Opinion ID: 1942962
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Denial of Motion for Judgment of Acquittal/Sufficiency of Evidence

Text: Coday moved for a judgment of acquittal on the ground that the State failed to prove the element of premeditation, and the trial court denied this motion. A motion for judgment of acquittal should not be granted by the trial court unless there is no view of the evidence which the jury might take favorable to the opposite party that can be sustained under the law. See Pearce v. State, 880 So.2d 561, 571 (Fla.2004). Where there is room for a difference of opinion between reasonable people as to the proof or facts from which an ultimate fact is to be established, or where there is room for such differences on the inferences to be drawn from conceded facts, the trial court should submit the case to the jury. Id. [ Taylor v. State, 583 So.2d 323 (Fla.1991)] Once competent, substantial evidence has been submitted on each element of the crime, it is for the jury to evaluate the evidence and the credibility of the witnesses. Davis v. State, 703 So.2d 1055, 1060 (Fla.1997); see also Hufham v. State, 400 So.2d 133, 135-36 (Fla. 5th DCA 1981). Id. at 572. The trial court did not err in denying Coday's motion for judgment of acquittal since there was an abundance of evidence establishing that the murder was premeditated and not committed in the heat of passion. The evidence demonstrates that at 4:54 p.m. on July 10, 1997, the day before the murder, Coday reserved a flight which was scheduled to depart from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York on July 12, 1997, and scheduled to arrive at Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris, France. On July 10, he withdrew $6000 from his bank account at City County Credit Union and bought $2000 worth of traveler's checks. He purposefully lured Gomez to his home by lying to her and stating that he was dying of skin cancer because she had rejected all of his other attempts to meet with her. In his signed, written confession contained in the exhibits, he states that he attacked Gloria Gomez with one hammer. When he slipped, she grabbed that hammer from him. He then retrieved another hammer and continued hitting her. With these two hammers, he hit her fifty-seven times. However, he finished his brutal assault on her with a knife which he obtained by leaving her body in the bedroom and walking into the kitchen. Once he returned to the bedroom with a knife from the kitchen, he began attacking her again, stabbing her eighty-seven times. Because he had time to consciously reflect upon his actions and realize that he was committing a murder, this murder was premeditated. See Sochor v. State, 619 So.2d 285, 289 (Fla.1993) (holding that defendant's heat of passion claim was insufficient to preclude a finding of premeditation when the defendant briefly stopped his assault on the victim in order to shout at his codefendant and then resumed the assault). The trial court did not err in denying Coday's motion for judgment of acquittal on the issue of premeditation.