Opinion ID: 1988657
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Disparate Treatment of Garden's Accomplice.

Text: Johnson, who admitted that he recklessly caused Rhudy's death, was a principal player in the crime, which probably would not have occurred without his participation. [24] Yet he received a life sentence under a plea agreement. The State argued that Garden is more culpable because he pulled the trigger, but our courts (and Florida's) have long recognized a codefendant's life sentence as a mitigating factor. [25] The aggravating circumstances in this case are, without question, significant. Garden killed Rhudy during an attempted robbery; he has a history of committing violent crimes; he expressed no remorse; and he took the life of an innocent mother of four children. The trial court also considered Garden's prison record an aggravating factor, although the jury may not have agreed, given the fact that most of Garden's infractions involved disobeying orders by, for example, asking for an extra piece of chicken. [26] The trial court and the jury reached different conclusions in their evaluation of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances. When that happens, the trial judge must accept the jury's recommendation if it has a reasonable basis in the evidence: Where a jury and a trial judge reach contrary conclusions because the facts derive from conflicting evidence, or where they have struck a different balance between aggravating and mitigating circumstances which both have been given an opportunity to evaluate, the jury recommendation should be followed because that body has been assigned by history and statute the responsibility to discern truth and mete out justice. Given that the imposition of a death penalty is not a mere counting process of X number of aggravating circumstances and Y number of mitigating circumstances, but rather a reasoned judgment ..., both our Anglo-American jurisprudence and Florida's death penalty statute favor the judgment of jurors over that of jurists. [27] Here, as in Keen v. State, [28] the focus of the [trial judge's] analysis was not upon finding support for the jury's recommendation, i.e., determining if a reasonable basis existed for the jury's decision, but rather toward proving that the jury got it wrong and lacked any reasonable basis to recommend life. In other words, the trial judge disagreed with their recommendation based on his view of the mix of aggravators and mitigators, rather than through the prism of a Tedder analysis. To be sure, one can parse the issues where each of the aggravating and mitigating factors is weighed and make a cogent assessment that the former outweigh the latter. That is precisely the argument that is artfully made in the very thoughtful dissent. But in the end, it is just that  an excellent argument, skillfully maximizing the horrific nature of this murder and denigrating the defendant's character, while trivializing the mitigating factors in the record that would support the jury's verdict. Indeed, the dissent demonstrates that the jury should have found that the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors. Whether in our view they should have or not, the dissent fails to persuade us that the conclusion of this death-qualified [29] jury, which heard all the evidence, including live witnesses at the trial and the penalty hearing, was so irrational that its verdict cannot be given great weight, but instead is entitled to no respect whatsoever. That may be the effect of the 2003 statute on new cases to which it may be constitutionally applied after its effective date. But that is not the law under the 1991 statute, which applies to this case. In sum, the trial court need not, and we need not, agree with the jury's conclusion in order to uphold it. We may strongly disagree. Under the governing law, however, the jury's recommendation must be respected if it is supported by the record and is not irrational. Proper application of the Tedder standard requires that the trial court's override be reversed and that Garden be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of probation or parole.