Cole v. State, 87337
| Decision Date | 18 September 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. 87337,87337 |
| Parties | 22 Fla. L. Weekly S587 Loran COLE, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
James B. Gibson, Public Defender and Christopher S. Quarles, Assistant Public Defender, Seventh Judicial Circuit, Daytona Beach, for Appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General and Judy Taylor Rush, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee.
We have on appeal the judgment and sentence of the trial court imposing a death sentence upon Loran Cole. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons expressed below, we affirm Cole's convictions and death sentence but remand to the trial court for imposition of appropriate sentences for the remaining convictions for which Cole was adjudicated guilty.
On February 18, 1994, Pam Edwards, a senior at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, drove to the Ocala National Forest, where she met her brother, John Edwards, a freshman at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. The two planned on camping in the forest for the weekend and eventually decided to camp in Hopkins Prairie. They were setting up camp when Loran Cole briefly stopped by their campsite. Cole soon returned to the campsite, introduced himself as "Kevin," and helped them set up camp. After John and Pam ate dinner, Cole and William Paul came to the Edwards' campsite. Paul was carrying a walking stick and was introduced to the Edwards as Cole's brother. The four sat around the campfire, and at about 10:45 p.m., they decided to walk to a pond.
The four walked for a while but never found the pond. Instead, Cole jumped on Pam and knocked her to the ground. She got up and tried to run; however, Cole caught her, hit her on the back of the head, handcuffed her, and threw her down on the ground. Meanwhile, John had taken Paul's walking stick and was hitting him with it. Cole then helped Paul subdue John and moved John on the ground next to Pam. While they lay close to each other on the ground, John apologized to Pam for having exposed them to the dangers of these two strangers. Cole told the Edwards that he wanted to take their cars, and he went through their pockets and took their personal property, including their jewelry.
Paul took Pam up the trail, and he was complaining about his hand and head, which were injured in the altercation with John. Pam could hear Cole asking John why he hurt Cole's brother and could hear John grunt a few times. Cole then came to where Pam and Paul were sitting and told them that they were going to wait until John passed out. Cole called back to John several times, and John responded by moaning. Eventually, Cole told Pam he was going to move John off the trail and tie him up. Pam then heard something that resembled a gagging sound. When Cole returned, he said that John must be having trouble with his dinner, hinting that John was vomiting. John died that night from a slashed throat and three blows to the head, which fractured his skull. The injury to the throat caused a loss of blood externally and internally into John's lungs.
Pam, Paul, and Cole then started walking back to Cole's campsite. On the way, they walked past John, and he was not moving. At the campsite, Cole forced Pam to sleep naked by threatening her that unless she cooperated, she and John would be killed. Cole then forced her to have sexual intercourse with him.
The next morning, Cole went to check on John and told Pam that John was fine. Cole left the campsite to purchase marijuana. When he returned, the three smoked marijuana, and Cole again forced Pam to have intercourse with him. After eating dinner, they packed up as much of the camp as would fit into the backpacks carried by Cole and Paul. Cole then gagged Pam and tied her to two trees. Cole and Paul left in Pam's car and went to a friend's trailer, where they spent the night. The two left several items of John Edwards' personal property at the trailer. Thereafter, Cole and Paul returned Pam's car to the Ocala National Forest and took John's car, a Geo Metro.
By the early morning on Sunday, Pam was able to free herself of the ropes. She did not move because she was afraid that if Cole and Paul returned and she was not there, they would hurt John. She stayed in that spot until daylight and tried to find John. When she was unable to find him, she flagged down a motorist, who took her to call the police. The police returned with Pam to the scene, and the police located John's body. The body was face down and was covered with pine needles, sand, debris, and small, freshly cut palm fronds. Both of his hands were in an upward fetal position; there was a shoestring ligature around his left wrist and a shoestring partially wrapped around his right wrist.
Police thereafter arrested Paul and Cole in Ocala on Monday, February 21, 1994. Paul and Cole were indicted on charges of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping with a weapon, and two counts of robbery with a weapon. Cole was also indicted on two counts of sexual battery. Paul pleaded nolo contendere to the charges and was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole for twenty-five years on the murder charge and concurrent terms on the remaining charges. After a jury trial, Cole was found guilty on all counts of the indictment. A penalty-phase hearing was held, after which the jury unanimously recommended death. Finding four aggravators, 1 no statutory mitigators, and two nonstatutory mitigators, 2 the trial court followed the jury's recommendation and sentenced Cole to death.
On appeal, Cole raises fourteen issues. 3 In his first issue, Cole claims that the trial court abused its discretion in allowing a portion of Pam Edwards' testimony to be read back to the jury during the jury's deliberations in the penalty phase. The jury requested to hear her testimony regarding John having difficulty with dinner. Defense counsel objected, requesting that the jury either be instructed to rely on its own recollection or be read the direct, cross, and redirect testimony of Pam regarding the whole scenario of the trail incident. The trial court determined that the court reporter could read that portion of the testimony over defense counsel's objection. Before the testimony was read, the jury clarified its request, asking for Pam's testimony beginning with John's apology to Pam. This portion of the testimony was then read to the jury.
Under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.410, upon request of the jury, a trial court has the discretion to order testimony be read to them. See Haliburton v. State, 561 So.2d 248, 250 (Fla.1990). We have found no abuse of discretion when a trial court rereads testimony specifically requested by the jury and that testimony is not misleading and does not place undue emphasis on any particular statements. Garcia v. State, 644 So.2d 59, 62 (Fla.1994); Haliburton. We have reviewed the record in this case and find no abuse of discretion by the trial court in allowing the rereading of portions of the testimony. The portions reread to the jury were directly responsive to the jury's request, and the limited rereading was not misleading and did not place undue emphasis on portions prejudicial to Cole. Accordingly, we find this issue meritless.
In issue two, Cole contends that the trial court erred in conducting several portions of the trial in Cole's absence. First, we reject Cole's claim regarding his absence from a hearing on the motion to sever. The record reflects that the trial court delayed hearing arguments on the motion until Cole was present. The trial court ultimately granted the motion at a status conference at which Cole was present. Thus, we find this issue without merit. 4
Cole also contends that the trial court erred in holding numerous bench conferences in the hallway outside the courtroom without Cole's presence. However, the record reflects that at the beginning of the trial, defense counsel noted that the acoustics were poor in the small courtroom and sound carried. He then asked that side-bar conferences be held either in the hallway or the jury room. Defense counsel agreed with the trial court that the conferences should be held in the hallway. We have stated that a defendant does not have a constitutional right to be present at bench conferences involving purely legal matters. Coney v. State, 653 So.2d 1009, 1013 (Fla.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 315, 133 L.Ed.2d 218 (1995); Hardwick v. Dugger, 648 So.2d 100 (Fla.1994). Upon our review of the claimed errors, the record shows that these conferences involved purely legal issues for which Cole's presence would not have aided counsel. This claim is also procedurally barred because Cole did not make a contemporaneous objection to any bench conferences being held in the hallway or to his desire to participate in any of the conferences. See generally Hardwick at 105.
In issue three, Cole claims the trial court erred in allowing the introduction of victim-impact evidence. At the outset, we reject Cole's request that we should recede from our holding in Windom v. State, 656 So.2d 432, 438 (Fla.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 571, 133 L.Ed.2d 495 (1995), in which we found that victim-impact evidence was admissible pursuant to section 921.141(7), Florida Statutes (1993), once there is present in the record evidence of one or more aggravating circumstances described in section 921.141(5), Florida Statutes (1993). Cole also claims that the evidence introduced in this case exceeds the proper boundaries of section 921.141(7). During the penalty phase, the State presented the testimony of Brock Fallon, one of John Edwards' high school teachers. Fallon testified that John was a good student who was respected for his scholastic abilities as well as his personality. Based upon our review of the record concerning Fallon's testimony, we find that...
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