Title: Thomas v. State

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

403 So. 2d 371 (1981)
Daniel Morris THOMAS, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Respondent.
No. 51927.

Supreme Court of Florida.
July 16, 1981.
Rehearing Denied October 2, 1981.
*372 Larry Mark Polsky, Daytona Beach, for appellant.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and Wallace E. Allbritton, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for respondent.
PER CURIAM.
Appellant, Daniel Morris Thomas, was convicted of seven felony charges based upon a single, although somewhat extended, criminal episode. One of the convictions is for murder in the first degree, for which crime the trial court sentenced appellant to death. This Court has jurisdiction of his appeal. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.
Appellant presents six points on appeal. We find that two of these points  the limitation on the number of peremptory challenges and the trial court's refusal to excuse for cause a juror who admittedly could *373 not follow the statutory capital sentencing requirements  require reversal of the convictions and a new trial.
The evidence, in brief, showed that appellant and another man broke into a house near DeLand while the occupants were out. Upon the return of the family, the two men shot and killed the husband, kidnapped and raped the wife, finally binding her wrists and ankles and throwing her into the St. Johns River from a bridge. Fortunately, the wife, although seriously injured, survived and testified at the highly publicized trial.
At a pretrial conference on May 18, 1977, the record indicates that defense counsel and the state stipulated to a total of sixty-six peremptory challenges for each side, which was a figure suggested by the state as the required number under the rules of criminal procedure. As a result of this stipulation, the appellant agreed not to move for severance of the consolidated offenses. The total number of peremptory challenges agreed to represented ten challenges for the capital felony and for each life felony and six for a second-degree felony. This number is not legally required by Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.350, which provides that if the indictment contains two or more counts, the defendant is allowed the number of challenges permissible in a single case "but in the interest of justice the judge may use his judicial discretion ... to grant additional challenges... ." See Johnson v. State, 222 So. 2d 191 (Fla. 1969). However, the stipulation was accepted by the then-presiding judge. The transcript of the pretrial conference shows the following exchange:
Transcript of Proceedings, Record on Appeal, vol. III, at 8-10 (emphasis ours).
*374 At trial a different judge presided instead of the judge who had presided at the pre-trial conference. When the jury venire had been sworn and the selection of the jury was about to begin, the following exchange took place:
Transcript of Proceedings, Record on Appeal, vol. V, at 12-13.
Sixteen peremptory challenges would have been proper if the state had not concluded that sixty-six was the correct number and stipulated to that number; the record indicates the appellant would have been satisfied with fifty. Moreover, the record is also clear that appellant stipulated to the consolidation of cases in return for the stipulated sixty-six challenges. It is irrelevant whether appellant would have succeeded in any attempt to oppose consolidation of cases. Under these circumstances, where the state induces a waiver of appellant's right to oppose consolidation by agreeing to a specific number of additional peremptory challenges, the subsequent reduction of the number of challenges on this record was reversible error and clearly prejudicial.
The record establishes without question that the limitation of sixteen peremptory challenges actually prejudiced appellant, since he was unable to peremptorily challenge venireman Lionel Roberts, who was seated on the jury and became its foreman. Appellant moved four times to excuse Roberts for cause, and while three of the attempts stem from exchanges that merely show Roberts as a likely target for a peremptory challenge, the following exchange reveals error in not excusing for cause:
Transcript of Proceedings, vol. VI, at 333-37.
We find that the trial court erred in denying the challenge for cause to juror Roberts, who had admitted in voir dire that he could not "recommend any mercy" in any required sentencing phase under any circumstances. Juror Roberts should have been excused because of a fundamental violation  the presence of bias against the defendant in the sentencing aspect of a capital case. This bias violated the express requirements in the sixth amendment to the United States Constitution and in article I, section 16, of the Florida Constitution, that an accused be tried by "an impartial jury."
Federal courts have considered this precise question at least twice, and on both occasions have found that jurors with predispositions *376 concerning sentencing in capital cases should have been excused. See Stroud v. United States, 251 U.S. 15, 40 S. Ct. 50, 64 L. Ed. 103 (1919), reh. denied, 251 U.S. 380, 40 S. Ct. 176, 64 L. Ed. 317 (1920); Crawford v. Bounds, 395 F.2d 297, 304 (4th Cir.1968), cert. denied, 397 U.S. 936, 90 S. Ct. 941, 25 L. Ed. 2d 117 (1970).
Although the jury's role in the sentencing phase is an advisory one, it is significant to a defendant since a trial court may not impose the death penalty following a jury's advisory sentence of life imprisonment unless "the facts suggesting a sentence of death [are] so clear and convincing that virtually no reasonable person could differ." Tedder v. State, 322 So. 2d 908, 910 (Fla. 1975). We have previously held that it was error for a trial judge to refuse to allow defense counsel to propound any voir dire inquiry as to the issue of mercy, since "[s]uch inquiry ... could conceivably be determinative of whether the defense should challenge a juror  either for cause or peremptorily." Poole v. State, 194 So. 2d 903, 905 (Fla. 1967) (emphasis supplied). The admitted refusal of juror Roberts to weigh mitigating circumstances in the sentencing phase presents a clear case in which a challenge for cause should have been granted.
Having determined that the trial court erred in not excusing juror Roberts, we reach the difficult question of whether this error permeates the convictions themselves, thus requiring a new trial, or affects simply the capital sentencing phase.
We conclude on this record that the combination of the two errors  (1) limiting appellant's peremptory challenges to sixteen after entry of a stipulation with the state for sixty-six, and (2) refusing to excuse juror Roberts for cause  also prejudiced appellant in the trial phase. These two errors resulted in appellant's multiple efforts to have juror Roberts excused, which in turn created a great risk of animosity against the appellant by juror Roberts and possibly by his fellow jurors. For these reasons we determine that the convictions must be reversed, and this cause is remanded for a new trial.
It is so ordered.
SUNDBERG, C.J., and OVERTON, ENGLAND and McDONALD, JJ., concur.
ALDERMAN, J., concurs in part and dissents in part with an opinion, in which BOYD, J., concurs.
ADKINS, J., dissents.
ALDERMAN, Justice, concurring in part, dissenting in part.
I agree that the trial court erred in not excusing juror Roberts for cause. A defendant in a capital case is entitled to twelve impartial jurors, none of whom is unequivocably predisposed to returning a sentence of death as juror Roberts was in the present case. As the Supreme Court of the United States said in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S. Ct. 1770, 20 L. Ed. 2d 776 (1968): "Whatever else might be said of capital punishment, it is at least clear that its imposition by a hanging jury cannot be squared with the Constitution." 391 U.S.  at 523, 88 S. Ct.  at 1778.
The trial court's failure to excuse juror Roberts for cause, however, requires only that the death sentence be vacated and the cause be remanded for a new sentencing hearing before a new jury. Juror Roberts made it plain that he would follow the law in deciding the guilt or innocence of the defendant. In Witherspoon, the Supreme Court stated that it was not announcing a per se rule requiring reversal of a conviction where the jury was organized to return a verdict of death because it could not conclude that the exclusion of jurors opposed to capital punishment results in an unrepresentative jury on the issue of guilt or substantially increases the risk of conviction. It does not appear from the record in this case that the defendant's multiple efforts to have juror Roberts excused created any animosity against him on the part of juror Roberts and the other members of the jury or in any way affected their verdict on the issue of guilt or innocence.
*377 Accordingly, I concur with the majority's reversal of the death sentence, but I dissent from the majority's reversal of the defendant's conviction. I would affirm the conviction, vacate the death sentence, and remand for a new sentencing hearing before a newly impaneled jury.
BOYD, J., concurs.