Chavez v. State
Citation | 832 So.2d 730 |
Decision Date | 21 November 2002 |
Docket Number | No. SC94586.,SC94586. |
Parties | Juan Carlos CHAVEZ, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
Court | United States State Supreme Court of Florida |
Robert Augustus Harper, Steven Brian Whittington, and Jason Michael Savitz of Robert Augustus Harper Law Firm, P.A., Tallahassee, FL, for Appellant.
Richard E. Doran, Attorney General, and Scott A. Browne, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, FL, for Appellee.
The opinion issued in this case on May 30, 2002, is withdrawn, and the following revised opinion is substituted in its place. We have on appeal the judgment and sentence of the trial court imposing the death penalty upon Juan Carlos Chavez. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons stated below, we affirm the judgments and sentences under review.
On the afternoon of September 11, 1995, nine-year-old Samuel James ("Jimmy") Ryce disappeared after having been dropped off from his school bus at approximately 3:07 p.m. at a bus stop near his home in the Redlands, a rural area of south Miami Dade County. An extensive and well-publicized search of the area followed, but failed to locate the child.
At that time, the defendant, Juan Carlos Chavez, was living in a trailer on property owned by Susan Scheinhaus. Chavez worked as a handyman for the Scheinhaus family, and was permitted to use their Ford pickup truck to run errands or do other work for the family. As part of his duties, Chavez frequently cared for horses owned by the Scheinhaus family, but housed on property owned by David Santana, which contained an avocado grove. There was also a trailer on that property, referred to throughout Chavez's trial as the "avocado grove trailer" or the "horsefarm trailer."1 In August or September of 1995, Mrs. Scheinhaus reported to the police several times that items (including a handgun and some jewelry) were missing from her residence. Although she suspected Chavez, she lacked evidence of his culpability. She testified at trial that, in November, she had decided to obtain the evidence required to pursue her claim. With the help of a locksmith, on December 5, 1995, while Chavez was away for the day, Mrs. Scheinhaus and her son, Edward Scheinhaus ("Ed"), entered the trailer located on her property which Chavez occupied. She found the handgun—which she later identified in court as a gun she had purchased in April of 1989—in plain view on a counter opposite the trailer door.
As Mrs. Scheinhaus continued to look inside the trailer, she discovered, in the closet area, a book bag which was partially open. Looking inside the bag, she saw papers and books. The work appeared to be in a child's handwriting, and she noticed the name "Jimmy Ryce." She also observed this name on one of the books.2 When Mrs. Scheinhaus asked her son to look at the items, he also recognized the child's name.
As a result of this discovery, Mrs. Scheinhaus notified the FBI. When Chavez returned to the Scheinhaus residence at about 7:15 on the evening of December 6, armed FBI agents quickly surrounded and secured him. After being patted down, he agreed to go with Metro Dade Police officers, who were also present, to the station for questioning.
Chavez was involved in a questioning process that was punctuated by regular refreshment, food, bathroom breaks and a rest period, and interspersed with two outings returning to the Scheinhaus and Santana properties in southern Miami Dade County. Although Chavez was first brought to the police station on the night of December 6, he did not sleep until shortly after midnight on December 7.3 Detective Luis Estopinan, who was bilingual, conducted most of the questioning, although other officers also participated. Various police detectives, an FBI agent, Mrs. Scheinhaus and an independent interpreter all had opportunities to observe Chavez at various times throughout this period. Chavez was consistently described as alert and articulate during this time, and no one observed police detectives mistreating Chavez in any way throughout the period of questioning. He received repeated warnings and instructions in accordance with Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and indicated that he fully understood them on four occasions during the period of interrogation.
Over the course of the interrogation, and after having been repeatedly advised of his Miranda rights and knowingly waiving them, Chavez provided several versions of his involvement in Jimmy's disappearance. As law enforcement officers engaged in a contemporaneous investigation of Chavez's changing narratives, he agreed to accompany officers on two occasions to visit the horse farm property and the Scheinhaus property, where he showed them the location of the events he had recounted had transpired. On those occasions, Chavez was asked to reveal where the boy's remains were located, to permit Jimmy's family to have closure.
After the physical evidence resulting from this contemporaneous investigation totally discredited each version of events which Chavez had initially proposed, Chavez agreed to tell the truth. However, Chavez explained that, before he would disclose the location of Jimmy's remains, he wanted the officers to guarantee that he would receive the death penalty. Estopinan advised Chavez that he could not guarantee that the death penalty would be imposed. However, Chavez continued to talk, asserting that the events would not have happened had he not been sexually battered by a relative in Cuba. Estopinan told Chavez that he
A break followed this inquiry and then Chavez reiterated to Sergeant Jimenez the most recent account which he had given Estopinan. Chavez then went to the restroom for another break and, upon returning to the interview room, informed the officers that they were now going to hear the truth:
Chavez proceeded to admit to Estopinan and Jimenez that he had abducted Jimmy at gunpoint, traveled to the horse ranch, and sexually assaulted Jimmy before finally shooting him. Estopinan explained that the officers would need details from Chavez,4 and requested permission to take a sworn statement. Chavez agreed to continue the questioning, and Estopinan and Jimenez "began to get details" about what had happened to Jimmy Ryce. At trial, Estopinan testified regarding the final version of Chavez's statement.
Chavez said that he had observed young children playing in water on his way home from Home Depot at approximately 3 p.m. Some of the boys were wearing just their underwear, and "as he saw the young boys wearing just the[ir] underwear, he took an interest in them." After observing the children, Chavez drove off, but returned a short while later, because he "still had a mental picture of what happened, meaning that he saw the young boys in their underwear by the canal bank, and decided that he wanted to take another look." Estopinan testified:
He said at this point he's feeling something sexual and he wants to—he is—what he's doing, he's doing picture— what he explains to me is that he has a mental picture in his mind of the young boys in the canal with their underwear and he's also picturing Jimmy Ryce the young boy, and what he does as he's driving the pickup truck in the opposite direction of Jimmy Ryce, he said at the time he had with him the Scheinhaus revolver, the Taurus, .38 caliber. And he said at this time Jimmy is walking on the left side of the road, and what he did is driving on the opposite side, he begins to drive on the opposite side of the traffic and drives and stops right in front of Jimmy Ryce causing him to stop.
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