Brown v. State

• Decision Date: 12 May 1988
• Docket Number: No. 68690,68690
• Citation: 13 Fla. L. Weekly 317,526 So.2d 903
• Parties: 13 Fla. L. Weekly 317 Morris BROWN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 903

526 So.2d 903

13 Fla. L. Weekly 317

Morris BROWN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 68690.

Supreme Court of Florida.

May 12, 1988.

Rehearing Denied July 14, 1988.

Michael E. Allen, Public Defender and David A. Davis, Asst. Public Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, for appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen. and Richard E. Doran, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellee.

BARKETT, Justice.

Morris Lavon Brown appeals his conviction of first-degree murder and sentence of death. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. We affirm appellant's conviction but reverse his sentence and remand for imposition of a life sentence in accordance with the jury's recommendation.

The facts of the murder were recounted at trial by nineteen-year-old Edward Cotton, the co-defendant. ¹ In the early evening hours of April 4, 1985, Cotton and eighteen-year-old Brown donned stocking masks and held up a convenience store. The robbery was interrupted by a customer who fled under fire. After driving away from the scene of the robbery, Cotton and Brown were intercepted by Officer Bevis of the Jackson County Sheriff's office. The officer directed Cotton to exit the car and produce his driver's license. During this process Bevis looked inside the car and saw a stocking mask, a credit card belonging to the store clerk who had just been robbed, and a gun. Bevis ordered appellant out of the car at gunpoint and told him he "would blow his head off" if he ran. Bevis then directed both men to place their hands on the patrol car while he radioed for assistance. At this point, appellant suggested to Cotton that they jump Bevis, but Cotton refused. As Bevis tried to handcuff Cotton, appellant jumped Bevis and the two men struggled in the road. Cotton testified that he tried to break up the struggle but gave up and moved to the middle of the road. Cotton then heard a shot, heard Bevis say "please don't shoot," and heard two more shots. Cotton and appellant then fled in their automobile. Another police car soon gave chase, forcing Cotton and Brown to abandon their vehicle and run into the woods. After a few moments, Cotton returned to the road and surrendered. Appellant was captured the following morning.

The medical examiner testified that Bevis had been shot once in the arm and twice in the head and that either shot to the head would have caused instant death.

At the penalty phase, the state presented evidence relating to certain of the enumerated aggravating factors, and the defense, in mitigation, presented evidence of mental handicap, serious emotional disturbance in general and at the time of the crime, and an impoverished family background. The jury returned a recommendation of life imprisonment but the court sentenced Brown to death, finding four aggravating factors (previous conviction of violent felony, ² murder committed during robbery, ³ murder to avoid arrest or hinder law enforcement, ⁴ murder especially heinous, atrocious and cruel ⁵ ) and one mitigating factor (age ⁶ ).

Appellant asserts three grounds for reversal of his conviction. The first is the trial judge's inexperience. The trial judge in this case had retired after serving as a judge of the Criminal Court of Record for Orange County from 1963 to 1972. In 1981, he was appointed by the Governor to serve for one year as a county judge to fill a vacancy created by death. ⁷ As a retired judge, he periodically has been appointed to serve on the bench and was assigned to preside over this trial by special order of this Court. ⁸ Appellant does not challenge the trial court's jurisdiction, but claims that the trial judge was unqualified to sentence in this capital case because he did not have enough experience in sentencing persons convicted of serious felonies, or that the experience he did have was too remote in time. In support of his position, appellant relies on certain language in State v. Dixon, 283 So.2d 1 (Fla.1973), cert. denied, 416 U.S. 943, 94 S.Ct. 1950, 40 L.Ed.2d 295 (1974), and Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242, 96 S.Ct. 2960, 49 L.Ed.2d 913 (1976), relating to the trial judge's role vis-a-vis that of the jury in Florida's death sentencing scheme. We find nothing in these decisions, upholding the constitutionality of Florida's death penalty statute, or elsewhere, suggesting that a judge must acquire some threshold level of experience before he or she is qualified to preside in a capital case. We therefore reject this argument as meritless.

In his second point, appellant asserts that the change of venue from Jackson County, where the offense occurred, to Bay County violated his sixth amendment right to a jury drawn from a representative cross-section of his community. In a novel challenge, appellant does not complain about the jury selection process or the voter registration list from which prospective jurors are drawn, see, e.g., People v. Harris, 36 Cal.3d 36, 201 Cal.Rptr. 782, 679 P.2d 433, cert. denied, 469 U.S. 965, 105 S.Ct. 365, 83 L.Ed.2d 301 (1984), but contends rather that moving the case to Bay County resulted in a systematic exclusion of blacks because only eight percent of those eligible for jury duty in Bay County were black compared to twenty-two percent in Jackson County. This argument must be rejected on the facts of this case. The record clearly shows that appellant's jury was composed of nine whites and three blacks. Since the percentage of blacks on the actual jury (twenty-five percent) exceeded the percentage of blacks in the community (twenty-two percent), appellant cannot claim to have been denied the opportunity to be tried by a representative cross-section of his community.

Third, appellant argues that this Court should grant a new trial because of the insufficiency of the evidence combined with other errors. ⁹ The record clearly reflects sufficient evidence to support appellant's conviction. Cotton's testimony was substantially corroborated by physical evidence and expert witnesses. We are not persuaded by appellant's argument that the evidence was insufficient because Cotton's testimony was suspect due to his interest in minimizing his own involvement in the crime and because he gave a somewhat different version of the shooting when arrested; ¹⁰ these were matters for the jury to consider and resolve.

As to sentence, appellant challenges the court's finding that the murder was heinous, atrocious and cruel, and its rejection of the jury recommendation of life imprisonment. We find merit to both points.

In Dixon, 283 So.2d at 9, this Court stated:

It is our interpretation that heinous means extremely wicked or shockingly evil; that atrocious means outrageously wicked and vile; and, that cruel means designed to inflict a high degree of pain with utter indifference to, or even enjoyment of, the suffering of others. What is intended to be included are those capital crimes where the actual commission of the capital felony was accompanied by such additional acts as to set the crime apart from the norm of capital felonies--the conscienceless or pitiless crime which is unnecessarily torturous to the victim. [Emphasis added.]

It appears from the sentencing order that the trial judge based his finding that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel to a large degree upon the victim's status as a law enforcement officer. ¹¹ The mere fact that the victim is a police officer is, as a matter of law, insufficient to establish this aggravating circumstance. See Fleming v. State, 374 So.2d 954, 958 (Fla.1979) (murder of police officer shot during struggle for weapon no more shocking than majority of murder cases); Cooper v. State, 336 So.2d 1133 (Fla.1976) (murder of police officer by shooting twice in the head not especially atrocious), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 925, 97 S.Ct. 2200, 53 L.Ed.2d 239 (1977). Nor is an instantaneous or near-instantaneous death by gunfire ordinarily a heinous killing. Odom v. State, 403 So.2d 936, 942 (Fla.1981), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 925, 102 S.Ct. 1970, 72 L.Ed.2d 440 (1982); Lewis v. State, 398 So.2d 432, 434, 438 (Fla.1981); Riley v. State, 366 So.2d 19, 21 (Fla.1978).

In this case, the evidence indicated that the fatal shots came almost immediately after the initial shot to the arm. The murder was not accompanied by additional acts setting it apart from the norm of capital felonies and the evidence disproved that it was committed so as to cause the victim unnecessary and prolonged suffering. See Gorham v. State, 454 So.2d 556, 559 (Fla.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1181, 105 S.Ct. 941, 83 L.Ed.2d 953 (1985); Lewis v. State, 377 So.2d 640 (Fla.1979). We therefore conclude that this crime was not "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" as defined in Dixon.

Lastly, we find the trial judge erroneously overrode the jury's life recommendation. For the trial judge to overrule the recommendation of the jury, the facts justifying the death sentence must be so clear and convincing that the jury can be said to have acted unreasonably. Tedder v. State, 322 So.2d 908, 910 (Fla.1975). See also Ferry v. State, 507 So.2d 1373 (Fla.1987); Washington v. State, 432 So.2d 44 (Fla.1983); Norris v. State, 429 So.2d 688 (Fla.1983); Brown v. State, 367 So.2d 616 (Fla.1979); Provence v. State, 337 So.2d 783 (Fla.1976), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 969, 97 S.Ct. 2929, 53 L.Ed.2d 1065 (1977).

Here, there was ample evidence mitigating against death to support the jury's decision. The jury's recommendation could have been based not only on appellant's youth but also on his mental and emotional handicap and impoverished background.

According to expert testimony, appellant had an IQ of 70-75, classified as borderline defective or just above the level for mild mental retardation. At age ten, he had been placed in a school for the emotionally handicapped. Although chronologically eighteen, he had the emotional maturity of a preschool child. The psychologist concluded that both...