Barnes v. State

• Decision Date: 04 February 2010
• Docket Number: No. SC08-63.,SC08-63.
• Citation: 29 So.3d 1010
• Parties: James Phillip BARNES, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

29 So.3d 1010

James Phillip BARNES, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC08-63.

Supreme Court of Florida.

February 4, 2010.

29 So.3d 1013

James S. Purdy, Public Defender, and George D.E. Burden, Assistant Public Defender, Seventh Judicial Circuit, Daytona Beach, Florida, for Appellant.

Bill McCollum, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, and Barbara C. Davis, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, Florida, for Appellee.

PER CURIAM.

James Phillip Barnes appeals from a judgment of conviction of first-degree murder and a sentence of death, as well as convictions for burglary of a dwelling with an assault or battery, two counts of sexual battery by use or threat of a deadly weapon, and arson of a dwelling. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the convictions and sentence of death.

BACKGROUND

James Phillip Barnes was convicted on December 13, 2007, of the murder of Patricia "Patsy" Miller, a nurse, who was killed in her condominium in Melbourne, Florida, on April 20, 1988. Although Barnes was a suspect at the time of the Miller murder, he was not charged until after he wrote several letters to an assistant state attorney in 2005 and confessed in a recorded interview, which Barnes arranged and in which he was questioned by another inmate about the Miller murder. Even though DNA testing performed in 1997 linked him to the crimes committed against Miller, Barnes was not indicted until April 18, 2006. The indictment charged first-degree murder of Miller, as well as burglary of a dwelling with an assault or battery, sexual battery by use or threat of a deadly weapon (vaginal sexual battery), sexual battery by use or threat of a deadly weapon (anal sexual battery), and arson of a dwelling. At the time of the indictment, Barnes was already serving a life sentence for the first-degree murder of his wife, Linda Barnes, which occurred in 1997.

Barnes immediately sought to waive counsel and was provided a full Faretta¹ hearing. Thereafter, he represented himself throughout the proceedings with

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standby counsel available at all times. On May 2, 2006, Barnes entered an open plea of guilty and waived a sentencing jury and, on May 11, 2006, the trial court ordered a presentence investigation report to be prepared. The court also ordered Barnes' school records and appointed Dr. William Riebsame, a board-certified forensic psychologist, to provide a psychological evaluation of Barnes.

After the State's presentation of evidence of aggravation at the penalty-phase Spencer² hearing on January 22-26, 2007, Barnes refused to present any evidence of mitigation and announced that he would rely only on the fact that he came forward and took responsibility for the murder. Over Barnes' objection, the court appointed special mitigation counsel to investigate and present any other mitigation at the mitigation portion of the Spencer hearing held November 16, 2007. The court entered the sentencing order on December 13, 2007, finding that the six aggravating factors³ outweighed the one statutory mitigator⁴ and nine nonstatutory mitigators,⁵ and imposed a sentence of death for the murder, life sentences for each of the burglary with battery and the sexual battery counts, and thirty years for the arson. Barnes raises two issues on appeal— whether the trial court violated Barnes' Sixth Amendment right to represent himself when it appointed special court counsel to develop penalty-phase mitigation and whether the court reversibly erred in considering a presentence investigation report over Barnes' objection that it contravened his constitutional right to confront witnesses against him. In addition, the Court has a mandatory duty to examine the sufficiency of the evidence or, in this case, the knowing, intelligent, and voluntary nature of Barnes' plea,⁶ and to determine whether

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the death sentence is proportionate. We turn first to a discussion of the facts and procedural history of the case.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The Circumstances of the Murder

The facts of the murder, based upon Barnes' written and taped statements, and as shown in the forensic evidence presented during the penalty phase, are summarized here. On the night of April 20, 1988, Barnes went to Patricia "Patsy" Miller's condominium unit, located at the River Oaks Condominiums in Melbourne, Brevard County, Florida. He did not know Ms. Miller, although he may have encountered her before at the condominium complex, where he knew several of the residents, or at Satellite Beach. Once he arrived at Miller's condominium, he took off all his clothes in order not to leave evidence and obtained entry by removing a screen and entering through a bedroom window. Barnes admitted that he went there with the intent to both rape and kill Miller. Once inside, he armed himself with a knife from the kitchen. After surreptitiously watching Miller go about her normal activities for a short period of time, he confronted her in the bathroom and forced her at knife-point to the bedroom where he sexually battered her. He then bound her hands behind her back with shoelaces that he had removed from some tennis shoes, tied her feet together, and sexually battered her again. Barnes admitted that he tried to strangle her to death with a belt which he had removed from her terrycloth robe but was not successful, so he then bludgeoned the back of her head with a hammer that he found in her bedroom.

Barnes confessed that he took a bank card from her wallet but could not later make it work at an ATM. He also collected everything he touched in Miller's residence, as well as the clothing Miller was wearing, and placed them in a bag. Barnes then set fire to the bed where Miller's body lay in order to eliminate forensic evidence left there. Before leaving in his car, Barnes took all the items that he had bagged, as well as the window screen that he had removed, and left to dispose of the items at another location.

Shortly after 11 p.m., firefighters responded to a fire alarm at the condominium complex and found Miller's charred body face down on the bed in her master bedroom, with her hands bound behind her back with shoelaces. There were varying degrees of burns over her body. The Medical Examiner testified that the cause of death was blunt-force trauma from multiple blows to Miller's head consistent with being beaten with a hammer. Signs of attempted strangulation, including a fractured hyoid bone, which the doctor testified would have taken a great deal of force to accomplish, were also discovered in the autopsy. The Medical Examiner determined that Miller's body was set ablaze after she died from the multiple blows to her head. Even though Barnes attempted to destroy forensic evidence by setting the bed ablaze, sperm was recovered from Miller and was preserved for DNA testing.

Within one week of the murder, the police considered Barnes as a suspect and he was questioned by Sergeant Dennis Nichols of the Melbourne Police Department. At that time, Barnes denied any involvement with the murder and told Sergeant Nichols that he had never been inside

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Ms. Miller's apartment. He also denied knowing Miller, although he indicated he may have seen her once in Satellite Beach. Barnes agreed to give a sample of his blood for possible DNA comparison, but in 1988 the available method of DNA testing was inadequate to produce a match and the case remained unsolved.

In 1998, Barnes was serving a life sentence for the 1997 first-degree strangulation murder of his wife, Linda Barnes. With advanced techniques for DNA testing, specifically the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, sperm removed from Miller's vagina, which was resubmitted for testing in 1997, produced a positive match to Barnes. Subsequently, Sergeant Nichols and Brevard Sheriff's Office Lieutenant Todd Goodyear traveled to the prison to speak with Barnes about the murder, but he refused to speak to them. For unspecified reasons, charges were not filed against Barnes for the Miller murder.

In 2005, while Barnes was still incarcerated on his life sentence for murdering his wife, he wrote three letters to Assistant State Attorney Michael Hunt, a prosecutor who was involved in the case concerning the death of Barnes' wife. The letters to Hunt were dated October 10, 2005, December 7, 2005, and December 21, 2005. In the October 10, 2005, letter, Barnes requested that an interview be held at the correctional facility, with fellow inmate Sherman Insco asking Barnes questions about the Miller case, while law enforcement officers videotaped the interview.

The interview occurred on November 1, 2005. In that videotaped interview, Barnes admitted to the foregoing facts of the burglary, sexual batteries, murder, and arson. He explained how he entered the condominium unit through a bedroom window and said he was in the condominium for approximately forty-five minutes to one hour. During his interview, Barnes described with accuracy Miller's physical appearance, the interior of the apartment, and specific objects he saw in the apartment, including a bicycle, basket-weaving supplies, divorce paperwork, a stethoscope, and oversized curtains. Further, his descriptions of the homicide, the sexual batteries, and the arson were consistent with the evidence gathered by police.

Faretta Hearing and Guilt Phase Proceedings

Shortly after Barnes' indictment, he filed a pro se request for speedy trial and asserted a waiver of counsel. Barnes, age forty-four at the time of the hearing, appeared before Judge Lisa Davidson on May 2, 2006, with an assistant public defender as standby counsel. Barnes again stated his desire to waive counsel and represent himself. Pursuant to his request, the trial court conducted an extensive Faretta hearing during which the judge explained the indictment to Barnes and informed him of the maximum penalties for each...