Adams v. State, 5D00-1685.
| Decision Date | 26 October 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 5D00-1685.,5D00-1685. |
| Parties | Richard Lee ADAMS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
James B. Gibson, Public Defender, and A.S. Rogers, Assistant Public Defender, Daytona Beach, for Appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Belle B. Schumann, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee.
Richard Adams appeals from his convictions for aggravated child abuse and first degree murder in the beating death of six year old Kayla McKean.1 He asserts that the trial court erred in instructing the jury, over objection, on the element of malice in connection with the charge of aggravated child abuse, thus requiring reversal of that conviction and precluding its use to support the first degree murder conviction under a felony murder theory. Adams further asserts that the state failed to present sufficient evidence to support the first degree murder conviction under a premeditation theory.
The indictment charging first degree murder alleged two alternate theories, premeditation and felony murder. The trial evidence revealed that Kayla McKean died on November 25, 1998 as a result of blood loss secondary to blunt trauma injury. The pathologist explained that her injuries were caused by "massive blunt force, the type you see in a high speed automobile accident, just incredible force." Kayla was four feet, two inches tall and weighed 48 pounds at the time of her death. She was spanked with a wooden paddle made from a piece of two by six inch board. This paddle left distinct bruises on her buttocks and left hip. The blows were too numerous to count individually. In addition to severe bruising, the paddle caused massive internal blunt trauma such that the muscles in her legs and buttocks bled internally, which was in itself a fatal injury. Internal bleeding caused her heart to go into cardiac arrest. There was bleeding from the skin under her buttocks and lower back through the muscle, all the way to and beneath the peritoneal lining, the lining of the abdomen. In an apparent effort to shield herself from this paddling, Kayla's forearms were covered with bruises which extended from her elbows to fingers on both arms.
Kayla's right leg was swollen twice the size of her left leg and her hip appeared to be out of its socket. This injury was not caused by the paddle, but rather from an injury inflicted with "high force." Her head had been slammed with extreme force against a hard, flat surface like a wall or the floor. This caused a skull fracture on the right side, as well as a skull fracture on the opposite, left side as her skull recoiled in whiplash motion. This injury could not have been caused by the paddle. This resulted in the entire right side of her head swelling up so that it was flush with the bridge of her nose. Bruising on the back of her neck indicated that she had been gripped there by "really hard squeezing." Her liver was severed in three places by a "tremendous blow to the front of the abdomen." This injury was inflicted from the front, because her spine severed part of her liver.
Four of Kayla's ribs were broken, which punctured her lungs. Both kidneys were bruised and bleeding. This was caused by a severe compression injury that "squashed" her body from back to front, consistent with a foot stomping her back while she lay face down on the floor. There was blood in the sac surrounding the heart, indicating trauma to the heart. The pathologist could not testify as to the sequence of the injuries and testified the injuries seemed very random. The injuries could have been inflicted "as quickly as someone could move." However, Kayla survived long enough to lose enough blood in her abdomen so as to go into shock and suffer cardiac arrest.
After Adams' brutal attack, he wrapped Kayla's body in a sheet and informed her stepmother that the child had stopped breathing. Adams then put Kayla's wrapped body in a bag and after threatening the stepmother had her drive to a remote area where he buried the body. The police were then informed by Adams that Kayla was missing and an intense search was undertaken. Five days later Kayla's stepmother informed the police of the child's death and led them to the burial site. Because Kayla had been buried for five days prior to the discovery of her body, it was not possible to determine with medical certainty which of the injuries was inflicted first. The injuries to the liver and/or internal bleeding would have been fatal by themselves and possibly the brain injury would also have been fatal.
Kayla's stepmother testified that when she returned from work on the day of Kayla's death, Adams told her the child defecated in her pants and he made her take a bath after which time she stopped breathing. When the stepmother asked Adams why he did not call 911, Adams replied, "Do you know what they do to people like me in jail?" He said that "Kayla wasn't worth it and he never wanted her anyway." The telephones in the house had been unplugged.
Adams asserts that the trial court committed reversible error by improperly defining the element of malice to the jury in respect to the charge of aggravated child abuse.
Section 827.03, Florida Statutes (1998) provides in relevant part:
While the indictment against Adams specifically references subsection (2)(b), the language of the indictment in charging willful abuse of the child victim causing great bodily harm, permanent disability or permanent disfigurement also implicates the charge of aggravated child abuse under subsection (2)(c).2 The failure to expressly reference subsection (2)(c) is not fatal. See Youngker v. State, 215 So.2d 318 (Fla. 4th DCA 1968)
(erroneous statutory citation does not render conviction invalid where charging document clearly charged offense and there was no showing that the error prejudiced the defendant). Thus the indictment charged aggravated child abuse by either "maliciously punishes" or by willful abuse causing great bodily harm, etc. Defense counsel conceded below that Count 2 alleged both forms of aggravated child abuse.
The trial court gave the following instructions on aggravated child abuse:
The defense objected, inter alia, to the giving of the standard jury instruction defining "maliciously" and urged that "maliciously" should have been defined as "ill will, hatred, spite and evil intent" in accordance with State v. Gaylord, 356 So.2d 313 (Fla.1978). Chapter 827, Florida Statutes does not define "maliciously" and the trial court, noting that the standard jury instruction was the instruction approved by the supreme court,3 overruled the objection.
It is well settled that the standard jury instructions are presumed correct and are preferred over special instructions. Stephens v. State, 787 So.2d 747 (Fla.2001); Freeman v. State, 761 So.2d 1055 (Fla.2000). The First District, however, has held that the standard jury instruction does not adequately define "maliciously" because "it did not state that to find the defendant guilty, it must be determined that the accused `actually harbored' ill will, hatred, spite or an evil intent." Reed v. State, 783 So.2d 1192 (Fla. 1st DCA 2001); Young v. State, 753 So.2d 725 (Fla. 1st DCA 2000). In Young the defendant, charged with maliciously punishing her son, objected to the standard instruction and the appellate court reversed her conviction for aggravated child abuse, finding the standard jury instruction on malice to be inadequate. The court explained:
In State v. Gaylord, the court held that section 827.03(3), Florida Statutes (1975), which treated "maliciously punish[ing] a child" as aggravated child abuse, was not unconstitutionally vague. In order to do so, the court was obliged to determine whether the word "maliciously" "provide[d] a definite standard of conduct understandable by a person of ordinary intelligence." Id. at 314. The court concluded that it did, stating that "[m]alice means ill will, hatred, spite, an evil intent." Id. That definition of malice has since been consistently employed in aggravated child abuse cases. E.g., Freeze v. State, 553 So.2d 750 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989)
; Moakley v. State, 547 So.2d 1246 (Fla. 5th DCA 1989). Notwithstanding the definition adopted in Gaylord, however, without explanation, the standard jury instruction on aggravated child abuse includes a different definition "`Maliciously' means wrongfully, intentionally, without legal justification or excuse." Fla. Std. Jury Instr. (Crim.) 227.
The difference between the definition adopted in Gaylord and that included in the standard jury instruction is significant. The former is generally referred to as actual malice, or malice in fact; whereas the latter is generally referred to as legal, or technical malice. See Huntley v. State, 66...
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