Opinion ID: 1944931
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Emotional Circumstances

Text: A sampling of cases where the Court has reduced death sentences in emotional domestic violence cases also reflects many that were even more aggravated or less mitigated than Rodgers' case. In Farinas v. State, 569 So.2d 425, 427 (Fla.1990), for example, the defendant was intensely jealous and obsessed with the idea of having the victim, his former girlfriend, return to live with him. Farinas forced his ex-girlfriend's car off the road and confronted her about reporting to the police that he was harassing her. He then kidnapped her. When the victim jumped out of the car and attempted to escape, Farinas fired a shot that hit the victim in the back causing instant paralysis from the waist down. He then approached the victim as she lay face down. After unjamming his gun, he fired two shots into the back of her head. Despite the fact that two valid aggravating factors existed, this Court concluded that the death sentence was not proportionately warranted because of the domestic, emotional circumstances of the crime. Farinas, 569 So.2d at 431-32. In White v. State, 616 So.2d 21, 22 (Fla. 1993), White and the victim had dated for some time before the relationship ended badly. Months later, White assaulted the victim's date with a crowbar, and while in jail for that incident, White swore that he would kill his former girlfriend. When he was released, White obtained a shotgun and drove to the victim's place of employment where he encountered the victim in the parking lot. When she screamed and turned to run, White shot her and after she fell down, he approached and fired a second shot into her back. After proclaiming, I told you so, White drove away. Upon review of a sentence of death, and considering the emotional circumstances, this Court concluded that the death sentence was disproportionate. White, 616 So.2d at 25; see also Douglas v. State, 575 So.2d 165, 167 (Fla.1991) (death sentence disproportionate where the defendant, who had been involved in a relationship with the victim's wife, abducted the victim and his wife, tortured them over a four-hour period by forcing them to perform sexual acts at gunpoint, hit the victim so forcefully in the head with the rifle that the stock shattered, and then shot him in the head); Ross v. State, 474 So.2d 1170, 1174 (Fla. 1985) (death penalty disproportionate for bludgeoning murder of wife; even with most serious aggravator of HAC); Halliwell v. State, 323 So.2d 557, 561-62 (Fla. 1975) (death sentence disproportionate where the defendant, who was in love with the victim's wife, became violently enraged at the victim's treatment of her, and beat him to death with a breaker bar).