. Thus, we hold that the trial court properly rejected this mitigating factor. We further find no error in the court's rejecting the other statutory mitigating factors. Specifically as to other statutory mitigating factors, the trial court properly found:
The evidence introduced at the sentencing hearing does not support a finding of any of these factors. Furthermore, the court did not err in rejecting the mitigating factor of age under the particular circumstances of *1071 this case. At the time of this murder, Daugherty was 20 years old. As we said in Peek v. State, 395 So. 2d 492, 498 (Fla.), cert. denied, 451 U.S. 964, 101 S. Ct. 2036, 68 L. Ed. 2d 342 (1981), "There is no per se rule which pinpoints a particular age as an automatic factor in mitigation. The propriety of a finding with respect to this circumstance depends upon the evidence adduced at trial and at the sentencing hearing." We concluded in Peek that the trial court's rejection of age of 20 as a mitigating factor was supported by the record.
Daugherty finally contends that the court erred in failing to find certain non-statutory mitigating factors, i.e., his alleged remorse, his suicide attempt, his conversion to Christianity, his unstable family life, and the fact that at the time of sentencing, because of previous convictions, he would not be eligible for parole for 107 1/2 years. Daugherty does not argue that the court failed to consider these circumstances or that it prevented him from introducing any relevant evidence of mitigation, nor would such an assertion be supported by the record. The court expressly stated that it considered and weighed all the testimony and evidence.
We find no merit to this contention. The trial court considered all the evidence and decided that the death sentence was warranted since there were sufficient aggravating circumstances and insufficient mitigating circumstances. His conclusions are supported by the record. As we have previously stated, it is within the province of the trial court to decide whether a particular mitigating circumstance in sentencing has been proven and the weight to be given it. Riley v. State, 413 So. 2d 1173 (Fla. 1982); Smith v. State, 407 So. 2d 894 (Fla. 1981); Lucas v. State, 376 So. 2d 1149 (Fla. 1979).
Accordingly, finding no error, we affirm.
It is so ordered.
ALDERMAN, C.J., and ADKINS, BOYD, OVERTON, SUNDBERG, McDONALD and EHRLICH, JJ., concur.