Bradford v. State, 83-837

• Decision Date: 30 November 1984
• Docket Number: No. 83-837,83-837
• Citation: 460 So.2d 926
• Parties: Bruce Allen BRADFORD, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 926

460 So.2d 926

Bruce Allen BRADFORD, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 83-837.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

Second District.

Nov. 30, 1984.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 31, 1984.

Jerry Hill, Public Defender, and W.C. McLain, Asst. Public Defender, Bartow, for appellant.

Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Robert J. Landry, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tampa, for appellee.

SCHOONOVER, Judge.

The appellant, Bruce Allen Bradford, appeals the judgments and sentences entered against him pursuant to a jury verdict finding him guilty of first-degree murder and arson. He received a life sentence for the first-degree murder charge and a ten-year consecutive sentence for the arson charge. We affirm.

Two of the appellant's five points on appeal merit discussion. They are first, that the trial court erred in admitting bite-mark identification testimony and second, that the trial court erred in denying appellant's motion for judgment of acquittal.

The victim in this case, Brenda Clark, died early on the morning of April 27, 1982. She was beaten, strangled to death, and burned in her bed. Appellant was subsequently arrested and charged with the crimes.

The events leading up to the victim's death took place on Sunday, April 26, 1982. The victim's roommate, Sandra Grein, held a party at her apartment on Marco Island Florida. The party began around noon. The victim was at the apartment most of the day, and at one point during the afternoon her boyfriend, Ray Newman, visited her at the apartment. Mr. Newman was a retired policeman and was married to Marsha Newman. He had a reputation for being jealous of the victim and had been engaged in an affair with her for approximately two months prior to the murder.

The appellant and his neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Al Vandermeulen, also attended the party. When the appellant began making preparations to use cocaine, the victim's boyfriend became upset and left. Shortly thereafter, the victim, who appellant later referred to as a bitch, told appellant and Al Vandermeulen to leave. They chose to remain after Sandra, the roommate, told them they could stay.

At approximately 11:30 p.m. the Vandermeulens left the party and returned to their home in Bonita Springs, Florida. Because appellant had been drinking all day and was to help Sandra move some furniture the next day, Sandra told him he was welcome to spend the night. Appellant slept on the couch in the living room. Lynn Morris, who was another guest, and her son, who had earlier been put to bed in Sandra's room, also decided to spend the night at the apartment. Ms. Morris and her son slept in Sandra's room.

At approximately 3:00 a.m., Sandra woke up to an apartment full of smoke. Upon leaving her bedroom, she noticed the apartment was in disarray. Before she could move throughout the apartment, she had to move a table and some chairs that had been overturned in the dining/living room. Appellant, who had been sleeping on the couch, was no longer in the apartment. After discovering the smoke was coming from the victim's bedroom, Sandra woke Lynn Morris and her son and got them out of the apartment to the balcony. Sandra then threw a pail of water on the victim's bed in order to extinguish the fire. She called the fire department at approximately 3:45 a.m.

When the firemen arrived, they found the victim lying on the bed with a scarf around her neck. Ordinarily, the scarf was tied to a mandolin hanging on the wall outside the door to the victim's room. The victim had been strangled with the scarf. She died before being burned but after her lower jaw had been broken in two places by blunt trauma. A trace quantity of cocaine was found in her nasal passages, and a blood alcohol test revealed the equivalent of one-half of a drink in her blood system.

Although appellant did not testify during the trial, tape recordings of statements he had given to law enforcement officers after the crime were played for the jury. Appellant stated that he had been asleep on the couch when awakened by three men. The largest man grabbed him, struck him twice in the side, and moved him toward the door while telling him to leave. Appellant struck the man once in the mouth with his right hand. Appellant's shirt was torn during the struggle. The second man pointed a gun at appellant's face and motioned for him to leave. Appellant recognized the third man as the victim's boyfriend whom he had seen at the apartment the afternoon before. Appellant left the apartment, drove the fifty-minute drive to Bonita Springs, woke up his neighbor, Al Vandermeulen, and told him what had happened.

Al Vandermeulen testified that appellant knocked on the window of his residence around 4:00 a.m. Mrs. Bradford, appellant's wife, was asleep in the adjoining duplex and testified that she was awakened by this activity at approximately 3:05 a.m. She commented that she had just set the clocks to reflect the time change because of daylight savings time. She noticed that appellant's mouth was bleeding when he entered the house.

Appellant requested that his neighbor return to Marco Island with him to be sure that the victim and her roommate were safe. The neighbor testified that he persuaded appellant not to do this. Instead, they called the apartment, but hung up when a man, who later was identified as a fireman, answered the telephone. Fire department records indicated that a phone call from an unidentified male was received at approximately 4:20 a.m.

The neighbor also testified that appellant's shirt was torn, he had scrapes on his shoulder and side, and he was spitting profusely. The next day he saw scrapes on appellant's hands and observed that appellant appeared to be sore or stiff.

Ray Newman, the victim's boyfriend, denied being jealous of the victim. He testified that he was at the apartment during the party and that he left when one of the men prepared to use cocaine. He testified that he saw the victim again around 4:00 p.m. in the parking lot where they spoke briefly. He denied that he had returned to the apartment later that night and testified that he had been home all evening. His wife gave evidence to support this testimony.

The physical evidence discovered in the victim's bedroom failed to connect appellant to the crimes. One hair found under the body was similar to the head hair of the boyfriend. A blood splatter expert testified that the blood found on the wall was caused from blows to the victim's head. Although there was evidence that the victim had engaged in sexual intercourse approximately twelve hours before her death, there was no evidence of rape or sexual molestation.

An arson investigator testified that an accelerant had been used to enhance the burning. A chemical specialist found no accelerant residue on the mattress, which was determined to be the point of origin of the fire, but testified that alcohol, such as that found in liquor, could be used as an accelerant. He testified further that if diluted by water, alcohol would not leave a residue. Evidence introduced at trial indicated that two one-half gallon whiskey bottles purchased during the course of the party were nearly empty after the murder. Appellant stated that both of the bottles were almost empty when he went to sleep. Other witnesses, however, testified that the second bottle of liquor was almost full when the party ended.

A microanalyst testifying for the prosecution examined appellant's shirt and expressed his opinion that four damaged areas of the shirt, two in the area of the collar and sleeve and two across the front, had been cut and not torn. A textile engineer testifying on behalf of the appellant agreed that two of the questioned areas had been cut, but that in his opinion, the two areas across the front of the shirt had been torn. The experts disagreed concerning whether the shirt could be torn by hand.

Dr. Richard Souviron, a board-certified forensic odontologist, testified as a dental expert for the prosecution. He was qualified as an expert in forensic odontology and bite-mark analysis. In his opinion, within a reasonable degree of dental certainty and/or probability, the victim's teeth made the marks on the defendant's hand. Photographs of the defendant's hand and models of the victim's teeth and jaws were introduced into evidence and were used by the doctor in explaining his testimony.

An orthodontist testified on behalf of the appellant that although he was not an expert in forensic odontology, in his opinion, the victim's teeth had very common characteristics. Of sixty teeth molds of former patients he had examined, eighteen of those people could have made the marks. Four of the molds were introduced into evidence. A dermatologist testifying on appellant's behalf examined appellant's hand and opined that one of the marks noted by Dr. Souviron was a freckle and not an abrasion.

After lengthy deliberation, the jury found appellant guilty of first-degree murder and arson as charged. The appellant filed a timely notice of appeal.

Appellant's first argument is that the trial court erred in admitting the bite-mark identification testimony of Dr. Souviron, the odontologist. Dr. Souviron's testimony was similar to the bite-mark evidence he presented in the recent case of Bundy v. State, 455 So.2d 330 (Fla.1984). In Bundy the supreme court approved this type of testimony, and we approve it in this case.

Dr. Souviron testified that the wounds on appellant's hand were not "bite marks" because they had not been made by someone clamping his teeth down on the hand. He stated that the wounds were "abrasion patterns" that had definitely been caused by teeth. Dr. Souviron's opinion was based upon the examination of photographs showing abrasion patterns upon appellant's hand and the comparison of those patterns with models of the victim's teeth. Using this comparison technique, the doctor was able to determine whether the wounds probably had been, could have...