Title: Christopher Offord v. State Of Florida

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

Supreme Court of Florida 
 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC05-1611 
____________ 
 
CHRISTOPHER OFFORD,  
Appellant, 
 
vs. 
 
STATE OF FLORIDA,  
Appellee. 
 
[May 24, 2007] 
 
PER CURIAM.   
 
Christopher Offord pled guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to 
death after a penalty-phase trial.  The only issue Offord raises on appeal is whether 
death is a proportionate punishment in his case, where the trial court weighed one 
aggravating circumstance against two statutory mitigators demonstrating that 
Offord suffers from serious mental illness.  This Court has mandatory jurisdiction 
over all death penalty appeals.  See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.  The reason for 
our mandatory review was first explained in State v. Dixon, 283 So. 2d 1 (Fla. 
1973), in which this Court upheld the constitutionality of Florida’s death penalty 
statute: 
Review by this Court guarantees that the reasons present in one case 
will reach a similar result to that reached under similar circumstances 
in another case.  No longer will one man die and another live on the 
basis of race, or a woman live and a man die on the basis of sex.  If a 
defendant is sentenced to die, this Court can review that case in light 
of the other decisions and determine whether or not the punishment is 
too great.   
Id. at 10 (emphasis supplied).   
 
For the reasons that follow, we conclude that when the totality of the 
circumstances of this case is compared to other capital cases, death is a 
disproportionate punishment.  We therefore reduce Offord’s sentence to life in 
prison without the possibility of parole.  
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY 
 
During the early morning of July 31, 2004, Offord, who was twenty-nine 
years old, killed his wife by beating her with the claw end of a hammer.  Offord, 
who had a lifelong history of serious mental illness, confessed to the murder in a 
videotaped statement taken by police and pled guilty to first-degree murder.  
Offord’s statement and the testimony of the penalty-phase witnesses established 
the following facts.       
 
Offord moved from Texas to Panama City, Florida, in February 2004.  A 
short time later he ran out of money and moved in with David and Lisa Leasher, a 
couple he met at the motel where he had been staying.  In March or April 2004,  
Offord met Dana Noser at a bar and they married four days later.  Offord and 
 
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Noser lived together until that June, when they decided to separate.  However, they 
continued to see each other regularly.     
 
On July 31, 2004, Noser took Offord to Granny’s Kitchen, where he was a 
dishwasher.  Noser returned to the restaurant at 11 p.m. to take Offord home when 
his shift ended.  After Noser dropped Offord off at his apartment, she and some  
friends went to several bars.  She returned at 3 a.m. and woke Offord.  They went 
to a bar where Offord drank a few beers and shot pool.  The waitress at the bar 
testified that Offord and Noser seemed to be getting along with each other.  
Around 4 a.m., Offord and Noser went to a Waffle House and ate breakfast.  
Several employees who knew the couple from previous visits testified that Offord 
and Noser were very affectionate.   
At 7 a.m., Offord showed up at the Leashers’ motel room and told them that 
he had killed Noser.  The Leashers did not believe Offord, so he returned to his 
apartment.  Twelve hours later, around 6:45 p.m., Offord went to a bar where he 
told both the bartender, Arthur Sencil, and a part-time employee, Bill Yohe, that he 
had killed Noser.  Sencil called the police, and Offord was arrested and taken to the 
police station.  Offord confessed to the murder during a videotaped interview 
conducted by Detective Joe Cherry.    
 
At the beginning of the interview, Offord stated that he is schizophrenic and 
ran out of his medication.  He said that he did not intend to kill Noser but that he 
 
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was hearing voices and just kept hitting her.  According to Offord’s statement, 
after leaving the Waffle House, he and Noser returned to his apartment and 
engaged in consensual sex.  Offord took a shower and Noser became angry when 
he refused to return to bed.  Offord went to the front room of his apartment to calm 
down but heard voices telling him to kill Noser.  He retrieved a knife and duct tape 
from the kitchen and went back to the bedroom.  Offord sat down on the bed next 
to Noser and she continued to insist that he lie down.  Offord took a piece of duct 
tape, put it over Noser’s mouth, and began to hit her with his fist.  The duct tape 
did not cover her entire mouth so he grabbed a pillow to muffle her.  He repeatedly 
told Noser to “shut up.”  He grabbed the knife and began to stab Noser in the face 
and chest.  Offord then saw the hammer beside the bed and started hitting her face 
with it.  Offord stated that he hit Noser about fifty times with the hammer and that 
he believed he eventually broke her neck.    
 
Offord also stated that after he returned from the Leashers’ hotel room, he 
drank a bottle of whiskey and took twenty Xanax pills in an attempt to commit 
suicide.  He slept for a few hours and then went to the bar where he told Sencil and 
Yohe that he had killed Noser.       
 
Dr. Charles Siebert, the Chief Medical Examiner for the Fourteenth District, 
testified that Noser died of blunt head trauma.  Dr. Siebert stated that Noser 
suffered at least thirty blows to the face and numerous blows to her lower 
 
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extremities.  He opined that the amount of bruising and the fact that most of her 
facial wounds were superficial indicated that Noser was alive during much of the 
beating—for at least fifteen to twenty minutes—and suffered a high degree of pain.   
 
The defense presented two witnesses.  Jill Rowan, a clinical psychologist, 
examined Offord for competency, and reviewed and summarized his medical 
records from Texas and Florida.  Rowan explained the documented history of 
Offord’s mental illness, which showed that Offord has been troubled by mental 
health issues since the age of five.  His Texas medical records revealed that at 
eighteen, Offord was transferred from county jail to a state hospital where he was 
diagnosed with impulse control disorder and marijuana, cocaine, and speed abuse.  
When he was nineteen, Offord was charged with robbery, found incompetent to 
stand trial and given antipsychotic drugs.  While in prison at age twenty-four, 
Offord had urges to cut himself.  Shortly thereafter, he was evaluated for social 
security disability and was diagnosed with schizoaffective illness, which is a 
combination of schizophrenia and mood disorder.  Rowan further testified that 
Offord’s medical records indicated he had a history of auditory hallucinations, 
which are a symptom of schizophrenia.     
Offord’s Florida medical records showed that he was admitted to Bay 
Medical Behavioral Health Center (“Bay Behavioral”) four times—February, 
March, April, and July—since his arrival in Florida in early 2004.  During his last 
 
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admission to Bay Behavioral, just three weeks before the murder, he was 
diagnosed with alcohol and cocaine dependency and schizophrenia.  He was given 
medication and checked himself out against medical advice.  Nurses’ notes stated 
that Offord threatened to choke Noser if she came to a family therapy session and 
that Offord was so upset about Noser’s continued calls to the hospital that he said 
he felt like killing her.  Rowan explained that hospital staff may not have taken 
Offord’s threats seriously because schizophrenia is a major mental illness and a 
person with this disease may not be grounded in reality and may be delusional, 
have hallucinations, and hear voices.  She also stated that schizophrenics often 
ramble and are unable to communicate effectively.    
Rowan concluded that Offord suffers from a mood disorder (bipolar 
disorder), a personality disorder (schizophrenia), and a substance abuse problem.  
She stated that Offord had a pattern of first being admitted to a mental health 
facility, where he would be prescribed psychotropic drugs and weaned off street 
drugs.  Then, when he left the hospital, Offord would stop using his prescribed 
medicine and would return to using narcotics and alcohol, which eventually led to 
rehospitalization.  She also stated that it was difficult to determine whether Offord 
voluntarily stopped taking his medications or whether this was involuntary as a 
result of his mental illness.   
 
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The second defense witness was Nancy Watson, a licensed clinical social 
worker.  She met with Offord, reviewed his medical records, and spoke with his 
mother and one of his “careworkers.”  Watson testified that Offord lived with his 
parents until he was about five years old.  At that time, his parents divorced and he 
lived with his father for a short period.  There were some allegations of sexual and 
physical abuse and he was brought back to live with his mother and her new 
husband.  Offord’s mother told Watson that Offord was a very easy-going child 
until he was eight months old.  He then became easily agitated and overactive, 
demanded attention, and had impulse control problems.  Offord did not get along 
with other children, was teased and rejected, and started running away from home.  
Offord’s mother also stated that when he was five, Offord began pulling the skin 
off his fingernails and at six he threatened to kill her, chasing her with a butcher 
knife.  Offord was institutionalized for the first time when he was six years old and 
since that time he has lived outside an institution for only short periods of time.  By 
age fourteen Offord was hearing voices and by age seventeen he was drinking very 
heavily.  
At the conclusion of the penalty phase, the jury recommended the death 
penalty by a vote of twelve to zero.  The trial court held a Spencer1 hearing to 
allow both the State and Offord to present additional evidence and arguments 
                                          
 
 
1.  Spencer v. State, 615 So. 2d 688 (Fla. 1993). 
 
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concerning sentencing.  The State presented the testimony of Amy Sweat, Noser’s 
sister.  Sweat testified that Noser was loved by her family and the most tragic 
consequence of Offord’s actions was that Noser’s seven-year-old daughter had lost 
her mother.  
Offord then testified.  Regarding the night of the murder, Offord’s version of 
events was consistent with his taped statement.  However, Offord did not testify 
that he heard voices telling him to kill Noser.  He also insisted that he could “fool 
any doctor you put in [his] face” and is not “crazy at all.”   
The trial court found one aggravating circumstance—that the murder was 
especially heinous, atrocious or cruel (HAC)—and gave this factor great weight.  
The trial court found two statutory mitigators: (1) that the murder was committed 
while Offord was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance; 
and (2) that Offord’s capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or 
conform his conduct to the requirements of law was substantially impaired.  The 
trial court assigned these mitigating factors some weight and moderate weight, 
respectively.  The trial court found two nonstatutory mitigators:  (1) marital discord 
(little weight); and (2) drug and alcohol abuse (little weight).  After weighing the 
aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the trial court imposed a sentence of 
death.  The court found that although Offord experienced “some mental health 
 
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issues, they did not outweigh the brutish, violent beating [Noser] endured while he 
attempted to remove her face with the claw end of a hammer.”   
ANALYSIS  
The only issue before the Court is whether death is a proportionate 
punishment.  In deciding whether death is a proportionate penalty, “we make a 
comprehensive analysis in order to determine whether the crime falls within the 
category of both the most aggravated and the least mitigated of murders, thereby 
assuring uniformity in the application of the sentence.”  Anderson v. State, 841 So. 
2d 390, 407-08 (Fla. 2003) (citation omitted).  We consider the totality of the 
circumstances of the case and compare the case to other capital cases.  See Urbin v. 
State, 714 So. 2d 411, 417 (Fla. 1998).  This entails “a qualitative review by this 
Court of the underlying basis for each aggravator and mitigator rather than a 
quantitative analysis.”  Id. at 416.  In other words, proportionality review “is not a 
comparison between the number of aggravating and mitigating circumstances.”  
Sexton v. State, 775 So. 2d 923, 935 (Fla. 2000) (quoting Porter v. State, 564 So. 
2d 1060, 1064 (Fla.1990)).   
In this case, the trial court found one aggravating circumstance—that the 
murder was heinous, atrocious, or cruel.  HAC is a weighty aggravator that has 
been described by this Court as one of the most serious in the statutory sentencing 
scheme.  See Larkins v. State, 739 So. 2d 90, 95 (Fla. 1999).  It “applies in 
 
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physically and mentally torturous murders which can be exemplified by the desire 
to inflict a high degree of pain or utter indifference to or enjoyment of the suffering 
of another.”  Belcher v. State, 851 So. 2d 678, 683 (Fla. 2003).  Offord does not 
dispute the trial court’s finding of HAC.    
The trial court also found two statutory mitigators—that the murder was 
committed while Offord was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional 
disturbance and that Offord’s capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct 
or conform his conduct to the requirements of law was substantially impaired.  
This finding was based on extensive documented evidence of Offord’s history of 
severe mental illness.  Offord asserts that this substantial mental mitigation makes 
the death penalty inappropriate even though the HAC aggravator has been proved. 
We have found death to be a proportionate punishment in three cases in 
which HAC was the only aggravating factor.  See Butler v. State, 842 So. 2d 817 
(Fla. 2003); Blackwood v. State, 777 So. 2d 399 (Fla. 2000); Cardona v. State, 641 
So. 2d 361 (Fla. 1994).  However, we have also explained that “[a]s a general rule, 
‘death is not indicated in a single-aggravator case where there is substantial 
mitigation.’”  Almeida v. State, 748 So. 2d 922, 933 (Fla. 1999) (quoting Jones v. 
State, 705 So. 2d 1364, 1367 (Fla. 1998)).  After reviewing the mitigation evidence 
presented at Offord’s penalty phase and his videotaped confession, we conclude in 
this case that Offord’s lifelong history of severe mental illness makes the death 
 
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sentence in this single-aggravator murder a disproportionate punishment. 
Although we found death to be a proportionate punishment in Butler, 
Blackwood, and Cardona, they are distinguishable from this case because each 
involved less weighty mitigation.  In Butler, the defendant stabbed and strangled 
his ex-girlfriend.  See 842 So. 2d at 821.  In imposing the death penalty, the trial 
court did not find any statutory mitigators and found minor nonstatutory 
mitigation—that the defendant was reared without his natural mother, was a loving 
and good son, was well thought of by neighbors and coworkers, and had a long-
term substance abuse problem.  See id. at 823.  The defendant in Blackwood 
strangled his pregnant ex-girlfriend.  See 777 So. 2d at 402.  The trial court found 
only one statutory mitigator, that the defendant had no significant history of prior 
criminal conduct, and eight nonstatutory mitigators, the most significant of which 
was that the defendant was suffering from an emotional disturbance at the time of 
the crime.  See id. at 405.2  In Cardona, although the trial court did find the two 
statutory mental health mitigators, this finding was based on the defendant’s 
cocaine use.  See 641 So. 2d at 365.  Qualitatively, the severe mental illness 
underlying the impaired capacity and extreme mental disturbance mitigators in 
Offord’s case is more compelling than the cocaine addiction underlying this 
                                          
 
 
2.  Blackwood’s sentence was recently vacated due to trial counsel’s 
ineffective assistance for failing to investigate and prepare mental mitigation 
evidence.  See Blackwood v. State, 946 So. 2d 960, 976 (Fla. 2006).      
 
 
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mitigation in Cardona.      
Cardona is further distinguished by the fact that the victim was the 
defendant’s three-year-old son, who died after suffering eighteen months of neglect 
and abuse.  See id. at 362.  In concluding that death was a proportionate 
punishment, we focused on the “extended period of time [the three-year-old 
victim] was subjected to the torturous abuse leading to his death.”  Id. at 365.3 
The circumstances of this case are more akin to those presented in cases in 
which this Court has reversed death sentences on proportionality grounds despite 
the presence of the HAC aggravator.  See Robertson v. State, 699 So. 2d 1343 (Fla. 
1997); Kramer v. State, 619 So. 2d 274 (Fla. 1993); Nibert v. State, 574 So. 2d 
1059 (Fla. 1990).  Robertson involved a strangulation murder committed by a 
nineteen-year-old in the course of a burglary.  699 So. 2d at 1344-45.  The Court 
vacated the defendant’s death sentence “in light of the substantial mitigation 
present,” which included the defendant’s age, impaired capacity, abused and 
deprived childhood, history of mental illness, and borderline intelligence.  Id. at 
1347.  In vacating the death sentence in Kramer, this Court concluded that “[t]he 
factors establishing alcoholism, mental stress, severe loss of emotional control, and 
potential for productive functioning in the structured environment of prison are 
                                          
 
 
3.  Cardona’s conviction and sentence were vacated in 2002 because the 
State withheld exculpatory evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 
83 (1963).  See Cardona v. State, 826 So. 2d 968, 969 (Fla. 2002). 
 
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dispositive.”  619 So. 2d at 278.  In Nibert, this Court ruled that the trial court erred 
in failing to weigh substantial mitigation and that there was no need to remand for 
the trial court to reweigh the aggravating and mitigating circumstances because the 
death penalty was a disproportionate punishment.  574 So. 2d at 1063.  The Court 
noted that “substantial mitigation may make the death penalty inappropriate even 
when the aggravating circumstance of heinous, atrocious, or cruel has been 
proved.”  Id.    
In this case, there is no question that Offord committed a brutal murder.  
However, the murder was unaccompanied by any motivation such as pecuniary 
gain or avoiding arrest, and without the aggravating circumstance of a prior violent 
felony.  Further, Offord presented substantial mental health mitigation that is 
uncontroverted.  Offord’s mental illness undoubtedly contributed to this tragic 
crime as indicated by the trial court’s finding of the statutory mitigators that the 
murder was committed while Offord was under the influence of extreme mental or 
emotional disturbance and that Offord’s capacity to appreciate the criminality of 
his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law were substantially 
impaired.  Although the trial court gave some credence to Offord’s Spencer 
hearing testimony that he did not think he was “crazy at all” and that he “could 
fool any doctor you put in [his] face,” this testimony was contrary to the extensive 
documented history of Offord’s lifelong mental illness and repeated 
 
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institutionalization.   
In fact, Offord’s case is notable because it is one of the most documented 
cases of serious mental illness this Court has reviewed.  Through the 
uncontradicted medical records, a picture emerges of an individual with two 
serious mental illnesses—schizophrenia and bipolar disorder—who has been in 
and out of institutions since he was just five or six years old.  During a 2001 
hospitalization in Texas, the staff considered Offord’s prognosis poor and 
predicted that he would be unable to function well outside of a facility.  This 
proved to be an accurate assessment because Offord was admitted to hospitals 
numerous times during 2002, 2003, and 2004.  After coming to Florida, he was 
admitted to Bay Behavioral four times, the last on July 4, 2004, only weeks before 
the murder.  In addition, Offord was receiving permanent social security disability 
payments because of his mental illness.  Although Offord also has a substance 
abuse problem, his medical history indicates that his mental health significantly 
contributed to the murder.    
As this Court observed over 34 years ago in Dixon: 
It is necessary at the outset to bear in mind that all defendants 
who will face the issue of life imprisonment or death will already have 
been found guilty of a most serious crime, one which the Legislature 
has chosen to classify as capital.  After his adjudication, this 
defendant is nevertheless provided with five steps between conviction 
and imposition of the death penalty—each step providing concrete 
safeguards beyond those of the trial system to protect him from death 
where a less harsh punishment might be sufficient. 
 
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283 So. 2d at 7.   The final step is the mandatory review by this Court, which we 
found was one indication of “legislative intent to extract the penalty of death for 
only the most aggravated, the most indefensible of crimes.”  Id. at 8.  For all the 
reasons we have explained, we conclude that this is not among “the most 
aggravated and unmitigated of most serious crimes” for which the death penalty is 
reserved.  Id. at 7.  Imposition of the death penalty would thus be a 
disproportionate punishment.  We therefore vacate the death sentence and remand 
for the imposition of a life sentence without the possibility of parole.      
It is so ordered. 
LEWIS, C.J., and WELLS, ANSTEAD, PARIENTE, QUINCE, CANTERO, and 
BELL, JJ., concur. 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION, AND 
IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
 
An Appeal from the Circuit Court in and for Bay County,  
Dedee S. Costello, Judge - Case No. 04-2723-H 
 
Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender, and Nada M. Carey, Assistant Public 
Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, Florida, 
 
 
for Appellant 
 
Bill McCollum, Attorney General, and Ronald A. Lathan, Jr., Assistant Attorney 
General, Tallahassee, Florida, 
 
 
for Appellee 
 
 
 
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