PER CURIAM.
We have for review on direct appeal from the Circuit Court of Duval County, judgments of guilty of murder in the first degree and sentences of death. We have jurisdiction pursuant to Article V, Section 3(b)(1), Florida Constitution.
Appellants were indicted for the first degree murder of Stephen Anthony Orlando, were found guilty by a jury who after advisory hearing recommended that the death sentence be imposed as to Dougan and that life imprisonment be imposed as to Barclay, 1 were convicted and sentenced to death.
As evidenced by the sentencing order of the trial judge and supported by the record, the facts surrounding the slaying which the judge characterized as a random, racial hate murder are as follows:
"The essential facts as brought out in the trial and by the evidence were that the four defendants were part of a group that termed itself the 'BLACK LIBERATION ARMY' (BLA), and whose apparent sole purpose was to indiscriminately kill white persons and to start a revolution and a racial war.
"The testimony showed that on the evening of June 17, 1974, Dougan, Barclay, Crittendon, Evans and William Hearn set out in a car armed with a twenty two caliber pistol and a knife with the intent to kill a 'devil'. The devil being any white person that they came upon under such advantageous circumstances that they could murder him, her or them.
"That as they drove around the City of Jacksonville they made several stops and observed white persons as possible victims, but decided that the circumstances were not advantageous and that they might be observed or thwarted in their evil purpose by possible witnesses. At one stop, Dougan wrote out a note--which was to be placed on the body of the victim ultimately chosen for death.
"Eventually the five men headed for Jacksonville Beach where they picked up a hitch hiker, eighteen year old, Stephen Anthony Orlando. Against his will and over his protest they drove him to an isolated trash dump, ordered him out of the car, threw him down and Barclay repeatedly stabbed him with a knife. Dougan then put his foot on Orlando's head and shot him twice--once in the cheek and once in the ear--killing him instantly. Crittendon and Evans played a lesser degree in the murder and were thus convicted of murder in the second degree.
"The evidence showed that none of the defendants knew or had ever seen Orlando before they murdered him. The note, which Dougan had previously written, was stuck to Orlando's body by the knife of the murderers. The note read:
" 'Warning to the oppressive state. No longer will your atrocities and brutalizing of black people be unpunished. The black man is no longer asleep. The revolution has begun and the oppressed will be victorious. The revolution will end when we are free. The Black Revolutionary Army. All power to the people.'
"Early the following morning the dead body of Stephen Anthony Orlando was
discovered--police were called to the scene and the knife and note were preserved for evidence and photos were taken of the dead body and surrounding area. An F.B.I. document and handwriting expert compared the death note with other handwriting of Dougan and testified that they were both written by the same person.
"Subsequent to the murder the defendants Barclay and Dougan, by their own admission, and supported by the testimony of state's witnesses, made a number of tape recordings concerning the murder. These recordings were mailed to the Mother of Stephen Anthony Orlando and to radio and television stations. All of the tapes contained much the same in content and intent. The following two pages are excerpts of several tapes which were typical of all--as follows:
" 'Stephen A. Orlando was not murdered, by no means. He was given a fair trial, the same type of fair trial that you gave black people, those same black people who occupy 25 per cent of the American population and 75 per cent of the American prison population. He was tried and found guilty and was executed....'
" 'If you want to know how to spell 'Americans,' just spell it with three Ks instead of one C, you know, like in Ku Klux Klan. You know white people, you can't do right; your nature is evil. But you gonna pay anyway so the black man's freedom must be gotten no matter what it takes. We can't depend on you for our freedom. We tried that once. You freed us with good ole Abe. He gave us the Emancipation Proclamation. That was the first time we were free. Then we dreamed a little longer, suffered a whole lot more, until you decided 'I'm gonna free those niggers again.' Then you gave us the Civil Rights Bill. How many times do you have to free a people before they are free? You know, like, once you freed us, twice you freed us. The third time you might free us for good, just wipe us out like you're trying to do our race as it is, pushing genocide off on black women, trying to eliminate our race, pushing those jive pills off on them. You don't force that off into your urban white, lily white neighborhoods....'
" 'Mary Ann Mallory (Orlando's mother), don't feel so bad. You haven't lost a son; you got a hero. Your son will go down in black history. He'll be enshrined when black people get their freedom....'
" 'You take advantage of us. You oppress us in our black ghettos, then when we rebel, then you come in with your tanks and your National Guards and you spray black people with all that tear gas and you just take advantage of black people....'
" 'We're tired, white man. We're tired of being hasseled, pushed around, told what to do and then having to send our kids to school with you and your funky white offsprings, those things, those stringy-haired things you call your kids ... You see, you white devil, our minds are far superior to that of a white man due to the fact that you have a six-ounce brain and the black man has a seven-and-a-half ounce brain....'
" 'The reason Stephen was only shot twice in the head was because we had a jive pistol. It only shot twice and then it jammed; you can tell it must have been made in America because it wasn't worth a shit. He was stabbed in the back, in the chest and the stomach, ah, it was beautiful. You should have seen it. Ah, I enjoyed every minute of it. I loved watching the blood gush from his eyes....'
" 'He died in style, though, begging, begging and pleading for mercy, just as black people did when you took them and hung them to the trees, burned their houses down, threw bombs in the same church that practices the same religion that you forced on these people, my people.
" 'We are everywhere; you cannot hide from us. You have told your people to get off the streets and to stay home. That will not help, for one night they will come home and we will be there waiting. It has been said, look for us and you cannot see us; listen for us and you cannot hear us; feel for us and you cannot touch us. These are the characteristics of an urban guerilla.'
"All of the tapes ended, 'Signed, Your Black Liberation Army.' "
In detail, the Judge explained each of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances defined by statute and their application to the instant cause, and concluded that the death penalty was the appropriate punishment for appellants. As to the aggravating circumstance of heinousness or atrocity of the crime, the trial judge stated:
"The defendants, Barclay and Dougan, together with others premeditatedly and deliberately stalked their victim and brutally murdered him.
"The victim's only crime was that he was of a different racial group than his murderers. That he in no way offended them nor did he even know them before that fatal evening.
"The victim, Stephen Anthony Orlando, was knocked to the ground and repeatedly stabbed by Barclay as he writhed in pain begging for mercy. Then Dougan shot him twice in the head at close range.
"In addition to an unprovoked, premeditated murder--it was a declaration of war against a racial group--with the promise of more violence, death and revolution to come.
"Such acts of the defendants were of the basest, most callous, homicidal type and shriek out for the severest punishment and the termination of the existence of the perpetrators."
We have carefully considered each of the numerous points raised on appeal by appellants and find that none of them constitute reversible error.
Sections 782.04 and 921.141, Florida Statutes, are not unconstitutional nor were they unconstitutionally applied to appellants. State v. Dixon, 283 So.2d 1 (Fla.1973), Alford v. State, 307 So.2d 433 (Fla.1975), and Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242, 96 S.Ct. 2960, 49 L.Ed.2d 913, decided July 2, 1976.
Relative to appellants' argument that they were denied the right to be tried in the county where the crime occurred, we initially note the following excerpt from the record taken from the hearing on motion for new trial:
"THE COURT: Insofar as the motions made by Mr. Jackson are concerned, the Court ruled upon the issue of the trial in Duval or St. Johns County, finding from the evidence that the incident occurred in Duval County, culminated in St. Johns County; read the specific statute with further instructions to the jury as to that particular aspect of the law. There has been no motion for change of venue insofar as St. Johns County was concerned or motion for change of venue to any other county. The evidence showed that the defendant got in the car, whether it was an abduction, kidnapping or whatever, it started in Duval County and then culminated in St. Johns County."
The indictment charged that appellants "in the County of Duval and the County of St....
