Case Name: Mark Andrew BURCH, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1988-02-18
Citations: 522 So. 2d 810
Docket Number: No. 68881
Parties: Mark Andrew BURCH, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: McDonald, C.J., and OVERTON, BARKETT and KOGAN, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 522
Pages: 810–816

Head Matter:
Mark Andrew BURCH, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 68881.
Supreme Court of Florida.
Feb. 18, 1988.
Rehearing Denied May 2, 1988.
H. Dohn Williams, Jr., Sp. Public Defender of H. Dohn Williams, Jr., P.A., Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and Diane E. Leeds, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for appellee.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
Burch appeals his conviction for first-degree murder and his sentence imposing the death penalty. We have jurisdiction, article V, section 3(b)(1), Florida Constitution. We affirm the conviction but vacate the sentence and remand for imposition of a life sentence.
We earlier reversed Burch's previous conviction because of harmful error and remanded for retrial. The facts adduced on retrial are essentially those set forth in Burch v. State, 478 So.2d 1050 (Fla.1985), which we will not repeat here. There was no doubt that Burch committed the killing, the only issue during the guilt phase was whether he had the capacity to form a specific intent. On retrial, Burch did not present an insanity defense but, nevertheless, maintained that his history of drug and alcohol abuse and his consumption of drugs on the day of the murder prevented him from forming a specific intent to commit premeditated murder. The jury rejected this argument by returning a guilty verdict. During the penalty phase, the jury recommended life imprisonment which the judge overrode by imposing a sentence of death.
Burch raises only one issue on the guilt phase of the trial. Before trial, Burch requested the appointment of a Dr. Lemer to examine him and to testify on the effects of PCP. Dr. Lemer is apparently an internationally known expert on PCP whom Burch maintains is the preeminent expert. Initially Burch's counsel represented to the court that the fee would be relatively modest, approximately four thousand dollars, and the court was prepared to honor that request. However, after Dr. Lemer returned from Belgium where he was assisting the Attorney General of the United States at an international conference, it was learned that the fee would be fourteen thousand dollars. The trial judge then ruled that two local experts who had assisted in the earlier trials were competent and would be assigned. Burch nevertheless maintains that only Dr. Lerner was capable of providing the required expertise and that refusal to appoint Dr. Lerner violated Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68, 105 S.Ct. 1087, 84 L.Ed.2d 53 (1985), because the decision was based on financial considerations. We disagree. In holding that a defendant whose mental condition was seriously in issue was entitled to the assistance of a competent psychiatrist, the Ake court was careful to note that its holding did not mean
that the indigent defendant has a constitutional right to choose a psychiatrist of his personal liking or to receive funds to hire his own. Our concern is that the indigent defendant have access to a competent psychiatrist for the purpose we have discussed, and as in the case of the provision of counsel we leave to the States the decision on how to implement this right.
Id. at 83, 105 S.Ct. at 1096. We are satisfied that the two local experts were in fact familiar with the effects of PCP and drug abuse and fully qualified to testify as experts.
Burch raises three issues concerning the imposition of the death penalty. Eight days after the penalty phase ended on May 21, 1986, Burch moved the court to reconsider the sentence and to order that reports and testimony concerning Burch's adjustment to incarceration be brought before the court as potential nonstatutory mitigation. The basis for this request was the holding in Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1, 106 S.Ct. 1669, 90 L.Ed.2d 1 (1986), that such evidence is relevant. In Skipper, unlike here, the defendant proffered the mitigating evidence prior to sentencing and the trial judge refused the evidence as irrelevant. Skipper represents no change in the law, it merely applies Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978), and holds that such evidence is relevant. Essentially, Burch is asking that we hold that Skipper should be applied so as to require reopening previously imposed death sentences in order to determine if there is Skipper mitigating evidence. We decline to do so. Skipper was issued prior to the sentencing here, yet Burch made no proffer of evidence or otherwise raised the question pri- or to sentencing. Further, Burch was entitled to introduce this type of evidence even before Skipper issued. Francis v. Dugger, 514 So.2d 1097 (Fla.1987). Moreover, the record shows that a pretrial motion from Burch asserted that he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan whose political and moral beliefs dictated that he be segregated from non-Aryan prisoners. This hardly comports with the asserted belief that Burch is or will be a well-adjusted prisoner. In addition, the trial judge pointed out to Burch's counsel that the county jailer had approached the judge prior to trial claiming that Burch was unmanageable and should be returned to more secure prison facilities. Burch also asserts that he was entitled to reopen the sentencing procedures under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800. Rule 3.800 states that it is not applicable to cases in which the death sentence is imposed.
Burch next argues that the trial court erred in refusing to consider a pre-sentence investigation report (PSI) prepared in 1974 for previous, unrelated convictions. Burch concedes that the trial judge is not required to have a PSI prepared in death sentence cases and that the trial judge did have available an updated 1984 PSI which he considered. We see no error. Neither the state nor the judge is required to prepare or consider PSIs in death penalty cases and we see no reason why an outdated report should be considered when a current report exists.
Burch's final point concerns the override of the jury's advisory recommendation that life imprisonment, not death, be imposed. In the sentencing order, the judge found three aggravating circumstances under section 921.141(5), Florida Statutes (1981): section 921.141(5)(a), capital felony committed by a person under sentence of imprisonment; section 921.-141(5)(b), previous conviction of felony involving the use of violence to another person; and section 921.141(5)(i), capital felony committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner without any pretense of moral or legal justification. The judge found in mitigation that as a result of voluntary consumption of PCP, the defendant's ability to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was impaired, section 921.141(6)(f), but gave this impairment little weight because the degree of impairment was speculative and remote and could not be conclusively established. The trial judge also found that no other statutory or nonstatutory mitigating circumstances existed. Burch does not challenge any of the aggravating factors found by the sentencing judge. He argues several other points, however. First, he asserts, the presence of any mitigating factor on which the jury might have relied bars an override of a jury's recommendation. We recently rejected this proposition in another case involving a jury override. State v. Bolender, 503 So.2d 1247, 1249 (Fla.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 209, 98 L.Ed.2d 161 (1987). Burch next argues that the jury might have found two other mitigating factors in addition to the single factor found by the judge. First, that the acquaintances whose quarrel with the victim precipitated this homicide were never charged with any offense but were equally culpable. Second, that the jury might have found that Burch's family history of physical and drug abuse and his early sentence as an adult for crimes committed as a juvenile were mitigating. Thus, Burch argues, in view of these three mitigating factors which the jury might have found and given great weight, it cannot be said that "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.1976). Although the trial judge found only one of the three mitigating factors on which Burch relies and gave little weight to the factor which he did find, we agree that the jury could have found all these factors and might have concluded that the mitiga tion outweighed the aggravation. Thus, as in Amazon v. State, 487 So.2d 8 (Fla.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 107 S.Ct. 314, 93 L.Ed.2d 288 (1986), the Tedder test is not met and the trial judge erred in overriding the advisory recommendation of the jury.
We affirm the conviction but vacate the sentence of death with directions that Burch be sentenced to life imprisonment pursuant to section 775.082(1), Florida Statutes (1981).
It is so ordered.
McDonald, C.J., and OVERTON, BARKETT and KOGAN, JJ., concur.
SHAW, J., concurs in part and dissents in part with an opinion in which EHRLICH and GRIMES, JJ., concur.
GRIMES, J., concurs in part and dissents in part with an opinion.