Baxter v. State, 89-02939

• Decision Date: 13 September 1991
• Docket Number: No. 89-02939,89-02939
• Citation: 586 So.2d 1196
• Parties: Glenn Patrick BAXTER, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. 586 So.2d 1196, 16 Fla. L. Week. D2394
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 1196

586 So.2d 1196

Glenn Patrick BAXTER, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 89-02939.

586 So.2d 1196, 16 Fla. L. Week. D2394

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

Second District.

Sept. 13, 1991.

W. Thomas Wadley of Rahdert & Anderson, St. Petersburg, for appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Charles Corces, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Tampa, for appellee.

ALTENBERND, Judge.

Glenn Patrick Baxter appeals his conviction for conspiracy to traffic in 400 or more grams of cocaine. Secs. 893.135(5), .135(1)(b)3., Fla.Stat. (1987). Although he raises several issues on appeal, only one merits discussion. The defendant contends that the state's evidence was insufficient to permit the introduction of his confession and to support his conviction. We disagree and thus affirm his conviction.

In the summer of 1988, the defendant approached a friend and asked the friend if he could obtain some cocaine. The friend was a confidential informant for the Pinellas County Sheriff's Department. As a result, the sheriff's department set up a reverse sting.

The informant called the defendant on the telephone on September 13, 1988, to discuss the transaction. The informant's telephone was equipped with a tape recorder. In the recorded conversation, the defendant indicated that he wanted to purchase the cocaine for a man named "Caesar." The defendant indicated that he needed to call Caesar to determine if Caesar was willing to pay $19,000 for one kilogram of cocaine.

On the following day, the confidential informant again called the defendant. The men discussed the possibility of a half-kilogram transaction. In that recorded call, the defendant explained that Caesar owned a business known as "Rubber City." It is undisputed that Caesar Grajoles owned Rubber City. These recorded telephone conversations between the defendant and the informant were played to the jury without objection.

After the telephone calls and further discussions, the defendant agreed to purchase one kilogram of cocaine from the informant for $18,500. The men agreed to meet at a convenience store and to complete the deal at the defendant's home. Thus, the police deployed several undercover officers around the home to observe the sale. The defendant left his home to meet the informant. During the defendant's absence, Mr. Grajoles arrived at the defendant's home. According to the undercover officers, Mr. Grajoles drove through the neighborhood and approached the home in a manner which they believed to be counter-surveillance activity.

The informant and the defendant met at the convenience store and proceeded to the defendant's home. During the sting operation, the informant wore a body transmitter and acted under police supervision and surveillance. When they arrived at the home, Mr. Grajoles was standing outside. Upon seeing the informant, Mr. Grajoles said "See you later," and immediately left in his car. The informant believed that Mr. Grajoles knew about the informant's recent arrest in a separate drug deal.

When Mr. Grajoles quickly left the defendant's home, some of the police officers followed his car without attempting to stop him. Mr. Grajoles took evasive action and the police eventually lost sight of his vehicle. The police later arrested Mr. Grajoles at his home.

As a result of Mr. Grajoles' sudden exit, the sale was not completed. According to the informant, the defendant reacted angrily to the lost deal. The defendant's wife was present in their home during the aborted transaction. She had known the informant since middle school and knew Mr. Grajoles as a friend of her husband. Although she did not hear any conversations between her husband and Mr. Grajoles concerning the drug deal, she did hear her husband and the informant discuss the cocaine deal after Mr. Grajoles had left. The wife asked the informant to leave the cocaine at the home, but he declined to do so and instead returned to the sheriff's department.

Shortly thereafter, the police questioned the defendant at his home. After receiving Miranda warnings and waiving his constitutional rights, the defendant admitted to the officers that he agreed to act as a broker in the cocaine deal. He stated that Mr. Grajoles agreed to pay him $500 for arranging the deal. The defendant also told the officers that he was supposed to buy some of the cocaine from Mr. Grajoles at a reduced price. It is this confession that the defendant argues should not have been admitted into evidence.

Although presented by the defendant as a single issue, this point on appeal actually involves two distinct issues. First, in order to permit the introduction of the confession, did the state establish the corpus delicti of a conspiracy to traffic in cocaine between the defendant and Mr. Grajoles? ¹ Second, did the state establish a prima facie case of such a conspiracy to submit the case to the jury? We answer both issues in the affirmative.

Concerning the first issue, the nature and quality of the corroborative evidence that the state must present in order to use a defendant's confession is not always easy to describe. ² As a result, it is helpful to begin any analysis of the rules concerning corpus delicti with a reminder that their function is not to satisfy a magic Latin phrase. Rather, the primary function served by requiring corroborative evidence for the admission of a confession is to protect a defendant from being convicted of a nonexistent crime due to "derangement, mistake or official fabrication." State v. Allen, 335 So.2d 823, 825 (Fla.1976). See also Opper v. United States, 348 U.S. 84, 75 S.Ct. 158, 99 L.Ed. 101 (1954). Independent proof of the corpus delicti assures that someone actually committed the offense described in the information or indictment. See Farinas v. State, 569 So.2d 425 (Fla.1990); Allen; Thomas v. State, 531 So.2d 708 (Fla.1988); Stone v. State, 378 So.2d 765 (Fla.1979), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 986, 101 S.Ct. 407, 66 L.Ed.2d 250 (1980); Frazier v. State, 107 So.2d 16 (Fla.1958); Davis v. State, 582 So.2d 695 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991). Corroborative evidence also helps preserve the integrity of our system of justice from false confessions.

To accomplish these functions, Florida law determines the elements of the corpus delicti of the charged crime or an applicable lesser offense and then requires the state to establish those elements with a sufficient quantum of evidence. Thomas; Parrish v. State, 90 Fla. 25, 105 So. 130 (1925). The elements of "the body of an offense," i.e., its corpus delicti, do not necessarily include each element of proof required to establish the defendant's guilt. For example, the defendant's identity is not typically an element of a crime's corpus delicti. Allen.

I. THE CORPUS DELICTI OF CONSPIRACY.

In Jimenez v. State, 535 So.2d 343 (Fla. 2d DCA 1988), this court stated:

The crime of conspiracy involves an express or implied agreement between two or more people to commit a criminal offense. Both an agreement and an intent to commit the offense are necessary elements. It has been well settled that mere presence at the scene of an offense coupled with knowledge of the offense is insufficient to establish a conspiracy.

Id. at 344 (citations omitted). Conspiracy involves more than merely aiding and abetting and should not be allowed to become "so elastic" as to defy definition. Ramirez v. State, 371 So.2d 1063 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979), cert. denied, 383 So.2d 1201 (Fla.1980); see also Ashenoff v. State, 391 So.2d 289 (Fla. 3d DCA 1980). While presence at the scene of an offense or an attempted offense by itself is insufficient to establish participation in a conspiracy, presence is a factor which the jury may consider in addition to other evidence. Herrera v. State, 532 So.2d 54 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988).

The elements necessary to show that the crime of conspiracy has been committed are distinctly different from the elements associated with a crime such as homicide. This seems especially true where the object of the conspiracy is a single, uncompleted crime. ³ An implied, two-party agreement to commit an inchoate crime and the intent of the parties to commit that crime may exist with little or no physical evidence to establish them. For many rational or irrational reasons, during a criminal transaction such as the purchase of illegal drugs, a person may make untrue statements suggesting the involvement of a fictitious partner or a real person unconnected to the transaction. ⁴

As a result, the criminal justice system guards against convictions for imaginary conspiracies. Because of such concerns, even when there is evidence that a defendant has committed a crime, we have not always allowed an uncorroborated confession to be the...