Aguirre-Jarquin v. State
| Decision Date | 26 March 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. SC06-1550.,SC06-1550. |
| Citation | 9 So.3d 593 |
| Parties | Clemente Javier AGUIRRE-JARQUIN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
James S. Purdy, Public Defender, and Christopher S. Quarles, Assistant Public Defender, Seventh Judicial Circuit, Daytona Beach, FL, for Appellant.
Bill McCollum, Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, and Barbara C. Davis, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, FL, for Appellee.
We have on appeal the judgment of the trial court convicting Clemente Aguirre-Jarquin (Aguirre) of two counts of first-degree murder and sentencing him to death on both counts.1 For the following reasons, we affirm the convictions and sentences.
Aguirre was born in Honduras in 1980 and came to the United States in March of 2003. After arriving in Florida, Aguirre moved to 117 Vagabond Way, Seminole County. He lived there with two roommates until he was arrested for the murders at issue here.
At the time of the murders, Aguirre worked at a restaurant as a dishwasher and a prep cook. One of his duties was washing the knives. At one point, all three of the men who lived at 117 Vagabond Way worked at the same restaurant.
The victims, Cheryl Williams and Carol Bareis, lived next door to Aguirre. Carol was Cheryl's mother. Cheryl's daughter, Samantha Williams, lived with her mother and grandmother. Carol was a stroke victim, partially paralyzed, and spent most of her time in a wheelchair.
Aguirre was an acquaintance of his neighbors and occasionally visited with them socially. Samantha testified that several months before the murders she awoke at 2 a.m., and Aguirre was standing over her bed. She screamed at him and forcefully told him to leave. Samantha escorted Aguirre out the front door and locked the door behind him. The next day she reiterated that he was not to enter their residence at night without permission.
On the night of June 16, 2004, Mark Van Sandt, who was in a relationship with Samantha, went to 121 Vagabond Way to visit Samantha. He arrived at the residence around 7:30 p.m. and stayed until approximately 11:30 p.m. Samantha decided to leave with Mark and stay at his parents' house that night. When Samantha and Mark left the residence at 121 Vagabond Way, both Cheryl and Carol were inside and alive.
Samantha was scheduled to work the next day, so Mark agreed to go back to her house and pick up her work clothes. Mark left his house around 8:45 a.m. on June 17, 2004, and drove to 121 Vagabond Way. When Mark arrived at 121 Vagabond Way, he went to the front door, which was almost always left unlocked, and attempted to open the door. However, he was unable to fully open the door because Cheryl Williams' body was blocking the entryway. Mark squeezed his way through the door and called 911.
Deputy Pensa of the Seminole County Sheriff's Department was the first law enforcement officer to arrive. Deputy Pensa forcibly entered through the back door. Subsequently, two other officers, Bates and Miller, arrived at the scene. Pensa and Bates noticed blood on the floor. The officers located Cheryl's body, which blocked the front door. Thereafter, deputy Pensa found Carol lying dead on the floor in the living room. She was lying face down in a pool of blood next to her wheelchair.
One of the crime scene analysts found a ten-inch chef's knife while searching the property. The knife was found between Aguirre's residence and the victims' residence. The knife was the same make and model used at Aguirre's place of employment. After speaking with the head chef at the restaurant where Aguirre worked, law enforcement officers determined that a ten-inch chef's knife was missing from the restaurant.2
At approximately 11 a.m. on June 17, deputies knocked on the door of 117 Vagabond Way and asked Aguirre and his two roommates if they knew anything about what happened next door. Aguirre told the officers he did not know there was a problem next door. Later that same day, Aguirre approached law enforcement officers and told them that he had information about what occurred next door. He told the officers that he went into the home and saw that Cheryl was dead. However, at this point, Aguirre told them that he only knew of Cheryl's death. After Aguirre's conversations with police, he was arrested for tampering with evidence from a crime scene. Subsequently, Aguirre was indicted for murder.
During the course of the trial, various law enforcement personnel, physicians, and experts testified to the evidence at the crime scene and the victims' wounds. Cheryl had been stabbed 129 times. She had severe wounds to her lungs and leg, one of which severed her femoral artery. She also had numerous defensive wounds on her hands and feet that indicated an extremely violent struggle for her life. She was stabbed in the arms, legs, back, hands, feet, and chest. One stab wound to her left lung was considered fatal. There was an extensive amount of evidence in the area of the house where Cheryl was found, including a great deal of blood on the floor, walls, and door in the area of Cheryl's body.
Carol suffered two stab wounds. The fatal stab wound went directly into her chest and severed her left ventricle, and the other stab wound was to her back.3 The medical examiner testified that the stab wound to the heart would have led to an instantaneous drop in her blood pressure, which would have caused her to lose consciousness in no more than twenty seconds. It was the medical examiner's opinion that the fatal wound to Carol was delivered while she was in the wheelchair, which caused her to fall out and led to her facial abrasions.
All of the stab wounds sustained by Cheryl and Carol were consistent with being caused by the chef's knife found between the victims' residence and Aguirre's residence. The knife contained Cheryl's blood on the handle and Carol's blood on the blade, indicating that Cheryl was killed first.
A crime scene analyst testified that there were 67 bloody shoe impressions found inside the victims' residence. Of the 64 impressions that were comparable, all 64 were consistent with the footwear of Aguirre. The soles of his shoes contained Cheryl's blood. Law enforcement officers obtained a search warrant for the property at 117 Vagabond Street and retrieved the bag of clothes. Aguirre's underwear, socks, T-shirt, and shorts contained Cheryl's blood. Further, Aguirre's T-shirt, shorts, and underwear contained Carol's blood and DNA.
A Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) bloodstain pattern analyst also examined Aguirre's clothing. Aguirre's shorts had contact stains on both the front and back. The back of his shorts also had bloodstains that were not contact stains but arrived on his shorts through some type of motion, either impact spatter or cast off. His socks had contact stains as well as spots that were "consistent with dropped blood."
According to Aguirre's testimony during the guilt phase, he had the day before the murders off from work so he began drinking early. He and his friends continued to drink throughout the day and night.4 Aguirre returned back to 117 Vagabond Way at approximately 5 a.m. on the morning of the murders.
Aguirre stated that he watched television and then got up to look for beer. There was no beer in his trailer so he walked next door. He attempted to go inside, but Cheryl's body was blocking the door. However, he managed to make it inside, and he lifted Cheryl's body on to his lap and tried to revive her. He realized she was dead so he put her back on the floor where he found her. Aguirre then walked toward the living room where Carol spent the majority of her time and found her dead as well. While in the house, Aguirre noticed the murder weapon sitting on a box near where Cheryl was lying. He stated that he feared the killer was still inside the house; therefore, he picked up the knife and screamed, "Is anybody here?" There was no reply. He then walked to Samantha's room. She was not there, but her room had been ransacked.
Thereafter, Aguirre ran outside towards his residence and tossed the knife into the grass. He then stripped off all his clothes, placed them in a plastic bag, set the bag on top of his shed, and bathed. Aguirre initially planned to burn the clothes. He explained that he did not call police and report the murders because he was an illegal immigrant and afraid of deportation.
The jury convicted Aguirre on two counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary with an assault or battery. Following the penalty phase, the jury recommended the death sentence for the murder of Cheryl Williams by a vote of seven to five. The jury recommended the death sentence for the murder of Carol Bareis by a vote of nine to three. After the Spencer5 hearing, Judge O.H. Eaton, Jr. sentenced Aguirre to two death sentences, finding the aggravators outweighed the mitigators.6
Aguirre alleges that (A) the trial court erred in conducting the Faretta7 colloquy and requiring Aguirre to proceed with counsel; (B) the trial court erred in denying Aguirre's motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence; (C) the trial court abused its discretion in denying Aguirre's for-cause challenge of a juror; (D) the trial court erred in denying Aguirre's motion for judgment of acquittal on the burglary charge; (E) the trial court erred in allowing Samantha Williams' testimony regarding Aguirre's prior uninvited entry into the victims' home; (F) the trial court erred in instructing the jury on the cold, calculated and premeditated aggravator; (G) the trial court erred in finding that the murder of Carol Bareis was committed to eliminate her as a witness; (H) the trial court erred in finding that the murder of Carol Bareis was heinous, atrocious, or cruel.8 None of these claims warrant relief.
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