Arbelaez v. State

• Decision Date: 23 September 1993
• Docket Number: No. 77668,77668
• Court: Florida Supreme Court
• Parties: 18 Fla. L. Weekly S500 Guillermo ARBELAEZ, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

Page 169

626 So.2d 169

18 Fla. L. Weekly S500

Guillermo ARBELAEZ, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 77668.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Sept. 23, 1993.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 17, 1993.

Reemberto Diaz of Diaz & Batista, P.A., Hialeah, for appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and Fariba N. Komeily, Asst. Atty. Gen., Miami, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

Guillermo Arbelaez appeals his convictions for first-degree murder and kidnapping and his death sentence. We have jurisdiction pursuant to article V, section 3(b)(1) of the Florida Constitution. We affirm both Arbelaez's convictions and his sentence.

The evidence in the instant case revealed the following pertinent facts. Arbelaez met Graciela Alfara at the Cafeteria Blanquita where she worked as a waitress. Over the period of several months, Arbelaez and Graciela became acquainted and sometime around January 15, 1988, Arbelaez moved into a house shared by Graciela, her two teenage daughters, five-year-old son, and nineteen-year-old cousin. Arbelaez paid Graciela $150 a month rent for a room he shared with her cousin. Shortly after moving into the home, Arbelaez and Graciela became intimate. This relationship, however, soon ended after Graciela accused Arbelaez of touching one of her daughters on the breast. According to Graciela, she told Arbelaez to move out of the house by February 15, 1988. In contrast, Arbelaez indicated that he and Graciela were to be married on February 15, 1988.

On February 13, 1988, Arbelaez, returning from work around 4:30 p.m., stopped by the Cafeteria Blanquita to give Graciela a ride home. Graciela, however, had left with another man. Arbelaez drank a beer and then went home to wait for Graciela to return. Close to midnight, Graciela returned home and kissed her companion good night as Arbelaez watched from a peephole in the door. As Graciela entered the house, Arbelaez grabbed her by the arm and started an argument. Graciela told Arbelaez that she did not love him and that he should move out the next day. After the argument, Graciela went to her room to sleep. Arbelaez stayed in the living room.

That next morning around 7 a.m., Graciela went to wake her cousin, Harlam Alfara, to go to work. She went past Arbelaez without speaking to him. After waking Harlam, Graciela went back to sleep. Harlam began preparing for work while Arbelaez and Julio Rivas, Graciela's five-year-old son, watched television in the living room. As Harlam started to go to the shower, he asked if Arbelaez intended to go to work. Arbelaez answered no and when Harlam returned to the room Arbelaez and Julio were gone. At approximately 7:30 a.m., while Graciela was sleeping in her room, Arbelaez took Julio and left the house.

Arbelaez drove his car to the Cafeteria Blanquita for a cup of coffee. While Julio remained in the car, Arbelaez ordered a cup of coffee from the waitress, Francisca Morgan. Morgan testified that Arbelaez appeared calm and normal. Arbelaez joined his friend Juan Londrian and drank the coffee. Londrian also testified that Arbelaez appeared calm and normal. As they drank their coffee, Arbelaez told Londrian that Graciela was seeing another man, and he stated that he was going to do something that would assure "that bitch is going to remember me for the rest of her life." Londrian understood that Arbelaez was referring to Graciela by that statement.

After he drank the coffee, Arbelaez left the cafeteria and drove around for a couple of hours. At approximately 10:15 a.m., Arbelaez stopped his car at a convenience store in Key Biscayne and called Graciela to speak with her. One of Graciela's daughters answered the phone, but Graciela refused to speak with Arbelaez. Arbelaez then drove to the crest of the Powell Bridge on the Rickenbacker Causeway and stopped, exited his car, and lifted the hood, pretending that the car had broken down. He called to Julio, grabbed the boy by the arms, and threw the child off the bridge into the water seventy feet below. Arbelaez quickly closed the hood and fled the scene. He abandoned his car in a Coral Gables neighborhood and ran to the home of a friend, Pedro Salazar, and his family.

Arbelaez confessed to Pedro Salazar that he "shook" the child and "squeezed the boy's neck." He also told Pedro that he had thrown the child off a bridge because he wanted revenge against the child's mother. While Arbelaez was speaking with him, Pedro noticed a scratch on Arbelaez's neck. The Salazars loaned Arbelaez some money and drove him to the airport where he bought an airline ticket to Puerto Rico under an assumed name. After arriving in Puerto Rico, Arbelaez contacted his family in Colombia for money. His family wired him some money, and Arbelaez returned to Colombia.

On February 14, 1988, at approximately 3 p.m., a security officer for a high-rise located on Brickell Avenue spotted a child floating in the water. The security officer and a coworker jumped into the water and retrieved the child. Police and fire rescue workers arrived at the scene quickly, but efforts to revive the child were unsuccessful. Police officers at the scene took photographs of the child. Homicide Detective Martinez, who was also present at the scene, took the photographs to Graciela's residence because she had reported a missing child that afternoon. Graciela identified the dead child as her five-year-old son, Julio Rivas. At that time, Graciela also informed the police that Arbelaez could not be found.

On February 15, 1988, Martinez found Arbelaez's car abandoned in Coral Gables near the Salazars' home. Inside the car Martinez found that the dashboard had been pulled apart and damaged. The air conditioning panel was off the dashboard, and the knob of one of the switches was on the floor. The damage was consistent with something coming into contact with the panel. On February 18, 1988, an arrest warrant was issued for Arbelaez; however, the police could not find Arbelaez.

On March 16, 1988, Martinez asked Detective Cadavid to contact Arbelaez's family in Medellin, Colombia, because Cadavid was from Medellin and spoke the local dialect. Cadavid called Arbelaez's mother and identified himself as a homicide detective with the City of Miami Police Department and asked to speak to Arbelaez if he was home. Arbelaez answered the phone and identified himself. Cadavid identified himself again as a detective in the City of Miami Police Department in the United States and stated that he needed to speak to Arbelaez about a problem in Miami. Arbelaez responded that he knew he was in trouble, but that he could not return to the United States because of a lack of documentation and money. Cadavid offered to help with proper documentation through the American Embassy in Bogota, Colombia, and to provide Arbelaez airfare to the United States. Cadavid also told Arbelaez that he would have to stand trial before a judge, but did not mention the possibility that Arbelaez could get the death penalty. Arbelaez gave Cadavid another phone number where he could be reached in the future.

Following his conversation with Arbelaez, Cadavid called the American Embassy in Bogota. Cadavid spoke with Federal Bureau of Investigation Agent Rubin Munoz, a liaison officer for law enforcement officers in the United States and the host country, about arranging for Arbelaez to obtain the proper documentation in order to leave Colombia. After speaking with Munoz, Cadavid called Arbelaez back and spoke with Arbelaez's brother. Cadavid again identified himself as a detective from Miami. Arbelaez's brother indicated that Arbelaez would return to the United States as soon as he could obtain proper documentation and a plane ticket. The brother also told Cadavid that Arbelaez suffered from chronic epileptic seizures and had been through psychiatric treatment in Colombia when he was eighteen to twenty years old. Cadavid then gave Arbelaez's brother a phone number for Arbelaez to call Munoz at the American Embassy in Bogota. Thereafter, Cadavid had no contact with Arbelaez.

On March 24, 1988, Martinez contacted Arbelaez with the phone number he got from Cadavid. Martinez identified himself to Arbelaez and told him that there was a warrant for his arrest for the homicide of Julio Rivas. Martinez also provided Arbelaez with Munoz's telephone number at the American Embassy in Bogota and told him that Munoz would assist him in obtaining a visa. Martinez also gave Arbelaez the Miami Police Department's telephone number.

Arbelaez telephoned Munoz in Bogota following his conversation with Martinez. Arbelaez told Munoz that he had spoken to detectives in Miami and that he had some problems in the United States. He indicated to Munoz that he had left Miami because of fear, but that his family had convinced him to return and face prosecution. Arbelaez further told Munoz that he had caused the death of his girlfriend's son. He explained that he had been living with the mother of the child and that he and the woman had planned to get married. Arbelaez stated that he had an argument with the child's mother after seeing her kiss another man, and the mother told Arbelaez that she did not love him. Arbelaez then told Munoz, "As a Latin you would understand the best way to get to a woman is through her children." Thus, Arbelaez stated, he threw the woman's son off the bridge in order to drown the boy.

Munoz told Arbelaez that he would need a Colombian passport before he could procure a visa for his trip to Miami. Munoz advised Arbelaez that he could not assist him in obtaining a Colombian passport and that Arbelaez would have to handle that himself. During the course of the conversation, Arbelaez indicated to Munoz that he could not afford an attorney for the criminal charge. Munoz told Arbelaez that the court would appoint him an attorney and that he would have the same rights and privileges as any United States citizen. Munoz initiated the next two telephone conversations with...