Opinion ID: 2686844
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Weight Assigned to Murder During the Course

Text: of a Felony Aggravating Factor Smith claims that the trial court erred in giving great weight to the murder committed during the course of an attempted armed robbery aggravating factor in the deaths of Gibson and Keenan. The trial court did not err. This Court has stated that “the weight to be accorded to an aggravator is within the discretion of the trial court and will be affirmed if based on competent substantial evidence.” Sexton v. State, 775 So. 2d 923, 934 (Fla. 2000). “A court abuses its discretion only when the judicial action is arbitrary, fanciful, or unreasonable, which is another way of - 12 - saying that discretion is abused only where no reasonable [person] would take the view adopted by the trial court.” Frances v. State, 970 So. 2d 806, 817 (Fla. 2007) (quoting Trease v. State, 768 So. 2d 1050, 1053 n.2 (Fla. 2000)) (alteration in original; internal quotation marks omitted). A trial court does not abuse its discretion when it considers the specific facts and circumstances of a defendant’s felony in determining the weight that it should assign to aggravating factors based on that felony. See Carter v. State, 980 So. 2d 473, 483 (Fla. 2008) (concluding that trial court did not abuse its discretion by considering facts of burglary in assigning great weight to felony committed in the course of burglary aggravator); Owen v. State, 862 So. 2d 687, 702-03 (Fla. 2003) (concluding that trial court did not abuse its discretion in assigning great weight to aggravating factor that murder was committed in the course of burglary where defendant broke into home to murder babysitter). Based on the foregoing, the trial court did not err in considering the circumstances of Smith’s crimes when determining the appropriateness of Smith’s two death sentences. Smith was convicted of three contemporaneous murders that occurred after he attempted to rob the occupants of the house he went to with Williams. Smith, however, asserts that by taking into account the fact that the murders of Gibson and Keenan were premeditated, the trial court impermissibly relied on a - 13 - nonstatutory aggravator. Smith argues that this Court disapproved of the consideration of premeditation as an aggravating factor in Brown v. State, 381 So. 2d 690, 696 (Fla. 1980). Brown is distinguishable because the trial court in Brown considered premeditation as a separate aggravating circumstance for the murder. Here, the trial court concluded that the weight that it should apply to the committed during the course of an enumerated felony aggravating factor was increased by the premeditated nature of two of the murders that occurred during the attempted armed robbery. Smith further asserts that the trial court’s erroneous consideration of premeditation regarding the murders of Gibson and Keenan was exacerbated by the State’s failure to present sufficient evidence of premeditation. For the reasons discussed above regarding the sufficiency of the evidence, the evidence of Smith’s premeditation in the murders of Gibson and Keenan was sufficient. Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion nor did it apply a nonstatutory aggravating factor by giving great weight to the felony murder aggravating circumstance.