Oats v. State, 60489

• Decision Date: 23 February 1984
• Docket Number: No. 60489,60489
• Citation: 446 So.2d 90
• Parties: Sonnie Boy OATS, Jr., Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 90

446 So.2d 90

Sonnie Boy OATS, Jr., Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 60489.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Feb. 23, 1984.

Theodore N. Taylor, Lutz, and Frank T. Johnson, Tampa, for appellant.

Jim Smith, Atty. Gen. and Shawn L. Briese, Asst. Atty. Gen., Daytona Beach, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

This is an appeal from a conviction of murder in the first degree and a sentence of death imposed by the Circuit Court for Marion County, Florida. We have jurisdiction pursuant to article V, section 3(b)(1), Florida Constitution.

On December 20, 1979, Jeanette Dyer, the clerk at the Little Country Store in Martel, Florida, was found on the floor with a head wound. She had no palpable pulse or respiration but she did show a faint heart beat. She died shortly thereafter at the hospital. Cause of death was a single bullet fired from approximately one foot away which penetrated her right eye and her brain. A sum of money was also missing from the store's cash register.

On December 24, 1979, an Ocala policeman observed an automobile with two suspicious looking occupants in the vicinity of a Jiffy Food Store. As the officer approached the car, it sped away at a high rate of speed. The officer gave chase. With lights out, the car entered I-75 and started weaving in and out of traffic at a speed of about one hundred miles an hour. The vehicle exited I-75 and soon crashed. Its occupants were not immediately apprehended, but shortly thereafter one Donnie Williams was arrested as a suspect in the high-speed chase and transported to the Marion County Jail. Upon Williams' arrival at the jail, it developed that Oats was already there inquiring about getting Williams released. Oats was then informed that he was a suspect in the high-speed chase and given Miranda warnings. He also signed a waiver-of-rights form. Oats was then questioned concerning the chase. He admitted his involvement in the chase and stated he would show the police where he had thrown a weapon during the chase. The weapon was found near where Oats said it would be. Oats also admitted his involvement in an ABC liquor store robbery and shooting that had occurred on December 19, 1979, one day prior to the Martel robbery and murder. In that crime, a clerk was robbed and then shot in the right side of the face.

On December 28, 1979, Oats again admitted robbing and shooting the ABC clerk. He then admitted robbing and killing the Martel clerk. He first stated his hand had slipped and the gun had discharged accidentally. He later stated his foot slipped and that the gun had gone off accidentally when it hit the counter. Ballistics tests conducted on the gun recovered from the roadside established that it was the same weapon used in both the ABC and Martel shootings.

In June 1980, Oats was tried in a separate proceeding for the ABC robbery and shooting and was convicted of robbery with a firearm and attempted murder in the first degree. On June 14, 1980, Oats escaped from the Marion County Jail. He was recaptured in Texas in December 1980.

In February 1981, Oats was tried for the Martel robbery and shooting. During the trial, the state introduced similar-fact evidence that related to the ABC robbery and shooting. At this trial, Oats was found guilty of first-degree murder and robbery with a firearm. The jury rendered an advisory sentence of death. The trial court imposed the death sentence for the murder charge and ninety-nine years for the robbery.

On December 23, 1981, while review of the instant case was pending before us, the Fifth District Court of Appeal reversed Oats' conviction for the ABC robbery and attempted murder. Oats v. State, 407 So.2d 1004 (Fla. 5th DCA 1981). ¹ The propriety of that action is not before this Court.

I. The Guilt Phase

Appellant asserts six points of error that relate to the guilt phase of the trial. First, he urges that the trial court erred by its failure to suppress his confessions. The argument is that the confessions were not free and voluntary but were extracted by a type of mental coercion. We disagree. Whatever kindness was shown to Oats by the police officers did not rise to the level of improper influence that was held to be error in Brewer v. State, 386 So.2d 232 (Fla.1980). In addition, Oats' own testimony that he recalled one of the interrogating officers saying to him that they, as police officers, couldn't promise him anything vitiates his argument. See State v. Mullin, 286 So.2d 36 (Fla. 3d DCA 1973).

Appellant next asserts that he was denied a right to a fair and impartial trial by the court's failure to sequester the jury. This argument is clearly without merit. It is within the discretion of the trial judge whether or not to sequester the jury. Fla.R.Crim.P. 3.370(a). The denial of a motion to sequester in a capital case is not an automatic abuse of discretion. The defendant must show that media coverage of his trial or events which preceded it was unfair or unduly pervasive. Ford v. State, 374 So.2d 496 (Fla.1979), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 972, 100 S.Ct. 1666, 64 L.Ed.2d 249 (1980). Oats makes no argument that coverage during the trial was at all harmful; he solely relies upon the amount of pretrial publicity present in Marion County. He details thirteen newspaper articles that mentioned Oats which appeared in the two local newspapers. While if considered in a vacuum the articles may seem to be facially unfair to Oats and the number unduly pervasive, in actuality there is no unfairness or undue pervasiveness. All the articles were straight news stories detailing either Oats' indictment for the crimes, his ABC trial conviction, his escape, his capture, or an incident where Oats started a fire in his cell. All were of a factual nature and none can be characterized as editorials such as were presented in Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333, 86 S.Ct. 1507, 16 L.Ed.2d 600 (1966). There was no demonstration that the reports were highly colored or inflammatory. See Murphy v. Florida, 421 U.S. 794, 95 S.Ct. 2031, 44 L.Ed.2d 589 (1975). While three of the articles disclosed that Oats had given a confession, none gave any actual excerpts from the confession or featured the confession as a prominent element. And finally, the thirteen articles spanned a period of one full year and thus in no way can be considered pervasive. In any event, the trial court in its discretion felt that due admonition given throughout the course of the proceedings would be sufficient to protect appellant. Due admonition was given. Oats has thus not shown that the trial court abused its discretion in denying his motion to sequester the jury.

Appellant's next issue is related to the issue just discussed. He argues that the trial judge erred by failing to grant a change of venue on the ground that the pretrial publicity was persuasive, inflammatory, and prejudicial. This point has been partially met, supra. In addition, an examination of the voir dire shows that of the jurors who were seated to hear the case, one knew nothing of the case at all and the remainder either only vaguely saw or read "something" about Oats but none remembered any specific details. All stated that they had no fixed opinions of Oats' innocence or guilt, that they could set aside any publicity to which they may have been exposed, and that they could be impartial and fair. It is thus clear that the general state of mind of the inhabitants of Marion County as evidenced by Oats' specific jury panel was not so infected by pretrial knowledge of the case as to preclude a fair and impartial jury. The motion for change of venue was properly denied. Dobbert v. Florida, 432 U.S. 282, 97 S.Ct. 2290, 53 L.Ed.2d 344 (1977); Murphy v. Florida; Gavin v. State, 259 So.2d 544 (Fla. 3d DCA), cert. denied, 265 So.2d 370 (Fla.1972).

Appellant next argues that the trial court erred by allowing the introduction of evidence of the ABC crime in the state's case in chief following the introduction of Oats' confession. Oats claims that the testimony of witnesses Mathena, Schore, Stewart, Brackman and LaTorre became a feature of the trial since there remained no material issues of disputed fact in view of the state's having previously introduced the confession to the jury. The use of the ABC witnesses, however, while subsequent to the confession, was relevant to rebut Oats' contention in his confession that the Martel murder was an accident. The evidence was used to show intent, common scheme, and absence of accident. The introduction of evidence of the collateral robbery was thus to address a disputed material issue of fact and hence was permissible under Williams v. State, 110 So.2d 654 (Fla.), cert. denied, 361 U.S. 847, 80 S.Ct. 102, 4 L.Ed.2d 86 (1959). Also, a review of the testimony of the five witnesses fails to show that it was a feature of the trial; the testimony was brief and incidental. It thus was not violative of the second Williams case, Williams v. State, 117 So.2d 473 (Fla.1960). In any event, the trial court read cautionary instructions to the jury two different times concerning the similar fact evidence. These instructions that were given sufficiently distinguished the permissible/impermissible uses of the similar evidence and thus were more than corrective.

Appellant's next trial point requires little discussion. He argues that certain remarks made by the prosecutor during the course of the trial were inflammatory and prejudicial....