Opinion ID: 1944931
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Crawford Issue

Text: As the majority acknowledges, the hearsay statements by Teresa Caldwell related by the police investigator and prosecutor on the homicide of Betty Caldwell violated Rodgers' Sixth Amendment right to confront adverse witnesses as interpreted in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), and more recently Davis v. Washington, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S.Ct. 2266, 165 L.Ed.2d 224 (2006). While I agree with the majority that the evidence of the circumstances of the prior violent crime aggravator was improperly admitted in violation of appellant's constitutional rights, I cannot agree that the error was harmless. To find it harmless we would have to conclude that the State has proven that neither the judge nor jury could have possibly relied upon this evidence in determining appellant's sentence. See State v. DiGuilio, 491 So.2d 1129 (Fla. 1986). In this case such a finding would be literally impossible since the only aggravator relied upon to justify the death sentence was the prior violent felony. Both the jury and the judge had to place substantial weight on this aggravator in order to recommend and impose a sentence of death. How can you have a stronger showing of prejudice than that the illegally admitted evidence resulted in a death sentence? Since the trial judge is the one who rejected the defendant's claim that this evidence should not be considered by the jury, we can say with some certainty that the evidence was clearly intended to be considered by the jury in determining the weight to be given to the prior violent felony. Further, in the case of the trial judge, we know that he placed very great weight on this aggravator since he said so in his sentencing order. It naturally follows then that the admission of this evidence could not have been harmless under DiGuilio since our harmless error test requires the State to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that there is no reasonable possibility that this evidence influenced the fact-finder. The majority concludes that the error is harmless because Rodgers' own version of events related to the investigator were cumulative to, and corroborative of, the hearsay version. However, the State elicited testimony that in a deposition Teresa Caldwell testified that Rodgers was the initial aggressor in that he knocked Betty Caldwell to the ground before she confronted him with a razor. Rodgers' own statement, related by the police investigator during the penalty phase, did not reflect whether he or Betty was the initial aggressor. The State also elicited testimony from the Caldwell homicide prosecutor suggesting that the jury rejected the defense theory of self-defense, which buttressed the hearsay identifying Rodgers as the initial aggressor. [14] Because this testimony went to the sole aggravator in the case, previous conviction of a violent felony, I cannot conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the hearsay reflecting that Rodgers struck the first blow in the fatal confrontation with Betty Caldwell did not contribute to the eight-to-four death recommendation or the trial court's assignment of extremely great weight to that aggravator in imposing death. Finally, to say that the defendant was able to rebut harmful and improperly admitted evidence by having his own prior version of the crime admitted is a non sequitur. Perhaps a finding that the aggravator was given little weight because the defendant's version of the facts was accepted would make the error harmless, but, of course, we know that did not happen. Rather, we know that the opposite happened, and this prior crime was given such great weight that it was relied upon to impose a sentence of death. In fact, the harmfulness of the error continues on appeal when the majority deviates from our prior case law establishing that ordinarily a death sentence will not be approved in a single aggravator case, by joining with the trial court in relying on the weight of this single aggravator to sustain a sentence of death.