Opinion ID: 4560707
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: The facts of this case, including the overwhelming evidence of Brown’s guilt, were set out in this Court’s opinion on direct appeal. See Brown v. State, 143 So. 3d 392, 395-402 (Fla. 2014). There, we explained that the evidence presented at trial established that Brown; her daughter, Britnee Miller; and her neighbor Heather Lee lived in the same mobile home park as the victim, Audreanna Zimmerman. Id. at 395. In March 2010, Miller and the victim had an altercation during which Miller attempted to strike the victim and the victim defended herself with a stun gun. Id. Thereafter, on March 24, 2010, Brown invited Zimmerman to her home under the guise of rekindling their friendship. Before Zimmerman arrived, Brown, Miller, Lee, and Miller’s thirteen-year-old friend, [M.A.,] were inside the trailer. Brown and Lee were in the kitchen, where Lee instructed Brown on the proper use of a stun gun. Miller then pulled her friend aside and told her, “[W]e’re fixing to kill Audreanna [Zimmerman].” Shortly after 9 p.m., Zimmerman entered the trailer. Brown waited several minutes and then used the stun gun on Zimmerman multiple times. When Zimmerman lost muscular control and fell to the floor, Brown continued to use the stun gun on Zimmerman, who was screaming and crying for help. Eventually, Brown pulled Zimmerman across the trailer into the bathroom. Zimmerman continued to scream and cry for help, so Miller struck Zimmerman in the face and Lee stuffed a sock into Zimmerman’s mouth. Zimmerman was then forcibly escorted outside and forced -2- into the trunk of Brown’s vehicle.[n.2] Brown, Miller, and Lee then entered the vehicle and drove away. [N.2]. During trial, Lee disputed this summation of what occurred in the trailer after Brown began to attack Zimmerman. The veracity of Lee’s testimony concerning her involvement in this crime, however, was significantly challenged during trial, particularly because Lee, who claimed that she was a victim and was not involved in Zimmerman’s murder, pled guilty to seconddegree murder based on her involvement in Zimmerman’s death. Id. at 395-96. The record shows that when M.A. was asked at trial why she did not intervene as Zimmerman was being attacked at Brown’s trailer, M.A. testified that she was afraid that “[i]f all three of them [were] going to do it, they could do the same thing to [her].” M.A. further testified that Brown was the primary aggressor based on her observations at the trailer, although she said that Lee participated by putting a sock in the victim’s mouth. According to M.A.’s trial testimony, Brown used the stun gun on the victim, held the victim’s hands behind her back, led the victim to Brown’s car, and forced the victim into the trunk. M.A. also testified that as Brown was attacking the victim with a stun gun, Brown screamed, “Did you call Crime Stoppers on me?” Leaving M.A. behind at the trailer, Brown drove her car, with Miller and Lee inside and the victim in the trunk, “to a clearing in the woods about a mile and a half from the trailer park.” Brown, 143 So. 3d at 396. According to Lee’s trial -3- testimony, the following events occurred once the women arrived at the clearing in the woods: Brown exited the car and pulled Zimmerman out of the trunk. Zimmerman attempted to flee, but stumbled in the darkness and was caught by Brown and Miller. The two women wrestled Zimmerman to the ground and simultaneously attacked her. Brown used the stun gun again on Zimmerman as Miller beat her with a crowbar. Brown and Miller then switched weapons and continued to torture and beat Zimmerman. Miller eventually dropped the stun gun and repeatedly punched Zimmerman. Brown returned to the car, retrieved a can of gasoline from the trunk, and walked back toward the beaten and prone, but still conscious, Zimmerman. Brown poured gasoline on Zimmerman, retrieved a lighter from her pocket, set Zimmerman on fire, and stood nearby to watch the screaming Zimmerman burn. Lee testified that she was standing beside Miller, who exuberantly jumped up and down and screamed, “Burn, bitch! Burn!” After a few minutes, the three women returned to the car and drove away. During the ride home, Miller said, “Mom, you’ve got to turn around. I left my shoes and the taser.” Brown, however, refused to return to the location of the event. Id. After Brown, Lee, and Miller left the scene of the burning, they returned to Brown’s trailer. Id. at 397. There, Brown and Miller removed their bloodstained clothing and placed it in a garbage bag. Lee removed her shoes, which were also stained with blood, and placed them in the bag. Miller informed her friend, [M.A.], who had remained at the trailer during the attack, that she had injured her hand striking Zimmerman, and that the three women had set Zimmerman on fire. Miller and [M.A.] then used Brown’s car to drive to the hospital to get medical care for Miller. Id. -4- Meanwhile, Zimmerman, who had not immediately succumbed to her wounds, walked about one-third of a mile to a neighboring home and asked for assistance. Id. at 396. At 9:24 p.m., an emergency medical technician (EMT) arrived at the scene. When the EMT approached Zimmerman, he observed her sitting on the porch, rocking back and forth with her arms straight out. Due to the extensive nature of Zimmerman’s burns, the EMT testified that he could not initially identify whether she was wearing clothing. The EMT noticed that Zimmerman’s skin was falling off her body, and he believed that over ninety percent of her body was burned. She had severe head trauma, and her jaw was either broken or severely dislocated. The EMT explained that the extent and severity of the burns prevented him from providing Zimmerman medical assistance. He testified that while he generally placed sterile gauze and oxygen on burns, he did not have enough gauze to cover her entire body. He attempted to stabilize her neck, but her skin was charred to such an extent that he could not touch Zimmerman without her skin rubbing off onto his gloves. Despite her injuries, Zimmerman was conscious and alert. She identified Brown and Lee as her attackers and told the EMT that she was “drug out of the house, tased, beaten in the head with a crowbar, and then set on fire.” She also provided her address as well as the addresses of her attackers, and asked the EMT to protect her children. The ambulance arrived within a few minutes and transported Zimmerman to the hospital. Inside the ambulance, Zimmerman repeatedly asked if she was going to recover. She told the paramedic that Brown, Miller, and Lee poured gasoline on her and set her on fire. She also stated that she “thought they had made up.” Zimmerman was stabilized at a local hospital and then transferred to the Burn Center at the University of South Alabama Hospital in Mobile, Alabama, where she died sixteen days later. Id. at 396-97. -5- Based on the information provided by Zimmerman, Brown and Lee were arrested the night of attack, and Miller was arrested when she returned home from the hospital the next day. Id. at 397. However, all three were released while Zimmerman was still in the hospital. Id. During that time, Brown informed her friend Pamela Valley that she, Miller, and Lee had beaten Zimmerman, forced her into a car, driven her to an open field and “lit her on fire and didn’t look back.” A few days later, Brown informed Valley that Zimmerman was still alive and requested Valley to finish her off. Valley declined and later reported the conversation to law enforcement. Id. On April 9, 2010, the day that Zimmerman died as a result of multiple thermal injuries, Brown, Miller, and Lee were rearrested. Id. The State charged Brown with first-degree murder under both theories of premeditated and felony murder with kidnapping as the underlying felony. 1 At trial, Brown’s jury heard that, while Brown was awaiting trial in jail, she made statements to a fellow inmate, Corie Doyle, that were indicative of her state of mind following the altercation between her daughter and Zimmerman. Id. at 395 n.1. Specifically, Doyle testified at trial that Brown told her Zimmerman had used a stun gun on her daughter, Miller, and that when Brown had heard about it, 1. Brown was also indicted for kidnapping, but for reasons not explained in the record, the State entered a nolle prosequi as to the kidnapping charge as trial began. -6- she “informed Miller, ‘[D]on’t worry, I’ll take care of it.’ ” Id. Doyle also testified that she and Brown had a conversation early one morning during which Brown confessed her involvement in the murder. According to Doyle, at that time, Brown admitted that “they picked up the victim and beat her up and tazed her and set her on fire.” When asked who “they” were, Doyle testified that it was “[Brown] and her daughter [Miller]” and that Heather Lee was there but that “she didn’t have anything to do with it.” When asked if she knew who Lee was at the time of this conversation, Doyle answered, “No. I have never laid eyes on her.” Doyle further testified that she was eventually transferred and ended up housed with Lee. In addition, Brown’s jury heard that law enforcement had discovered physical evidence at the scene of the burning, “including a pair of white shoes; a stun gun with blood on the handle; paper stained with blood; an orange, gold, and black hairweave [that matched a large section missing from the back of Brown’s hair]; a crowbar; and a pool of blood.” Id. at 397 (footnote omitted). The jury also heard that blood discovered on the passenger seat headrest of Brown’s vehicle matched Zimmerman’s DNA profile, and that the blood on the stun gun matched Brown’s DNA profile. Id. Based on the evidence presented at trial, Brown’s jury found her guilty of first-degree murder as charged. See id. at 397. -7- The case then proceeded to the penalty phase, where Brown presented evidence of mitigating circumstances through several family members and her mental health expert, Dr. Elaine Bailey. Id. at 397-400. Brown’s penalty-phase presentation focused on how her traumatic background affected her and shaped her actions on the night of the murder. See id. This evidence included that Brown had suffered a deprived childhood; physical and sexual abuse, including being raped by her father and prostituted by her stepmother; parental and other familial abandonment; drug addiction; and exposure to her father’s drug-related, violent criminal lifestyle as a child. See id. It also included evidence that, as an adult, Brown had experienced physically and sexually abusive relationships, including domestic abuse; and that she had struggled with addiction, particularly to crack cocaine, to the point that she lost custody of two of her children. See id. at 399. Additionally, evidence regarding Lee’s role in the crime factored into Brown’s penalty-phase argument. For example, during the guilt phase, in addition to challenging Lee’s denial of her role in the murder through cross-examination, trial counsel called Wendy Moye, a fellow inmate of Lee’s, who testified that Lee admitted to her that she was the one who lit the victim on fire, that the group had gotten the victim into the car by telling her that they were going to the grocery store, and that the beating started in the car. Although Brown relied on this and other evidence to argue that Lee may have been more culpable and yet was -8- allowed to plead guilty to second-degree murder, the jury heard from Dr. Bailey that “Brown did not deny her involvement in the murder, and that Brown felt remorseful for her actions.” Id. at 400. More specifically, the penalty-phase record reveals that Dr. Bailey testified that Brown had described Lee as “the escalator” and further testified about “the impact of social mediation,” telling the jury that if they “believe[d] that [Lee] was more involved in [the crime]” than she claimed, then “[t]here was social mediation going [o]n, social influence, and group-mediated emotion” that “makes more extreme behavior.” However, Dr. Bailey said that it was not her opinion that Brown “acted under extreme duress under Heather Lee” and testified that Brown did “not deny being an aggressor, being involved, . . . [or] what she did” and that Brown “was very frank about her role” in the victim’s murder during her evaluations. The State’s expert, Dr. John Bingham, also evaluated Brown and “found no evidence that Brown lacked the capacity to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law[] or that she exhibited diminished capacity in understanding the criminality of her conduct.” Brown, 143 So. 3d at 400. He also opined that Brown “was not under extreme duress or experiencing an emotional disturbance at the time of the offense.” Id. Dr. Bingham testified that “there was no indication” Brown’s feelings of anger and rage “inhibited her ability to think clearly or to recognize right from wrong,” that “Brown’s actions on the night of the -9- attack demonstrated preplanning, direction, and were goal[-]oriented,” and that “while there was substantial trauma in Brown’s life, there was no cause and effect relationship connecting Brown’s past to her actions in murdering Zimmerman.” Id. Following the penalty-phase presentation, the jury unanimously recommended a sentence of death. Id. During the Spencer 2 hearing, records and letters, including a letter from one of Brown’s friends, were introduced into evidence. Id. Brown “apologized to the victim’s family,” stated that the victim “died a horrific death,” admitted that she “was one of the ones who participated in taking [the victim’s] life,” and said that the victim “didn’t deserve it at all.” Id. Thereafter, the trial court followed the jury’s recommendation and sentenced Brown to death, finding that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances. Id. at 400-02. In so doing, the trial court found that the State had proven beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of the following aggravating factors and assigned them the noted weight: “(1) the murder was committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner without any pretense of moral or legal justification (CCP) (great weight); (2) the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel (HAC) 2. Spencer v. State, 615 So. 2d 688 (Fla. 1993). - 10 - (great weight); and (3) the murder was committed while Brown was engaged in the commission of a kidnapping (significant weight).” Id. at 401. The trial court found one statutory mitigating circumstance, “that Brown had no significant history of prior criminal activity,” and assigned it minimal weight. Id. The trial court considered but rejected the following four statutory mitigating circumstances: “(1) the crime was committed while Brown was experiencing an extreme emotional disturbance; (2) Brown was an accomplice in the crime and her participation was relatively minor; (3) Brown acted under extreme duress; and (4) the capacity of Brown to appreciate the criminality of her conduct or to conform her conduct to the requirements of law was significantly impaired.” Id. at 401 n.7. The trial court also found twenty-seven nonstatutory mitigating circumstances and assigned them the noted weight: Specifically, the [trial] court found that Brown: (1) was the child of a teenage mother (minimal weight); (2) was neglected by both parents (some weight); (3) lost her childhood due to parental neglect (some weight); (4) was abandoned by her mother (some weight); (5) had a history of family violence (some weight); (6) was exposed to drugs during her adolescence (some weight); (7) suffered developmental damage due to her parents’ use of and dependence on drugs (some weight); (8) was subjected to sexual violence inflicted by her father; (some weight); (9) was betrayed by a trusted family member (i.e., her grandmother) (some weight); (10) experienced corruptive community influences and exposure to a criminal lifestyle (some weight); (11) experienced chaotic moves and transitions (little weight); (12) was a victim of domestic violence during her adult life (some weight); (13) witnessed a violent homicide and served as a State witness in a murder trial (little weight); (14) lost her family (her parental rights were terminated for her two sons, and she has no relationship with her - 11 - mother or father) (little weight); (15) suffered repeated trauma throughout her life (little weight); (16) suffered from drug addiction (little weight); (17) suffered from the long term effects of chronic cocaine use on her brain (some weight); (18) was a productive citizen during periods of sobriety (little weight); (19) was living in poverty at the time of the crime (minimal weight); (20) behaved well in jail (little weight); (21) conducted a [B]ible study program (little weight); (22) exhibited good courtroom behavior (little weight); (23) has no possibility of parole (little weight); (24) showed remorse (some weight); (25) received a different sentence than that of her codefendants (some weight)[n.8]; (26) had no history of prior criminal violence (moderate weight); and (27) was using cocaine on the day of the crime (moderate weight). [N.8] In finding th[e] mitigating circumstance [that Brown received a different sentence than that of her codefendants], the trial court noted that: the three people involved in the murder of Zimmerman are not similarly situated. Despite her involvement in Zimmerman’s murder, Britnee Miller cannot legally be sentenced to death as she was less than 18 years of age when the murder was committed. Heather Lee was convicted, pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement with the State, of second[-]degree murder. Heather Lee cannot legally be sentenced to death. (Citation omitted.) Id. at 401 & n.8. In sentencing Brown to death, the trial court “noted that this case, ‘particularly because of the heinous, atrocious, [or] cruel nature of the murder of - 12 - Audreanna Zimmerman, falls into the class of murders for which the death penalty is reserved.’ ” Id. at 402. On direct appeal, this Court affirmed Brown’s conviction and sentence of death. Id. at 408. 3 Thereafter, the United States Supreme Court denied Brown’s petition for a writ of certiorari. Brown v. Florida, 574 U.S. 1034 (2014). In 2015, Brown filed an initial motion for postconviction relief, which was amended several times after being stricken for noncompliance with rule 3.851, and, in 2017, ultimately filed the third amended motion at issue in this appeal.4 Following an evidentiary hearing, the circuit court denied relief on all of Brown’s claims. Brown appeals the circuit court’s denial of several of her claims, and she also petitions this Court for a writ of habeas corpus. 3. In her direct appeal, Brown raised the following claims: (1) the trial court erred in finding the CCP aggravating circumstance; (2) her death sentence was disproportionate; and (3) Florida’s death penalty statute violates the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002). Brown, 143 So. 3d at 402-08. Although Brown did not contest her guilt, this Court found the evidence sufficient to support her conviction. Id. at 407. 4. During this period, Brown filed three petitions in this Court: a petition seeking review of a nonfinal order denying Brown’s motion to reconsider the order striking her initial postconviction motion (with leave to amend) for noncompliance with rule 3.851(e)(1), which this Court denied without prejudice, Brown v. State, No. SC16-358, 2016 WL 3474843, at  (Fla. June 24, 2016); and two petitions for writ of prohibition seeking to prohibit the trial judge from further participation in her case, both of which this Court denied, Brown v. State, No. SC16-397, 2016 WL 3459727, at  (Fla. June 24, 2016), and Brown v. State, No. SC17-2166, 2017 WL 6493249, at  (Fla. Dec. 19, 2017). - 13 -