Opinion ID: 1648336
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: penalty phase-jury override

Text: The trial judge overrode the jury's life recommendation. Keen argues that this was error because there were several reasonable bases for the jury's recommendation. Although two juries previously recommended imposition of a death sentence, the very rigid standard established by this Court requires that we agree with Keen's position. The appropriate standard in analyzing a jury override is well-known: To sustain a jury override, this Court must conclude that the facts suggesting a sentence of death are `so clear and convincing that virtually no reasonable person could differ.' San Martin v. State, 717 So.2d 462, 471 (Fla.1998) (quoting Tedder v. State, 322 So.2d 908, 910 (Fla.1975)). In other words, we must reverse the override if there is a reasonable basis in the record to support the jury's recommendation of life. San Martin, 717 So.2d at 471 (citations omitted). In that manner, the narrow inquiry to which we are bound honors the underlying principle that this jury's advisory sentence reflected the conscience of the community at the time of this trial. See Strausser v. State, 682 So.2d 539, 542 (Fla.1996); Dolinsky v. State, 576 So.2d 271, 274 (Fla.1991); Richardson v. State, 437 So.2d 1091, 1095 (Fla.1983). The trial judge's sentencing order is thoughtful and well written; he obviously considered his decision in a very deliberative, serious manner. Reasonable arguments can certainly be presented to support his order. However, we find that the standards for weighing aggravators and mitigators in a death recommendation case have been transposed with those applicable to consideration of a jury recommendation of life imprisonment. The following passage from the sentencing order illustrates the trial judge's reasoning: The Court finds the evidence in mitigation is minimal compared to the magnitude of the crime that has been committed by the defendant. In the final analysis, the mitigating circumstances found to exist have no relationship to the crime committed to such a degree that the jury could reasonably conclude life is a proper penalty. Furthermore, the jury's decision during the guilt phase of this proceeding essentially disregards any theory that the death of Anita Keen was accidental. If the jury believed that the victim's death was the result of premeditated murder, then the cold and calculated plan to kill her must necessarily outweigh the mitigating circumstances presented by the defense. This Court can only conclude that the jury's hasty recommendation of life indicates that it was based on something other than the sound reasoned judgment required in such cases. Had the jury considered the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the facts suggesting a sentence of death are so clear and convincing that virtually no reasonable person could differ. The mitigating evidence is wholly insufficient to outweigh the aggravating circumstances in support of a life sentence. (Emphasis added.) The last line emphasized above indicates that the wrong standard was ultimately applied in consideration of the jury's life recommendation. [17] The singular focus of a Tedder inquiry is whether there is a reasonable basis in the record to support the jury's recommendation of life, San Martin, 717 So.2d at 471, rather than the weighing process which a judge conducts after a death recommendation. See Cheshire v. State, 568 So.2d 908, 911 (Fla.1990) (reiterating that under Tedder, the trial court's role is solely to determine whether the evidence in the record was sufficient to form a basis upon which reasonable jurors could rely in recommending life imprisonment) (emphasis added). In that vein, this case is similar to Esty v. State, 642 So.2d 1074 (Fla.1994). There, the trial judge overrode the jury's life recommendation, [18] reasoning that unless resulting from sympathy, [it] could have been based only on minor, mitigating circumstances and was without any reasonable basis in the record. Id. at 1080. We reversed the override on appeal, finding that [t]he record in this case reveals a number of factors that support the jury's recommendation, including Esty's age of eighteen at the time of the murder, his lack of a criminal history, his potential for rehabilitation, and the possibility that he acted in an emotional rage. Id. Here, we reject the implicit determination that no reasonable juror could find that Shapiro's disparate treatment militated in favor of a life sentence for Keen. To begin, Keen notes that the trial judge cited Campbell v. State, 571 So.2d 415 (Fla.1990), a death recommendation case, for the proposition that disparate treatment of an equally culpable accomplice is a nonstatutory mitigating factor which can serve as a basis for a jury's recommendation of life. He argues, and we agree, that this proposition of law was then used to erroneously narrow the definition of what a juror can reasonably consider as disparate treatment. [19] From that faulty premise, the conclusion was then reached that based upon the court's view of the facts, disparate treatment could not be a reasonable basis for a life recommendation because Shapiro was neither a willing or equally culpable accomplice, citing Colina v. State, 634 So.2d 1077 (Fla.1994), another death recommendation case. Consequently, the focus of the 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. [20] 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. This was error, because just as a Tedder inquiry has no place in a death recommendation case, see Franqui v. State, 699 So.2d 1312, 1327 (Fla.1997) (rejecting reliance on jury override cases in death recommendation case because such cases entail[ ] a wholly different legal principle and analysis); Watts v. State, 593 So.2d 198, 204 (Fla.1992) (same), the reciprocal holds true when a jury life recommendation is independently analyzed by the trial court and independently reviewed by this Court. [21] In other words, the jury's life recommendation changes the analytical dynamic and magnifies the ultimate effect of mitigation on the defendant's sentence. Keen also accurately interprets our reasoning in Brookings v. State, 495 So.2d 135, 143 (Fla.1986), as applying to a co-actor guilty of the same offense rather than having the exact same degree of participation in the crime. Appellant's Initial Brief at 84. The facts in Brookings were as follows: In November 1978, during a barroom fight in Tampa, Irwin Ballard allegedly stabbed several persons. One of those victims died. Earl Sadler witnessed this murder. Shortly thereafter, Ballard's mother, Mrs. Cecil Murray, claimed to have received threats against her family and property which she attributed to Sadler. In March 1980, Murray hired Brookings for $5,000 to kill Sadler in order to prevent Sadler from testifying against her son. On April 11, 1980 Brookings and his girlfriend, Judith Lowery, went to Sadler's home driving a car owned by Murray. Lowery testified at trial that she backed the car into Sadler's driveway and induced Sadler to come outside to help on the pretext that her car would not start. While Sadler was in front of the car (evidently inspecting the engine) Brookings shot Sadler dead. Lowery drove over the victim's body as they left the murder scene. 495 So.2d at 137. Lowery received total immunity in exchange for her truthful testimony against Brookings, while Mrs. Murray pled nolo contendere to second-degree murder in exchange for a life sentence and her truthful testimony against Brookings. See id. The jury convicted Brookings of first-degree murder and recommended a life sentence, which the trial judge overrode. See id. In reversing the jury override in Brookings, we noted that although the defendant pulled the trigger, Murray and Lowery were also principals in this contract murder, helping to plan and carry out this crime. Id. at 143. We then concluded that because Murray would escape any chance of the death penalty and that Lowery would walk away totally free while the ultimate penalty was sought against appellant, [these] are facts that could reasonably be considered by the jury. Since reasonable people could differ as to the propriety of the death penalty in this case, the jury recommendation of life must stand. Id. (emphasis added). On numerous occasions, we have cited Brookings for this proposition of law in reversing jury overrides. See Caillier v. State, 523 So.2d 158, 160-61 (Fla.1988); Pentecost v. State, 545 So.2d 861, 863 (Fla.1989); Fuente v. State, 549 So.2d 652, 658-59 (Fla.1989); Barrett v. State, 649 So.2d 219, 223 (Fla. 1994). Moreover, we recently applied that same analysis in recognizing the disparate treatment of another principal in a crime as a reasonable basis for a life recommendation. See Pomeranz v. State, 703 So.2d 465, 472 (Fla.1997) (finding codefendant's life sentence a reasonable basis in case where defendant shot a store clerk during robbery while codefendant waited outside in car). With Brookings and Pomeranz as starting points, and in full recognition that Keen was almost certainly the more blameworthy of the two principals, we cannot ignore the fact that Shapiro's participation was an essential element of the planned crime. [22] That is, without Shapiro, Keen's plan to push his wife overboard, allow her to drown, and recover her body as evidence of an accident for double indemnity purposes would have never proceeded to the ultimate act. Shapiro testified that the plan was that he would be a witness to Anita's accidental death to support Keen in his subsequent insurance claim. The jury could have also seized on Shapiro's admission that he drove the boat away from Anita after Keen pushed her into the water, thus directly injecting himself into the murderous episode and leaving Anita to her fate. In addition, a reasonable juror could have thought that Shapiro had numerous opportunities to report Keen's plan to the police, but did not because he saw Keen's scheme as a way to absolve his own indebtedness. The end result was that Shapiro colluded with Keen's plan, Anita Keen died in the open sea, and Shapiro walked free and clear of criminal prosecution. Therefore, in light of these undisputed facts presented during the coperpetrator's own testimony, the decision to downplay the disparate treatment mitigating factor as having no relationship to the crime committed seems, at best, a very dubious proposition. Moreover, it ignores our well-settled definition of a mitigating factor as being proffered matters relevant to the defendant's character or record, or to the circumstances of the offense. LeCroy v. Dugger, 727 So.2d 236, 242 (Fla.1998) (emphasis added); see also Johnson v. State, 660 So.2d 637, 646 (Fla.1995). Shapiro's credibility problems could have also served to mitigate Keen's crime, as he was an admitted perjurer who had changed his version of events over time. We have previously found this to be a reasonable basis for a life recommendation. See Pomeranz, 703 So.2d at 472 (recognizing one reasonable basis as the credibility problems of Kinser ( the State's main witness against Pomeranz)) (emphasis added). Likewise, a reasonable jury could have believed that Keen evidenced a good potential for rehabilitation based on his largely productive life and good prison record. [23] See Esty; Cooper v. Dugger, 526 So.2d 900, 902 (Fla.1988); Fead v. State, 512 So.2d 176 (Fla.1987). Such a determination could only have been further bolstered by the fact that the State presented nothing to rebut the evidence that Keen had lived a successful, productive, and law-abiding life prior to Anita's murder. In the final analysis, there are several reasonable bases upon which a reasonable juror could rely to support the life recommendation. While any of us might or might not have come to the same conclusion with regard to the imposition of a death sentence based upon the evidence presented in this case had we been jurors, that is not the legal standard by which we must evaluate the override of the jury's recommendation. To be sure, the vast mitigation found in other cases, see, e.g., Strausser, 682 So.2d at 542, is not present here, but certainly enough mitigation exists upon which a reasonable juror could rely to warrant reversal under Tedder. [24] See, e.g., Pomeranz; Esty; Brookings. Thus, we find that the trial court erred in overriding the jury's life recommendation. In conjunction with our reversal for a new trial on the hearsay claim, our reversal on this issue precludes the State from again seeking the death penalty against Keen for this crime. See generally Monge v. California, 524 U.S. 721, 118 S.Ct. 2246, 141 L.Ed.2d 615 (1998) (reaffirming Eighth Amendment prohibition against seeking death penalty on retrial where original sentencer imposed a life sentence). We so direct because [w]hen it is determined on appeal that the trial court should have accepted a jury's recommendation of life imprisonment pursuant to Tedder, the defendant must be deemed acquitted of the death penalty for double jeopardy purposes. Barrett, 649 So.2d at 223; Wright v. State, 586 So.2d 1024, 1032 (Fla.1991). Consequently, if Keen is retried for Anita's murder, he may not again be subjected to the death penalty.