Bryan v. State

• Decision Date: 22 September 1988
• Docket Number: No. 68803,68803
• Citation: 13 Fla. L. Weekly 575,533 So.2d 744
• Parties: 13 Fla. L. Weekly 575 Anthony B. BRYAN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 744

533 So.2d 744

13 Fla. L. Weekly 575

Anthony B. BRYAN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 68803.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Sept. 22, 1988.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 5, 1988.

Ted A. Stokes, Milton, for appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen. and Royall P. Terry, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellee.

SHAW, Justice.

Bryan appeals his convictions for first-degree murder, kidnapping with a firearm and robbery with a firearm, and the imposition of the death penalty. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.

Appellant was arrested in Madison County, Florida, driving a stolen car in late August 1983. A sawed-off shotgun was found in the car. His companion, Sharon Cooper, was released soon thereafter and voluntarily went to the FBI with a report that appellant had robbed, kidnapped, and murdered the victim here, George Wilson, in early August 1983. Appellant was also wanted by the FBI for a 27 May 1983 bank robbery in Grand Bay, Alabama. After his return to Santa Rosa County for trial, appellant escaped in June 1984 and was recaptured in Colorado in October 1985. Appellant was convicted of bank robbery in federal court in April 1986 prior to the convictions here.

The chief witness for the state, Cooper, testified as follows. She met appellant in June 1983 in Jacksonville and the two hitchhiked to Mississippi where appellant obtained a truck. They then drove back to Florida, stopping en route for appellant to retrieve the hidden sawed-off shotgun which he had used in the bank robbery. At Gulf Breeze, Florida, appellant obtained a cabin cruiser outboard motor boat. Abandoning the truck, the two traveled by water to Mississippi. En route, the motor was damaged and they put in at Pascagoula, Mississippi, near a seafood wholesaler for whom the elderly victim worked as a night watchman. Appellant, who is an experienced commercial fisherman and former captain of a large shrimp boat, borrowed tools from the victim and others and unsuccessfully attempted to repair the cabin cruiser. Abandoning the boat, and using the shotgun, appellant robbed the victim of his wallet and keys and tied him up. After entering the seafood wholesaler, which was closed for the night, appellant returned and placed the bound victim in the back seat of the victim's car. The three then drove to Santa Rosa County for a short stay in a motel. Later in the morning, the victim was driven to an isolated area where, with his hands tied, he was marched at gunpoint to a creek. The victim, fearing for his life, asked that he not be crippled. Appellant struck the victim in the back of the head with the shotgun and, when he fell into the creek, killed him with a single blast to the face. Appellant then concealed the victim's car in a river and resumed his travels with Cooper until arrested in Madison County. Other evidence against appellant included: (1) his fingerprints taken from the abandoned cabin cruiser and testimony of witnesses who saw him in the vicinity of the wholesaler prior to the crimes; (2) identification of the sawed-off shotgun as the murder weapon by weapon experts and prints of appellant taken from the internal workings of the weapon; (3) the testimony of a federal prisoner that appellant confessed the crimes to him in Missouri and asked for his assistance in concocting an alibi, which testimony was corroborated by a written outline of the alibi in appellant's handwriting on paper which contained appellant's prints; (4) photographs of appellant robbing the bank with a sawed-off shotgun similar to the murder weapon and testimony from investigators and witnesses to the bank robbery showing that appellant had pawned and redeemed the unmodified shotgun prior to the bank robbery and that the sawed-off portion of the barrel and the stock were seized in appellant's home on the day of the bank robbery.

Appellant raises six issues for our consideration. Appellant first argues that evidence of other crimes was introduced contrary to section 90.404(2), Florida Statutes (1983), and Williams v. State, 110 So.2d 654 (Fla.), cert. denied, 361 U.S. 847, 80 S.Ct. 102, 4 L.Ed.2d 86 (1959). During its case-in-chief, the state introduced evidence which revealed that appellant had committed a bank robbery in late May 1983, approximately three months prior to the crimes here, and had stolen a boat in Gulf Breeze, approximately one week prior to the instant crimes. Appellant argues that the evidence of bank robbery and boat theft did not contain facts significantly similar to the crimes charged, and, thus, in appellant's view, was inadmissible. The state argues that the evidence of these crimes was part of the res gestae and was thus admissible. Neither argument is particularly useful because neither focuses on the controlling question of relevancy. Res gestae has no clear meaning and has been criticized as a convenient ambiguity which is not only useless but harmful. Green v. State, 93 Fla. 1076, 113 So. 121 (1927); Williams v. State, 188 So.2d 320 (Fla. 2d DCA 1966), cert. discharged, 198 So.2d 21 (Fla.1967); C. Ehrhardt, Florida Evidence § 803 (2d ed. 1984). The evidence here was direct testimony, the admissibility of which turned on its relevancy to some point at issue. Section 90.404(2) is entitled "Other Crimes, Wrongs, or Acts," as is Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) on which our rule is based. Evidence of "other crimes" is not limited to other crimes with similar facts. So-called similar fact crimes are merely a special application of the general rule that all relevant evidence is admissible unless specifically excluded by a rule of evidence. The requirement that similar fact crimes contain similar facts to the charged crime is based on the requirement to show relevancy. This does not bar the introduction of evidence of other crimes which are factually dissimilar to the charged crime if the evidence of other crimes is relevant. As we pointed out in Williams:

Let us begin with a reminder that we here deal with so-called similar fact evidence which tends to reveal the commission of a collateral crime. Our initial premise is the general canon of evidence that any fact relevant to prove a fact in issue is admissible into evidence unless its admissibility is precluded by some specific rule of exclusion. Viewing the problem at hand from this perspective, we begin by thinking in terms of a rule of admissibility as contrasted to a rule of exclusion. With regard to similar fact evidence, illustrated by that in the case at bar, those who would exclude it invoke the principles of undue prejudice, collateral issues and immateriality. In so doing it appears to us that they disregard the basic principle of the admissibility of all relevant evidence having probative value in establishing a material issue.

....

It will be seen that early in the history of the development of this rule in Florida, this court committed itself to the concept that all relevant evidence having probative value is admissible save to attack character even though it would have a tendency to suggest the commission of a separate crime. Killins v. State, 28 Fla. 313, 9 So. 711, and Langford v. State, 33 Fla. 233, 14 So. 815. Another often cited early decision is Wallace v. State, 41 Fla. 547, 26 So. 713, 718. Here again, citing as authority among other cases State v. Lapage 57 N.H. 245 and Makin v. Attorney General of New South Wales, supra, this court stated its position to be that proof of any fact with its circumstances even though amounting to a distinct crime is admissible if it has "some relevant bearing upon the issue being tried". Once more we find relevancy to be the test of admissibility. If the proffered evidence is relevant to a material fact in issue, it is admissible even though it points also to a separate crime.

Williams, 110 So.2d at 658, 660 (emphasis in original). The only limitations to the rule of relevancy are that the state should not be permitted to make the evidence of other crimes the feature of the trial or to introduce the evidence solely for the purpose of showing bad character or propensity, in which event it would not be relevant, and such evidence, even if relevant, should not be admitted if its probative value is substantially outweighed by undue prejudice. Our later case law reiterates the controlling importance of relevancy. In Randolph v. State, 463 So.2d 186, 189 (Fla.1984), cert. denied, 473 U.S. 907, 105 S.Ct. 3533, 87 L.Ed.2d 656 (1985), we reexamined Williams and stated:

In that case the Court laid down the test of the admissibility of such evidence as being one of relevancy. Even if the evidence in question tends to reveal the commission of a collateral crime, it is admissible if found to be relevant for any purpose save that of showing bad character or propensity.

In Ruffin v. State, 397 So.2d 277 (Fla.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 882, 102 S.Ct. 368, 70 L.Ed.2d 194 (1981), we rejected the argument that such evidence must be necessary, not merely relevant.

In Williams v. State, we announced a broad rule of admissibility based upon relevancy. Necessity has never been established by this Court as an essential requisite to admissibility. In Williams, we declared that any fact relevant to prove a fact in issue is admissible into evidence even though it points to a separate crime unless its admissibility is precluded by a specific rule of exclusion.

Ruffin, 397 So.2d at 279-80. Similarly, in Ashley v. State, 265 So.2d 685, 694 (Fla.1972), we held:

So long as evidence of other crimes is relevant for any purpose the fact that it is prejudicial does not make it inadmissible. All evidence that points to a defendant's commission of a crime is prejudicial. The true test is relevancy.

In the case at hand, the evidence surrounding the bank robbery was relevant to the issue of ownership and possession of the murder weapon by appellant. The state was able to match the registration number of the murder weapon to a...