Case Name: Vernon Ray COOPER, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1991-05-09
Citations: 581 So. 2d 49
Docket Number: No. 74611
Parties: Vernon Ray COOPER, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: OVERTON and McDONALD, JJ„ concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 581
Pages: 49–53

Head Matter:
Vernon Ray COOPER, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 74611.
Supreme Court of Florida.
May 9, 1991.
Rehearing Denied July 10, 1991.
Randy Hertz, New York University School of Law, New York City, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and Carolyn M. Snurkowski, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellee.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
Cooper appeals the death sentence imposed upon resentencing. We have jurisdiction, article Y, section 3(b)(1), Florida Constitution, and vacate the sentence.
In January 1974 Cooper and a companion robbed a grocery store in Escambia County. In affirming Cooper's conviction and sentence, this Court recited the facts as follows:
Cooper admitted at trial that he and one Steve Ellis robbed the grocery store, and that as they were making their escape in Cooper's black Camaro they were stopped by Deputy Wilkerson, who had stationed himself close to Interstate 10 in order to close off a possible escape route. There was conflicting testimony as to what then transpired. After being stopped, either Cooper or Ellis walked to Deputy Wilkerson's patrol car and fired two shots into his head. He was killed instantly.
A prompt report of Wilkerson's death caused officers Bates and Joy[e] to begin patrolling Interstate 10. They observed and stopped the Camaro after it had crossed into Alabama. Ellis, who was driving, left the Camaro and approached Bates, who began to frisk him. Joy[e] approached the Camaro, observed Cooper sitting in the passenger's seat, and returned to his patrol car. While doing so, he heard a shotgun fired from inside the Camaro. At that moment Ellis pulled a gun on Bates, but Bates reacted faster and shot Ellis fatally. Cooper then drove off in the Camaro. Both the officers fired several shots and gave chase, but Cooper escaped into the [countryside]. Cooper was captured the next day, with a shotgun in his possession, after a manhunt by over four hundred persons.
Cooper v. State, 336 So.2d 1133, 1136 (Fla.1976), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 925, 97 S.Ct. 2200, 53 L.Ed.2d 239 (1977). Later, this Court affirmed the denial of Cooper's motion for postconviction relief, Cooper v. State, 437 So.2d 1070 (Fla.1983), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1073, 104 S.Ct. 986, 79 L.Ed.2d 221 (1984), and the federal courts denied his petition for writ of habeas corpus. Cooper v. Wainwright, 807 F.2d 881 (11th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1050, 107 S.Ct. 2183, 95 L.Ed.2d 839 (1987). Based on Hitchcock v. Dugger, 481 U.S. 393, 107 S.Ct. 1821, 95 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987), however, we vacated Cooper's sentence and remanded for a second sentencing proceeding before a newly empaneled jury. Cooper v. Dugger, 526 So.2d 900 (Fla.1988).
At the new sentencing hearing the facts and circumstances of the events surrounding the death of Wilkerson were again presented and substantially reflected those expressed in our original opinion. Cooper was adamant, as he always has been, that he did not kill the deputy. Cooper also presented additional personal historical data, character traits, and family testimony in an effort to establish nonstatutory mitigating circumstances.
By a tie vote, the resentencing jury recommended that Cooper receive a sentence of life imprisonment. The trial court, however, sentenced him to death, finding four aggravating factors (committed while under sentence of imprisonment, previous conviction of violent felony, committed during or in flight from the felony of robbery, and committed to avoid or prevent arrest) which outweighed two nonstatutory mitigating factors (history of alcohol abuse and maintenance of close family ties). Cooper raises four points on appeal: improper jury override; error in excluding polygraph results; error in admitting a photograph of the murder victim; and improper instruction on nonstatutory mitigating circumstances.
Cooper does not attack the trial court's findings in aggravation, and we find them to be supported by the record beyond a reasonable doubt. The state proved both that Cooper had been convicted previously of several armed robberies and that he was on parole from some of those convictions when the instant crime occurred. The evidence also showed that Wilkerson stopped Cooper and Ellis because of their just-completed armed robbery of the grocery store and that he died in their attempt to avoid arrest.
To sustain an override sentence, however, this Court must find the facts in support of the death sentence "so clear and convincing that virtually no reasonable person could differ." Tedder v. State, 322 So.2d 908, 910 (Fla.1975). In reviewing a jury override we must decide, after considering the totality of the circumstances, if the life recommendation is reasonable. If it is, the death sentence should be vacated; if it is not, the sentence should be affirmed.
Cooper testified that Ellis, not he, shot the deputy. From the circumstantial evidence one could draw conflicting conclusions on whether Cooper or Ellis shot the deputy. Although the trial judge found that Cooper did the killing, the evidence is far from certain on this issue.
Conflicting evidence on the identity of the actual killer can form the basis for a recommendation of life imprisonment. Hawkins v. State, 436 So.2d 44 (Fla.1983); Malloy v. State, 382 So.2d 1190 (Fla.1979). In the instant ease, the jury might well have believed Cooper and decided that he did not kill the victim. Considering this, the nonstatutory mitigating evidence, and the totality of the circumstances, we cannot say that the jury's recommendation is not reasonable. Therefore, we vacate Cooper's death sentence and remand for imposition of a sentence of life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for twenty-five years. Due to this holding, we do not address the other issues raised on appeal.
It is so ordered.
OVERTON and McDONALD, JJ" concur.
BARKETT, J., concurs specially with an opinion, in which KOGAN, J., concurs.
SHAW, C.J., dissents with an opinion, in which GRIMES, J., concurs.
GRIMES, J., dissents with an opinion, in which SHAW, C.J., concurs.
The trial court's finding Cooper to have been the actual killer may have been a substitution of the court's judgment for that of the jury. If it were clear that Cooper killed the deputy, the override sentence might be sustained on the totality of the circumstances.