Benedith v. State, 89368

• Decision Date: 11 June 1998
• Docket Number: No. 89368,89368
• Citation: 717 So.2d 472
• Court: Florida Supreme Court
• Parties: 23 Fla. L. Weekly S303 Arturo BENEDITH, Appellant, Cross-Appellee, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee, Cross-Appellant.

Page 472

717 So.2d 472

23 Fla. L. Weekly S303

Arturo BENEDITH, Appellant, Cross-Appellee, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee, Cross-Appellant.

No. 89368.

Supreme Court of Florida.

June 11, 1998.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 10, 1998.

James B. Gibson, Public Defender, and George D.E. Burden, Assistant Public Defender, Seventh Judicial Circuit, Daytona Beach, for Appellant, Cross-Appellee.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and Judy Taylor Rush, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee, Cross-Appellant.

PER CURIAM.

We have on appeal the convictions and judgment of the trial court imposing a sentence of death upon Arturo Benedith. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. We affirm appellant's convictions for first-degree felony murder and robbery with a firearm but vacate the sentence of death and remand for imposition of a sentence of life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for twenty-five years.

On the night of May 5, 1993, the Melbourne Police Department responded to a complaint at the Colonial Motel in Melbourne. At the scene, the police found John Shires' dead body face down in the motel parking area. At trial, Shires' roommate testified that Shires had placed a newspaper advertisement offering his 1991 red Nissan Stanza for sale. On the evening of the murder, Shires left his home after telling his roommate he was going to sell his car.

During the afternoon of that same day, May 5, 1993, witness George Lane saw appellant Benedith sitting with Thomas Taylor outside the Colonial Motel where Lane lived with his girlfriend. Later that evening, around 10 p.m., Lane was returning from an errand when he again saw appellant and Taylor who at that time were standing together beside a red car near a telephone booth in the motel parking area along with a man who was holding some papers and was later identified as Shires. Lane testified that as he drove into the motel parking area he saw Shires standing "in the door" of the car. Appellant was standing behind Shires and Taylor in front of the open door. Lane parked his car and went into his motel room. Lane looked out toward the parking area four or five minutes later after he heard three gunshots. When he looked out the window of his room after hearing the shots, Lane noticed that the red car had been moved to a slightly different location. He also saw Shires' body on the ground and saw Taylor quickly get into the passenger seat of the red car just before the car sped away. He did not testify that he saw appellant after the shooting. Lane was the sole eyewitness to testify as to events surrounding the shooting.

The medical examiner testified that two bullets entered the left side of Shires' face, and the third bullet entered in the middle right side of his back and passed through his lungs and heart. He testified that he could not determine the order in which the bullets were fired into Shires' body.

Witness Ishmael Loblack, an auto mechanic, testified that around noon on May 5, 1993, the day of the murder, appellant and Taylor visited him at his trailer. Appellant asked Loblack to paint a car that appellant was planning to drive to New York. About midnight that same night, appellant knocked on Loblack's door and told Loblack that he had the car ready to be painted for his trip to New York. Loblack declined to paint the car and advised appellant to return the next day. Loblack identified Shires' car as the car appellant had at Loblack's trailer the night of May 5.

Police found Shires' car abandoned a few blocks from the murder scene. Appellant's fingerprints were on the hood, right and left fenders, driver-side windshield post, and trunk lid. Codefendant Taylor's fingerprints were on the front passenger-side door. Just over a month later, appellant was identified as being in possession in New York City of what was proven to be the murder weapon.

Appellant was charged with first-degree premeditated murder and robbery with a firearm. He was convicted by a jury of first-degree felony murder during a robbery and robbery with a firearm. After a penalty-phase proceeding, the jury recommended the death sentence by a vote of ten to two. The trial judge followed the jury's recommendation and sentenced Benedith to death.

On appeal, Benedith raises fifteen claims. ¹ Of these, we will discuss claims one and three. We find the claims concerning penalty-phase issues to be moot because we are remanding to the trial court with directions to impose a life sentence. ² The remaining claims are procedurally barred or without merit. ³ The State cross-appeals, raising two claims. ⁴

In his first claim, appellant contends that the trial court erred in failing to grant a judgment of acquittal for first-degree felony murder because the circumstantial evidence was legally insufficient to support the guilty verdict. Appellant cites McArthur v. State, 351 So.2d 972 (Fla.1977), and Davis v. State, 90 So.2d 629 (Fla.1956). In these cases involving only circumstantial evidence this Court held that the State's evidence must not only be consistent with defendant's guilt but must also be inconsistent with any reasonable hypothesis of innocence. McArthur, 351 So.2d at 978 (quoting Davis, 90 So.2d at 631). Appellant offers as his hypothesis of innocence the explanation that he was at the Colonial Motel talking with Shires because he planned to purchase Shires' car, not to steal it, and that he did not steal the car but only helped Taylor get away after Taylor killed Shires.

In State v. Law, 559 So.2d 187 (Fla.1989), we stated the trial judge's task in deciding a motion for acquittal in a circumstantial evidence case:

It is the trial judge's proper task to review the evidence to determine the presence or absence of competent evidence from which the jury could infer guilt to the exclusion of all other inferences. That view of the evidence must be taken in the light most favorable to the state. The state is not required to "rebut conclusively every possible variation" of events which could be inferred from the evidence, but only to introduce competent evidence which is inconsistent with the defendant's theory of events. Once that threshold burden is met, it becomes the jury's duty to determine whether the evidence is sufficient to exclude every reasonable hypothesis of innocence beyond a reasonable doubt.

Law, 559 So.2d at 189 (citations and footnote omitted).

Our review of the present record reveals that evidence presented at trial linked appellant to a plan to rob the victim of his car. Appellant contacted Loblack, the auto mechanic, on the day of the murder about painting a car he wanted to drive to New York. On the night of the murder, appellant was identified by Loblack as having the victim's car. Appellant's fingerprints were on the car. Appellant was identified as being with the victim beside the victim's car within five minutes of the firing of the shots that killed the victim. The victim's car was seen leaving the parking lot where the victim's body was left after the murder. Within a month of the murder, the murder weapon was in appellant's possession in New York when appellant attempted a robbery to which appellant pled guilty. The other participant in this crime was fourteen years old at the time of the crime and was seen in the front passenger seat of the victim's car as the car was driven away just after the murder. Although appellant was not seen in the car as it was being driven away, appellant was no longer seen in the motel parking lot after the car was driven away.

Based on these facts in the record, we find that the evidence on which the State relies is sufficient for the judge to have submitted this case to the jury on the theory of felony murder as to appellant. Jackson v. State, 575 So.2d 181, 186 (Fla.1991). Therefore, we find no error in the trial court's denial of appellant's motion for judgment of acquittal for the felony murder of John Shires or for the armed robbery which was the underlying felony. ⁵ We affirm appellant's convictions for first-degree murder and armed robbery.

This brings us to the penalty phase. We conclude that appellant's death sentence cannot be sustained on the basis of the evidence presented by the State because the evidence was insufficient to withstand an analysis pursuant to Tison v. Arizona, 481 U.S. 137, 107 S.Ct. 1676, 95 L.Ed.2d 127 (1987); Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782, 102 S.Ct. 3368, 73 L.Ed.2d 1140 (1982), and Jackson, 575 So.2d at 190. ⁶

We find this case to be remarkably similar to Jackson, in which we affirmed felony murder and robbery convictions based upon circumstantial evidence. Id. at 193. We vacated the death sentence because we found insufficient evidence to establish that Jackson was the actual shooter or that Jackson's state of mind was sufficiently culpable to rise to the level of reckless indifference to human life warranting a death sentence for felony murder. Id. at 192-93. In Jackson, we stated:

In Enmund and Tison, the Court said that the death penalty is disproportional punishment for the crime of felony murder where the defendant was merely a minor participant in the crime and the state's evidence of mental state did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant actually killed, intended to kill, or attempted to kill. Mere participation in a robbery that resulted in murder is not enough culpability to warrant the death penalty, even if the defendant anticipated that lethal force might be used, because "the possibility of bloodshed is inherent in the commission of any violent felony and this possibility is generally foreseeable and foreseen." Tison, 481 U.S. at 151, 107 S.Ct. at 1684. However, the death penalty may be proportional punishment if the evidence shows both that the defendant was a major participant in the crime, and that the defendant's state of mind amounted to reckless indifference to human life. As the Court said, "we simply hold that major...