Opinion ID: 1835636
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The HAC Aggravator

Text: Hildwin next argues that the trial court erred in finding that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel (HAC), pointing to the lack of evidence of a struggle. We again disagree. During the resentencing proceeding, the State introduced testimony from a medical examiner that Cox was strangled by a wide band ligature (her tee shirt), and that it took Cox several minutes to lose consciousness and die from strangulation asphyxia, during which time it would [have been] a very frightening even terrorizing situation [for Cox] to be in. The trial court discussed this evidence in its resentencing order and ultimately found that [the medical examiner's] testimony is totally consistent with injury caused by strangulation. The one and only inference makes it clear that this murder was conscienceless, pitiousless [sic], and unnecessarily tortuously [sic] to the victim; and was inflicted with utter indifference to the suffering of the victim. During the last moments of her life, the victim surely experienced pain, anxiety, fear, and knowledge of her death.... Considering the totality of the circumstances of the murder, as the Court must do, this Court finds that this murder was clearly one by strangulation that meets the legal requirement of heinous, atrocious and cruel. This aggravating circumstance has thus been proven by the State beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt. [I]t is permissible to infer that strangulation, when perpetrated upon a conscious victim, involves foreknowledge of death, extreme anxiety and fear, and that this method of killing is one to which the factor of heinousness is applicable. Tompkins v. State, 502 So.2d 415, 421 (Fla.1986) (emphasis added). This Court has consistently upheld the HAC aggravator where a conscious victim was strangled. See Robertson v. State, 699 So.2d 1343, 1347 (Fla.1997), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 118 S.Ct. 1097, 140 L.Ed.2d 152 (1998). The medical examiner's uncontroverted testimony in the present case provides substantial competent evidence for this aggravator and establishes that Cox was conscious while being strangled with her own tee shirt. See, e.g., James v. State, 695 So.2d 1229, 1235 (Fla.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 118 S.Ct. 569, 139 L.Ed.2d 409 (1997); Orme v. State, 677 So.2d 258, 263 (Fla.1996), cert denied, 519 U.S. 1079, 117 S.Ct. 742, 136 L.Ed.2d 680 (1997); Espinosa v. State, 589 So.2d 887, 894 (Fla.1991), reversed on other grounds, 505 U.S. 1079, 112 S.Ct. 2926, 120 L.Ed.2d 854 (1992); Hildwin I, 531 So.2d at 128-29; Doyle v. State, 460 So.2d 353, 357 (Fla.1984).