Ault v. State

• Decision Date: 25 January 2011
• Docket Number: No. SC07–2130.,SC07–2130.
• Citation: 53 So.3d 175
• Parties: Howard Steven AULT, Appellant,v.STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

53 So.3d 175

Howard Steven AULT, Appellant,

v.STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC07–2130.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Sept. 30, 2010.Rehearing Denied Jan. 25, 2011.

Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Jeffrey L. Anderson, Assistant Public Defender, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, West Palm Beach, FL, for Appellant.Bill McCollum, Attorney General, and Leslie T. Campbell, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, FL, for Appellee.PER CURIAM.

Howard Steven Ault was sentenced to death for the first-degree murders of two sisters, eleven-year-old Deanne Mu'min and seven-year-old Alicia Jones. This is Ault's second appearance before this Court. On his previous direct appeal, we affirmed Ault's convictions but vacated his sentences and remanded to the trial court for a new penalty phase before a new jury. Ault v. State, 866 So.2d 674 (Fla.2003). A new penalty phase was held, and Ault was again sentenced to death for each of the two counts of first-degree murder. Ault now appeals, raising various issues. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the sentences.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

This Court discussed the facts surrounding Ault's offenses on his previous direct appeal. We recounted that Ault first met the victims at John Easterlin Park in Broward County, where the girls, their mother, and their two-year old sister were living in a trailer attached to the family car.

On Monday, November 4, 1996, the two girls left school at 2:05 p.m. Witnesses saw the girls walking home, but the girls never arrived at the park. Their mother looked for them at school and eventually went to Ault's house later in the evening. Ault stated that he had not seen the girls and asked the mother not to call the police as he had some problems with the police in the past. The mother went to her cousin's house and called the police. The police went to Ault's apartment and asked whether he had seen the girls. Ault stated that he had not seen the girls and allowed the officers to look around his apartment.

Ault and his wife voluntarily agreed to come to the Oakland Park Police Department to give sworn statements the next day. Detective William Rhodes, the lead officer on the case, interviewed Ault and his wife at the police department. Ault stated that he had only met the girls once a few days earlier in Easterlin Park, and that the girls had never been in his truck. Shortly after this interview, Officer Deborah Cox of the Broward County Sheriff's Department arrested Ault on an unrelated charge of attempted sexual battery of a minor that had occurred eleven months earlier. Ault was taken to the Broward County jail. In the meantime, Rhodes located witnesses who had seen the girls in Ault's truck, had seen Ault with the girls on several occasions, and had seen Ault and his vehicle at the convenience store at the approximate time that the girls were walking home from school on the day they disappeared, all of which contradicted Ault's voluntary statement.

The next day, Rhodes visited Ault at the Broward County jail and explained that his investigation of the girls' disappearance indicated that Ault had lied at the initial interview. When Ault indicated his desire to speak to Rhodes, Rhodes read Ault his Miranda¹ rights and Ault waived these rights. Ault confessed that he had killed the girls within an hour after he had taken them to his apartment. Ault agreed to show Rhodes where the bodies were. Ault led the police to his apartment, confessed that the girls were in the attic, and explained that the officers who had looked around the night before had not looked in the attic. Ault signed a consent-to-search form and the police found the girls' bodies in the attic as Ault had stated.

Ault was taken to the Oakland Park Police Department and insisted that he would only speak to Rhodes. Ault then gave a taped confession in which he revealed the following details. Ault planned to sexually assault the girls when he met them in front of the convenience store about 2:30 p.m. on November 4, 1996. He offered the girls a ride, and lured them to his house with the promise of candy. He sexually assaulted eleven-year-old Deanne with his finger and also penetrated her with his penis. When Deanne started to scream and fight, Ault strangled her until she stopped screaming. He then strangled seven-year-old Alicia to keep her from telling anyone about the incident, but he did not sexually assault her. Ault redressed Deanne and put the bodies of both girls in his attic. Ault said that he killed the girls because he was afraid they would tell someone what he had done. Because he was already on community control for sexual assault on a child under twelve years of age, he feared that he would go to jail for at least twenty-five years. He also stated that he thought about the trauma his wife had experienced when he was previously arrested and did not want to put her through that trauma again.

The medical examiner testified that both girls died from manual strangulation, that there was bruising and hemorrhaging of Deanne's vaginal tissue, that Deanne had been dead for approximately two days when her body was found, and that, based on the decomposition of her body, Alicia had died twelve to eighteen hours after Deanne. Based on the lesser state of decomposition of Alicia's body and a white foamy substance coming from her mouth, the medical examiner stated that Alicia appeared to have been alive, albeit comatose, at the time she was placed in the attic.

Ault, 866 So.2d at 677–78.

The guilt phase of Ault's jury trial concluded on August 11, 1999. Ault was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping, two counts of sexual battery on a person less than twelve years of age (both upon Deanne Mu'min), and two counts of aggravated child abuse. After the penalty phase proceedings were completed, the judge followed the recommendation of the jury and imposed a sentence of death for each murder. Id. at 677–79.

In his first direct appeal to this Court, Ault raised only one guilt phase issue. Ault argued that the trial court had erred in denying his motion to suppress the statements made to Detective Rhodes following his arrest on the unrelated sexual battery charge. We determined that the motion to suppress was properly denied and rejected Ault's claim. See Ault, 866 So.2d at 679–83. We also found that the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to support Ault's convictions. We therefore affirmed Ault's convictions for first-degree murder, sexual battery, kidnapping, and aggravated child abuse. See id. at 683. As to the sentencing phase, however, we found that the trial court had erred in granting a challenge for cause of a potential juror. We found that, although the potential juror had voiced a general opposition to the death penalty, she had also agreed that she could place her personal feelings aside and be fair and impartial when making her decisions in the case. See id. at 685–86. The erroneous exclusion of a potential juror is not subject to harmless error review. Id. at 686 (citing Gray v. Mississippi, 481 U.S. 648, 664–65, 107 S.Ct. 2045, 95 L.Ed.2d 622 (1987)). Accordingly, we vacated Ault's sentences of death and remanded for a new penalty phase. See id.

The new penalty phase was held from July 30, 2007, through August 21, 2007. The State began its case by presenting evidence of Ault's criminal history. Three witnesses testified that as young girls they were sexually assaulted by Ault, the first in 1988 when she was twelve years old, the second in 1994 when she was seven years old, and the third in 1995 when she was eleven years old. The last of these three witnesses testified that after the assault Ault told her that what he did was wrong and that she needed to call the police. The jury was also read the testimony of another witness, a police officer, who had testified at the previous trial that Ault and another man attacked him at knifepoint in 1986.

The State also presented evidence relating to the deaths of Deanne Mu'min and Alicia Jones. The original crime scene investigator was called to identify photos of the locations in which the events surrounding the offenses took place. The medical examiner who conducted the victims' autopsies was also called to testify regarding the causes of death. Finally, the State called William Rhodes, who recounted his role in the investigation and identified the audio recording of his interrogation of Ault, which was played to the jury. The State also called witnesses to give victim impact evidence, including the victims' mother, one of the victims' teachers, and other individuals who knew their family.

At the close of the State's case, the defense presented three witnesses to establish mitigation. The first witness, psychiatrist Dr. David Kramer, testified that he had conducted a two-hour psychiatric screening of the defendant and had reviewed mental health reports on Ault written by other doctors. Regarding Ault's family background, Dr. Kramer testified that Ault's family moved frequently when he was a child and that Ault's parents had a dysfunctional marriage. According to Dr. Kramer, Ault reported that his older brother began a pattern of forced sexual abuse when he was seven years old, and that his brother sometimes used a knife or gun. Dr. Kramer testified that such experiences would have a negative effect on a child's mental health and sexual development, and diagnosed Ault with complex posttraumatic stress disorder. Dr. Kramer also diagnosed Ault with pedophilia, which he defined as an intense persistent arousal to inappropriate stimuli, being prepubescent children in an adult, and found that Ault had a history of alcohol abuse and dependency and some history of other substance use.

The next defense witness, neurologist Dr. David Ross, testified that he conducted various tests on Ault and concluded that Ault suffered...