Bradley v. State

• Decision Date: 01 March 2001
• Docket Number: No. SC93373.,SC93373.
• Citation: 787 So.2d 732
• Parties: Donald Lee BRADLEY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

787 So.2d 732

Donald Lee BRADLEY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC93373.

Supreme Court of Florida.

March 1, 2001.

Rehearing Denied June 4, 2001.

Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender, and Nada M. Carey, Assistant Public Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, FL, for Appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and Stephen R. White, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, for Appellee.

PER CURIAM.

We have on appeal the judgment and sentence of the trial court imposing the death penalty upon Donald Lee Bradley. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons stated below, we affirm Bradley's convictions and sentence of death.

TRIAL

Bradley was convicted of murder, burglary, and conspiracy, all arising out of the murder of Jack Jones, which was committed at the request of the victim's wife, Linda Jones. Testimony at trial indicated that Mrs. Jones became distraught and incensed when she learned that Mr. Jones had a sexual affair with Carrie Davis, a teenage girl the Joneses had befriended and taken into their home. When unsuccessful in her numerous attempts to break up the affair, and, upon learning of Mr. Jones's intent to marry the girl, Mrs. Jones sought Bradley's assistance, first to physically intimidate the teenage girl and later to assault and batter Mr. Jones.

Bradley had a landscaping business and Mrs. Jones prepared his tax returns. On October 31, 1995, at the request of Mrs. Jones, Bradley took two of his employees, Brian McWhite and Patrick McWhite, teenage brothers, and Michael Clark, a sometime employee, and set out to retrieve a diamond ring Mr. Jones had given his teenage lover. Once they arrived at the teenager's apartment, however, she refused to open the door. Frustrated, Bradley directed the employees to break the teenager's car windows.

Mrs. Jones then decided to have Bradley assault Mr. Jones, and Bradley and Mrs. Jones agreed on a plan to make the assault look like a burglary of the Joneses' house. On November 7, 1995, at about 8 p.m., Bradley picked up the McWhite brothers and, while at the McWhite brothers' house, Bradley directed Patrick McWhite to pick up a large "zulu war stick" to use on Mr. Jones. The McWhite brothers both testified they agreed to help beat Mr. Jones for a hundred dollars each, but that Bradley never mentioned killing Jones. They also testified to numerous telephone conversations Bradley had with Mrs. Jones immediately before and after the home invasion.

As planned, the McWhite brothers, gloved and ski-masked, entered the Joneses' home through the front door, while Bradley entered through a side door in order to obtain a gun Mrs. Jones told him was kept by Mr. Jones in the kitchen. Mr. and Mrs. Jones were watching television, and when Mr. Jones noticed the McWhite brothers, he immediately told them to get out of his home. When they refused, he started fighting with them.

Thereafter, as described by the McWhite brothers, Bradley administered a brutal and methodical beating to Mr. Jones with the "war stick" and the gun. During the beating, Bradley and one of the McWhite brothers duct-taped Mr. Jones's hands and feet and dragged him to another room, and Bradley continued the beating.¹ At one point, Bradley attempted to shoot Mr. Jones in the head, but the gun malfunctioned. Patrick McWhite testified that Mr. Jones continually begged Bradley to stop the beating, while Brian testified that he too asked Bradley to stop, but Bradley refused. Meanwhile, Mrs. Jones calmly watched the whole episode, and Bradley later duct-taped her hands to make it look like she was a victim. The "burglars" also removed some items of personal property from the house. After they left the house Bradley told the McWhite brothers that he thought he killed Jones. Indeed, Jones died as a result of the beating.

After Mrs. Jones called 911 and reported the episode as a burglary and robbery, Brian McWhite's fingerprints were found, leading to the arrest of the McWhite brothers who later confessed to their participation in the events of that night. A neighbor of the Joneses also reported seeing Bradley's van leave the Joneses' home at the time of the alleged burglary. Bradley later admitted that he had made phone calls to Mrs. Jones on the night of the murder but only about picking up some tax documents from under Mrs. Jones's front door and that he went to the Joneses' home, but left immediately when he did not find the tax documents.

Janice Cole, a long-time friend of Mrs. Jones, testified that a few days before the murder, Mrs. Jones had told her of her desire to take a gun and kill her husband and that she, not some other woman, was entitled to the proceeds of Mr. Jones's life insurance policies worth some $500,000. Brian McWhite also testified that Bradley burned the clothing and the "war stick" involved in Jones's beating, and Bradley told him that he was expecting a payoff of between $100,000 to $200,000 from Mrs. Jones after she received the life insurance proceeds.

The McWhite brothers, Bradley, and Mrs. Jones were all charged with the murder. Mrs. Jones was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder. The McWhite brothers entered into a plea arrangement whereby they received ten-year sentences upon guilty pleas to third-degree murder. The plea agreement also required their testimonies in the trials of Mrs. Jones and Bradley. Bradley was convicted of first-degree murder, burglary, and conspiracy to commit murder.

SENTENCING PHASE

At the sentencing phase proceeding, the State presented one witness, and the defense presented fourteen.² For the State, Patrick McWhite testified that Mr. Jones was alive throughout the beating and continuously begged Bradley to stop.

The trial judge told the jury of the convictions and sentences of Mrs. Jones and the McWhite brothers. The jury was also told of Mrs. Jones's convictions for two other charges of soliciting others to kill her husband. A police detective testified extensively about Mrs. Jones's solicitations of two other men to kill her husband, including proposing a fake burglary plan for the murder that was almost identical to the fake burglary carried out by Bradley during which he killed Mr. Jones. During one of these solicitations Mrs. Jones asked for a silencer for a gun so she could kill herself and her husband's girlfriend. In another, she proposed that the solicited killer kill her husband and the girlfriend.

The defense presented evidence that Bradley came from a very dysfunctional family and was subjected to extensive emotional and physical abuse. The testimony established that Bradley's father was constantly cheating on his wife with the next-door neighbor, Nancy (no last name provided). As a result, Mr. and Mrs. Bradley were constantly fighting as Bradley and his siblings routinely witnessed their father slapping their mother during these confrontations. Unable to deal with the father's infidelity, the mother eventually left the house and moved into an apartment. Nancy then moved in with the father and the children.³

The testimony further revealed that once Nancy moved in, Bradley and his siblings experienced nothing but sheer misery from their father and Nancy. First, the two eldest sisters, Pamela and Cynthia, had to drop out of high school in order to take care of Bradley and the two younger ones since Mr. Bradley and Nancy spent little time with them. The only time spent with Bradley and the siblings consisted mainly of Nancy telling them how much she hated them and the daily beatings by either Nancy or Mr. Bradley upon one or all of them. The beatings could be triggered by a host of events ranging from Nancy telling the father that one of the children was lying to the fact of any of the children drinking or eating before the father got home in the evening. Occasionally, the father would beat them on "general principles," that is, he would beat all of them to ensure that he got the right one or that they already were beaten for the following week. Anticipating the beatings, Bradley and his siblings would cry all night, but as soon as they fell asleep, the father would wake them up and beat them.⁴

To complement the beatings, Nancy and the father would play very odd games with the children. For instance, Cynthia testified that Nancy would mark the milk jug and other food containers before leaving the home so she could tell if any of the children had drunk or eaten anything when she returned; if the food item went below the mark, everyone would get beaten. The father hid dirt in the house before he left and told them they had to find it before he returned; if the dirt was still there, they would all get beaten. Whenever their father and Nancy went out, they would put the children in their room, then place a piece of paper in the door to help them determine whether the children had left their room. They would get a beating for opening the door for any reason, including going to the bathroom, but one of them was beaten for urinating in her room out of fear of dropping the paper off of her room's door.

The testimony also revealed that Bradley received the brunt of the abuse as Nancy and the father took it far beyond the daily beatings. Bradley had broken his arm in some accident and could not move it for days. Nancy, a nurse at the time, and his father refused to take him to the hospital. Because of the pain of the broken arm, Bradley attempted to eat with his left hand but could not and ended up spilling his drink. Nancy then picked up the broken arm, slammed it down on the table and told him the arm was fine. Bradley was finally taken to the hospital after the school threatened to contact the authorities.

In another incident, Bradley was severely suffering from appendicitis, but his father would not take him to the hospital. He eventually took him to Bradley's mother who then immediately took him to the hospital. The hospital treated...