Stoll v. State

• Decision Date: 06 April 2000
• Docket Number: No. SC93276.,SC93276.
• Citation: 762 So.2d 870
• Parties: Michael STOLL, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

762 So.2d 870

Michael STOLL, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC93276.

Supreme Court of Florida.

April 6, 2000.

Rehearing and/or Clarification Denied July 13, 2000.

James B. Gibson, Public Defender, and Michael S. Becker, Assistant Public Defender, Seventh Judicial Circuit, Daytona Beach, Florida, for Appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and Judy Taylor Rush, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, Florida, for Appellee.

PER CURIAM.

We have on appeal the judgment and sentence of the trial court imposing the death penalty upon Michael Stoll. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.

BACKGROUND

Stoll was found guilty of premeditated murder in the first degree and was sentenced to death on June 9, 1998, for the murder of his wife, Julie Stoll, on November 3, 1994. The primary witness for the State was Christopher Stewart, who lived with the Stolls and worked for Stoll. At the time that the murder was committed, Stewart was nineteen years old and Stoll was thirty-three years old.

At trial, Stewart testified in graphic detail about the plans leading up to the murder, as well as about the details of the murder itself. Stewart testified that he was the one who actually killed Julie Stoll, but that he did so at the personal direction of Stoll, who planned the murder and was present when Julie Stoll was killed.¹

Stoll himself testified at trial and denied directing or assisting Stewart in the killing of his wife, although he did admit to "participat[ing] after the fact." In addition, Stoll discussed a prior domestic violence charge brought by his wife, and he testified that he and his wife had an argument concerning that charge only days before the murder.

The jury found Stoll guilty of premeditated murder in the first degree and thereafter returned an advisory sentence of death, with a vote of seven to five. As to the relative culpability of Stewart and Stoll, the trial court found that

[t]he culpability between Stewart and [Michael] Stoll was not equal. Michael Stoll planned and caused the death of Julie Stoll utilizing Christopher Stewart as the means for this purpose. Christopher Stewart had no reason to kill Julie Stoll other than of his reliance upon and direction from Michael Stoll. Christopher Stewart was the club used by Michael Stoll to effectuate the death of Julie Stoll.

After weighing the aggravating factors² against the mitigating factors,³ the trial court found that the mitigating circumstances did not outweigh the aggravating circumstances and thereafter imposed a sentence of death.

On appeal, Stoll raises four issues regarding the guilt phase of the trial⁴ and two issues regarding the penalty phase of the trial.⁵ We agree that reversal is required because of the errors raised in two of Stoll's guilt phase issues: (1) permitting the State to call Dana Martin as a rebuttal witness; and (2) admitting into evidence a prior statement by Julie Stoll.

DANA MARTIN'S REBUTTAL TESTIMONY

We first consider the error in allowing Dana Martin to testify as a rebuttal witness. During its case-in-chief, the State called Martin, a longtime friend of Julie Stoll. Martin testified that as soon as she heard that Julie Stoll was dead, she went to the Stolls' house. As she began to explain why she went to the Stolls' house, defense counsel objected and the trial court sustained the objection as to allowing Martin to testify as to hearsay. Thereafter, in rebuttal, the State again called Martin, and again, defense counsel objected on the basis of hearsay. The trial court overruled this objection whereupon Martin testified that:

Julie made me promise her in August [1994] when she came to my house one Saturday morning and was upset and shaken and crying, and they had been fighting all night the night before, that if anything ever happened to her I would go to the police and tell them that Michael did it or had it done. That he had threatened to kill her more than once and she ... she knew he would do it.

Martin also revealed that one month before that incident, she noticed that Julie Stoll was bruised and that Julie Stoll had told Martin that "Michael did it. And that [Julie] was afraid that he was going to kill her."

In response to Stoll's argument that Martin's testimony concerning what Julie Stoll told her constituted inadmissible hearsay, the State contends that these statements fell within one of two recognized exceptions to the hearsay rule and that they were properly admitted as rebuttal evidence. In particular, the State argues that Martin's testimony is admissible under the excited utterance exception, section 90.803(2), Florida Statutes (1997), and the state-of-mind exception, section 90.803(3). Alternatively, the State argues these statements became admissible as rebuttal evidence to impeach statements that Stoll made.

As to the State's argument that the statements constituted excited utterances, section 90.803(2) provides for the admission of "[a] statement or excited utterance relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition." Accordingly, we have previously held that in order for an excited utterance to be admissible, the following requirements must be met: (1) there must have been an event startling enough to cause nervous excitement; (2) the statement must have been made before there was time to contrive or misrepresent; and (3) the statement must have been made while the person was under the stress of excitement caused by the startling event. See State v. Jano, 524 So.2d 660, 661 (Fla.1988). If "the time interval between the event and the statement is long enough to permit reflective thought, the statement will be excluded in the absence of some proof that the declarant did not in fact engage in a reflective thought process." Id. at 662 (quoting Edward W. Clearly, McCormick on Evidence, § 297 at 856 (3d ed.1984)); see also Rogers v. State, 660 So.2d 237, 240 (Fla.1995). The issue of "[w]hether the necessary state of mind is present is a preliminary fact for the court to determine pursuant to Section 90.104." Jano, 524 So.2d at 661 (quoting Charles W. Ehrhardt, Florida Evidence § 803.2 (2d ed.1984)); see also Young v. State, 742 So.2d 418, 419 n. 1 (Fla. 5th DCA 1999), review denied, 751 So.2d 1255 (Fla. 2000).

At trial, the State never asserted that Julie Stoll's statements were excited utterances, nor did the trial court ever make a factual finding to support this assertion. Moreover, we cannot make this determination independently based upon the record before us. Although Julie Stoll may have made the statements while she was under the stress of excitement caused by her fight with Stoll, the State did not make a sufficient showing of the time period between the event and the statement, nor did the State show whether the time period was such that Julie Stoll did not have time for reflective thought. Accordingly, we reject the State's argument that Julie Stoll's statements to Dana Martin were admissible as excited utterances where the proper predicate was not established by the State and where such a finding was not made by the trial court.

Similarly, we reject the State's argument that Martin's statement, in whole or in part, was admissible under the state-of-mind exception to the hearsay rule, section 90.803(3).⁶ First, the portion of Martin's testimony that Julie Stoll told Martin that Stoll "had threatened to kill her more than once" is hearsay within hearsay. In other words, Martin testified to what Julie Stoll told her that Michael Stoll had stated. This part of Martin's testimony is clearly inadmissible because no exceptions to the hearsay rule apply. See Hill v. State, 549 So.2d 179, 181 (Fla.1989) (finding that where testimony combines two hearsay statements, the testimony is considered hearsay within hearsay and inadmissible unless both statements conform to a hearsay exception).

The remainder of the statement allegedly made by Julie Stoll to Martin concerning her fears that her husband was going to kill her are solely expressions of Julie Stoll's state of mind. In particular, Martin testified: "Julie made me promise her ... that if anything happened to her [Julie Stoll] I would go to the police and tell them that Michael did it or had done it." She also testified that Stoll had threatened to kill Julie Stoll and that Julie Stoll "knew he would do it" and that Julie was "afraid that [Stoll] was going to kill her."

The victim's hearsay statements in a homicide case that the victim was afraid of the defendant generally are not admissible under the state of mind exception because the victim's state of mind is not a material issue in a murder case. See Peterka v. State, 640 So.2d 59, 69 (Fla. 1994). As we recently stated in Woods v. State, 733 So.2d 980, 987 (Fla.1999), "[A] homicide victim's state of mind prior to the fatal event generally is neither at issue nor probative of any material issue raised in the murder prosecution." Likewise, a victim's statements cannot be used to prove the defendant's state of mind. See Downs v. State, 574 So.2d 1095, 1098 (Fla.1991).

There are, however, certain circumstances where the victim-declarant's state of mind may become an issue in the case. First, the state of mind of the victim-declarant may be relevant to an element of the crime. In Peede v. State, 474 So.2d 808, 816 (Fla.1985), for example, the defendant was charged with kidnapping and it was necessary for the State to prove that the victim had been forcibly abducted against her will. We held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the victim's statements to her daughter just prior to her disappearance because they demonstrated "the declarant's state of mind at that time was not to voluntarily accompany the defendant outside of Miami or to North Carolina." Id.

We have also found that the victim's state of mind may become...