Case Name: Derrick Tyrone SMITH, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1986-07-17
Citations: 492 So. 2d 1063
Docket Number: No. 64670
Parties: Derrick Tyrone SMITH, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: ADKINS, BOYD, OVERTON and BARKETT, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 492
Pages: 1063–1070

Head Matter:
Derrick Tyrone SMITH, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 64670.
Supreme Court of Florida.
July 17, 1986.
Rehearing Denied Sept. 10, 1986.
James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, and W.C. McLain, Asst. Public Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit, Bartow, for appellant.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen. and Ann Garrison Paschall, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tampa, for ap-pellee.

Opinion:
EHRLICH, Justice.
This case is before us for review of a conviction for which the death sentence was imposed. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. We reverse the conviction and sentence.
The evidence adduced at trial supports the conclusion that Smith and a friend, Derrick Johnson, planned a robbery the night of March 20,1983. Carrying out that plan, Smith called a taxi to a St. Petersburg restaurant at 12:28 a.m. The two told the driver to take them to a residential area a few miles away. The driver, becoming suspicious, radioed a coded emergency message to his dispatcher. A short time later, another cab driver and the police found the cab, the driver outside the car, dead from a shot in the back. A witness who saw the killing testified that he recognized Smith and Johnson, and that Smith had taken aim and fired at the driver as the driver tried to run from the scene.
The murder weapon was never found. However, several witnesses linked Smith to a .38 caliber pistol. Smith's uncle testified that a .38 caliber gun was missing from his home. A lead fragment found on the victim matched the lead composition of the bullets purchased with the uncle's gun. Other witnesses saw Smith with a gun during the day before the shooting, and Johnson's testimony also put the gun in Smith's possession.
One witness testified that Smith robbed him and his wife in their motel room about twelve hours after the murder. Smith used a gun resembling the one used in the murder, although it was never established that the gun was the same since no gun was ever found. Police found Smith's fingerprint on a suitcase in the motel room, and after his arrest, recovered a watch taken in the motel robbery.
Some time after the robbery, Smith was arrested on an unrelated charge and incarcerated at the Hillsborough County Jail. St. Petersburg police located him at the jail, and arrested him for first-degree murder. He was later also charged with the motel-room robbery. A grand jury indicted Smith for first-degree murder. Before the murder trial, Smith pleaded guilty to the motel armed robbery charge. At trial, the jury found Smith guilty of first-degree murder and recommended death, 7-5. The trial judge followed the jury's recommendation and sentenced Smith to death.
Smith did not testify during the guilty phase. However, in a statement made to police during the investigation, Smith admitted he had been trying to sell a gun the day before the murder, and that he had been with Johnson at the restaurant. Smith said he sold the gun to Johnson for $50 between the time the cab was called and its arrival, and that he started to get into the cab but changed his mind at the last minute and walked away.
During the penalty phase, Smith and three character witnesses testified on his behalf. The trial judge found two aggravating circumstances: prior conviction for a violent felony based on Smith's guilty plea to the motel room robbery; and the murder occurred during an attempted armed robbery. The judge found these to outweigh the mitigating circumstance of no significant history of prior criminal activity. The judge did not find Smith's age at the time of the offense, twenty, to be a mitigating factor.
Initially, we note that the state elicited an improper comment on Smith's exercise of his right to remain silent. The damning testimony came as the state examined Detective San Marco, the arresting officer who interviewed Smith upon his arrest. The state was introducing a form Smith signed waiving his Miranda rights. The comment on silence came during the testimony regarding the final question on the form:
Q. (Assistant State Attorney McKeown) Next question, having these rights in mind, do you wish to talk to us now. Did you ask him that question?
A. (San Marco) Yes, ma'am, I did.
Q. And what was his initial response to that question?
A. No.
Q. All right. Did you at that time write that response in on this form?
A. Yes, ma'am, I did.
Q. What occurred at that time?
A. I said to him, I says, what's the problem. I said when you first came in here—
At this point, defense counsel interrupted to object and moved for mistrial for the comment on Smith's exercise of his right to remain silent. The judge denied the motion and the examination continued.
Q. (By Ms. McKeown) Officer, what happened at that point in time?
A. I said to him, I says, what's the problem? When we talked in here, you indicated you were willing to talk with us. He says, I'm in a lot of trouble, and I want to talk to a lawyer. And I said, well, fine, that's up to you. I'm only here to get your side of the story established. And with that he changed his mind right away, and he said yes. So I said to him, I've already written no on that form. I'm going to put a dash right and yes, and put changed mind. And he agreed to that.
Clearly, the recounting of Smith's "no" is a reference to the defendant's exercise of his right to remain silent. The error is compounded by the further testimony that, upon further prodding by San Marco, Smith asked for an attorney, testimony to such request again being a comment on the exercise of the right to remain silent.
state argues that the defendant lost his right to object when he failed to object to the same testimony during examination of the detective outside the jury's presence immediately before the testimony at issue here. However, the prefatory inquiry related to the admissibility of Smith's subsequent statements to police. In that context, the testimony regarding the circumstances of Smith's waiver was relevant for the judicial determination of voluntariness. There were no grounds for objection, considering the limited nature and purpose of the proffer. The fact that defense counsel did not, by a motion in limine or "objection," "remind" the state of its fundamental obligation to refrain from eliciting comments on the exercise of the right to silence cannot work against the defendant. The obligation is upon the state to exercise proper restraint and the defense should not be penalized for presuming the state will act within the bounds of propriety.
The state further argues that Smith's "no" was not an exercise of his right to remain silent since he waived the right. However, the right was exercised, and the subsequent impermissible communications by the police vitiate any claim that the waiver was voluntary. Nothing could be clearer than "no." As we explain in our discussion of the next issue, at that point Smith erected a constitutional barrier which exists for his protection. "The reason for the rule holding inadmissible at trial evidence of the post-arrest silence and request for counsel of a defendant who has been advised of his Miranda rights is that the evidence creates an inference that the defendant is guilty of committing the criminal act." State v. Burwick, 442 So.2d 944, 947 (Fla.1983), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 931, 104 S.Ct. 1719, 80 L.Ed.2d 191 (1984).
The price society must pay for violation of this constitutional right is reversal. State v. Strasser, 445 So.2d 322 (Fla.1983); State v. Burwick; Bennett v. State, 316 So.2d 41 (Fla.1975). However, we recently adopted a harmless error rule for cases such as this. State v. DiGuilio, 491 So.2d 1129 (Fla.1986). Rather than request supplemental briefs on this issue, we refrain from deciding whether the error here was harmless and base reversal on a second, independent error.
The second error is the admission of the statement Smith made to Detective San Marco after Smith exercised his right to remain silent. The United States Supreme Court recognizes that a clear line is drawn when a suspect requests counsel. In Smith v. Illinois, 469 U.S. 91, 105 S.Ct. 490, 83 L.Ed.2d 488 (1984), a suspect was subjected to a colloquy with detectives strikingly similar in nature to the one Smith engaged in here. 469 U.S. at 92-93, 105 S.Ct. at 491-92. In responding to the Miranda warnings, the accused in the Illinois case asked for an attorney. Instead of immediately terminating communication relating to the criminal matter, police continued with the Miranda procedure, which culminated in police asking the accused if he wished to waive his Miranda rights and talk at that time. The accused, who had initially asked for counsel, then equivocated. Police added an ambiguous statement that could be interpreted to mean the accused had to talk, but could stop at any time. The Illinois Supreme Court held that, because of the suspect's subsequent equivocation about his request for counsel, he had never made an "effective" request for counsel. The United States Supreme Court rejected use of subsequent equivocal statements to ameliorate the effect of the initial request for counsel. Although the issue turned upon the nature of the suspect's request for counsel, it is clear from the opinion that, at the precise point when a clear and unequivocal request for counsel is made, an accused " 'is not subject to further interrogation by the authorities until counsel has been made available to him,' unless he waives his earlier request for assistance of counsel." 469 U.S. at 94-95, 105 S.Ct. at 492, quoting Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 484-85, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 1881, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981). Thus, in a case such as this, Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), controls:
Once warnings have been given, the subsequent procedure is clear. If the individual indicates in any manner, at any time prior to or during questioning, that he wishes to remain silent, the interrogation must cease. At this point, he has shown that he intends to exercise his Fifth Amendment privilege; any statement taken after the person invokes his privilege cannot be other than the product of compulsion, subtle or otherwise. Without the right to cut off questioning, the setting of in-custody interrogation operates on the individual to overcome free choice in producing a statement after the privilege has been once invoked. If the individual states that he wants an attorney, the interrogation must cease until an attorney is present.
384 U.S. at 473-74, 86 S.Ct. 1603 (emphasis added).
In the instant case, when Smith answered "no" to the question of whether he wished to speak at that time, the interrogator's constitutionally proper options became severely limited. Police are not free to inquire as to why an accused has exercised his right to remain silent. Once the request for an attorney is made, "the individual must have an opportunity to confer with the attorney and to have him present during any further questioning. If the individual cannot obtain an attorney and he indicates he wants one before speaking to police, they must respect his decision to remain silent." 384 U.S. at 474, 86 S.Ct. 1604. The gratuitous remarks of police after the request for counsel, in both Smith v. Illinois and the instant case, are impermissible questioning. Thus, Smith's statement in this case that "I'm in a lot of trouble, and I want to talk to a lawyer" is inadmissible both because it came as a result of an improper question following exercise of the right to remain silent, and because it is in itself a statement exercising the right to remain silent and would constitute an impermissible comment on the exercise of that right. Smith's "alibi," given after an impermissible comment made after the request for counsel, is inadmissible because Smith had not voluntarily waived his Miranda rights.
Finally, should the case on remand reach the penalty stage in a retrial, we note that the trial judge was most conservative in instructing on mitigating circumstances. Smith was denied instructions on age, emotional disturbance, impaired capacity, and minor participation. Section 921.141(6), Fla.Stat. (1983), subsections (g), (b), (f), and (d), respectively.
Particularly, we find that it was error to refuse to give the requested instruction on age when the accused was twenty years of age at the time of the crime. While it is ultimately within the province of the trial court to decide the weight to be accorded age as a mitigating circumstance, Jennings v. State, 453 So.2d 1109 (Fla.1984), and it is not necessarily error to accord little or no weight to an age of twenty, id., we have on numerous occasions left undisturbed a trial court's determination that an age of twenty, and even older, is a mitigating circumstance. See, e.g., Thomas v. State, 456 So.2d 454 (Fla.1984) (twenty years old); Oats v. State, 446 So.2d 90 (Fla.1984) (twenty-two years old). Even though the trial judge in this case found Smith's age and other factors did not outweigh the aggravating circumstances, Smith should have had the benefit of the standard instruction on age as a mitigating circumstance. We do not establish a maximum age below which the instruction must always be given. See Peek v. State, 395 So.2d 492, 494 (Fla.1980) ("There is no per se rule which pinpoints a particular age as an automatic factor in mitigating."), cert. denied, 451 U.S. 964, 101 S.Ct. 2036, 68 L.Ed.2d 342 (1981). We do conclude that in this case it should have been.
There was also some evidence, however slight, that Smith had smoked marijuana the night of the murder sufficient to justify giving instructions for reduced capacity and extreme emotional disturbance. On the other hand, there was no evidence that Smith was a minor participant in the murder. Smith urges that his alibi defense, that he was never at the murder scene, is sufficient to justify this instruction. However, the jury had to have rejected the alibi when it determined guilt, and no other evidence suggested Smith was a minor participant. All the evidence placed the gun in Smith's hand; no evidence suggested Johnson was the triggerman and that Smith was only an accomplice of minor culpability.
Accordingly, the conviction and sentence of Derrick Tyrone Smith are reversed and the case remanded.
It is so ordered.
ADKINS, BOYD, OVERTON and BARKETT, JJ., concur.
McDONALD, C.J., concurs in part and dissents in part.
SHAW, J., dissents with an opinion, in which McDONALD, C.J., concurs on second issue.