Cole v. State Of Fla.
| Decision Date | 01 June 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. SC08-528.,SC08-528. |
| Citation | 36 So.3d 597 |
| Parties | Tiffany Ann COLE, Appellant,v.STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender, and W.C. McLain, Assistant Public Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, FL, for Appellant.
Bill McCollum, Attorney General, and Carolyn M. Snurkowski, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, for Appellee.
Tiffany Ann Cole was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping, and two counts of robbery for the 2005 murders of James and Carol Sumner. Cole was sentenced to death for each murder. This case is before the Court on appeal from her convictions and death sentences. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the convictions and sentences.
The evidence presented at trial established that on the night of July 8, 2005, Cole and codefendants Michael James Jackson, Bruce Kent Nixon, Jr., and Alan Lyndell Wade robbed, kidnapped, and murdered the victims.1 At trial, the evidence primarily consisted of codefendant Nixon's testimony, Cole's taped interview with Homicide Detective David Meacham of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office (JSO), and Cole's in-court testimony.
Cole was the only codefendant who knew the victims. The victims were friends with and previous neighbors of Cole's father before the victims moved from the Charleston, South Carolina, area to Jacksonville, Florida. The victims also had recently sold Cole a vehicle and informed her that she was welcome at their home if she was ever in Jacksonville. The plan to rob and murder the victims evolved from knowledge that Cole already had about the victims and that she obtained from the victims in the weeks prior to the crimes.
Cole and Jackson met and became involved in a personal relationship two months before the crimes. During that two-month period, Cole and Jackson often traveled together. In June 2005, Cole and Jackson went to Jacksonville, Florida, to visit Jackson's friend Wade. During this visit, Cole contacted the victims, and Cole and Jackson stayed one night at the victims' home. During the visit, Mrs. Sumner informed Cole that she and Mr. Sumner had recently sold their home near Charleston, South Carolina, and had profited $99,000. Following the initial trip to Jacksonville and additional trips between Charleston and Jacksonville, Cole, Jackson, Wade, and Wade's friend Nixon developed a plan to rob the victims. At the time of the crimes, Cole and Jackson were twenty-three years old and Wade and Nixon were eighteen years old. The victims were in their early sixties but were both in poor health and especially frail.
In preparation for the robbery, Nixon stole four shovels to dig a hole. From a rental agency in South Carolina, Cole had previously rented a Mazda RX-8, which she used to transport the group. Two days before the murders, Cole, Jackson, and Wade picked Nixon up in the Mazda. The group drove around until they selected a remote location-in Georgia, just across the Florida state line-to dig a large hole. While Cole held a flashlight, Jackson, Wade, and Nixon dug the hole, which was approximately four feet deep and six feet square. The group left the shovels at the hole when they completed the excavation. Nixon testified that in the two days after digging the hole, the foursome drove around discussing “what [they] were going to do” and “how [they] were going to do it.” He stated that the foursome planned the robbery together and that Cole was the one who knew the victims and who “set everything up.” The group initially did not know whether they would enter the Sumners' home while the victims were home and kidnap the victims or wait until the victims were away from their home. Nixon testified that Cole knew when the victims would be away from their home for a doctor's appointment. The foursome ultimately decided that they would kill the victims. Nixon testified that Jackson informed the others that he would kill the victims at the grave site by injecting them with a lethal dose of medication.
On the night of the crimes, July 8, 2005, Cole and her codefendants purchased duct tape and plastic wrap. Cole wrote a personal check for these items. Later that night, Cole drove the foursome to the victims' home. Initially, Cole and Jackson remained outside in the rented Mazda. Wade and Nixon knocked on the door, and when Mrs. Sumner responded, Wade asked to use her telephone. After Mrs. Sumner allowed Wade and Nixon into her home, Wade ripped the telephone cord from the wall. Nixon held the victims at gunpoint with a toy gun, took the victims to a bedroom, and bound them with duct tape. After Wade and Nixon contacted Jackson through Nextel two-way radio phones-which the group used to communicate throughout the course of the crimes-Jackson entered the victims' home. Jackson and Wade then searched the victims' home for bank account records. Cole drove down the street and waited in the Mazda. Eventually, the victims were taken to their garage and forced into the trunk of their Lincoln Town Car. Cole drove back to the victims' home in the Mazda after Jackson called her. Jackson placed a trash bag containing some of the victims' belongings in the Mazda's trunk and got into the Mazda. Wade and Nixon then drove the victims' Lincoln to a gas station to refuel it, and Cole and Jackson followed in the Mazda.
The foursome, with the victims in the Lincoln's trunk, then drove to the remote Georgia location where they had previously dug the large hole. Upon arrival, Cole remained with the Mazda at the edge of the road, while her codefendants drove the Lincoln into the woods to the hole. At some point, Nixon joined Cole at the road. The evidence shows that only Jackson and Wade were present at the hole when the victims were put into the hole and buried alive. When Jackson returned from the woods to the Mazda, Jackson had the personal identification number (PIN) for the victims' automated teller machine (ATM) card. The foursome drove both cars from the grave site to Sanderson, Florida, where they wiped down the Lincoln and abandoned it. The foursome then left in the Mazda, with Cole driving.
The group next stopped at an ATM in Jacksonville, from which Jackson withdrew money from the victims' bank account. The group then retired to a motel. Later that night, after purchasing Clorox and gloves, Cole and Wade returned to the victims' home. The evidence shows that at that time Cole and Wade took the victims' computer from the home. Subsequently, Cole pawned Mrs. Sumner's rings and the victims' computer.
On July 10, 2005, Rhonda Alford, Mrs. Sumner's daughter, reported to the JSO that she had been unable to contact the victims for several days. That same day, Officer Vindell Williams of JSO spotted a Lincoln Town Car in Sanderson that was later determined to be the victims' Lincoln. On July 12, 2005, Homicide Detective David Meacham of the JSO responded to the victims' home to investigate. In their home, he saw a bank statement that showed a large sum of money in the victims' bank account. After contacting the bank, he learned that during the past few days there had been an unusually large amount of ATM withdrawals-totaling several thousand dollars-from the victims' account.
Later on July 12, Detective Meacham learned that someone claiming to be Mr. Sumner had contacted the JSO. Detective Meacham returned the call. The person claiming to be Mr. Sumner was later identified as codefendant Jackson. As Mr. Sumner, Jackson asked Detective Meacham to assist him in accessing his bank account; by that time Jackson was apparently having trouble accessing the account. As Mr. Sumner, Jackson explained that he and Mrs. Sumner had left town quickly to attend Mrs. Sumner's sister's funeral in Delaware. When Detective Meacham asked to speak to Mrs. Sumner, Cole posed as Mrs. Sumner and pretended to be tired and ailing. Detective Meacham contacted the bank and requested that it continue to allow access to the victims' account so that Detective Meacham could continue his investigation.
Since Detective Meacham suspected that he was not actually speaking to the Sumners, he contacted United States Marshal David Alred to assist in tracking the cellular telephone number used by the callers. The cell phone was registered to Jackson and had been used near the victims' home around the time of the victims' abduction. The cell phone records also showed calls to a South Carolina rental car company. Detective Meacham contacted the company, which indicated that it had rented a silver Mazda RX-8 to Cole and that the car was overdue. Using the rental car global positioning system, law enforcement officers determined that the Mazda had been within blocks of the victims' home on the night of the murders.
As Detective Meacham continued to investigate the victims' disappearance, Jackson continued to withdraw money from the victims' bank account. Jackson made multiple ATM withdrawals from the victims' bank account between the early hours of July 9 and the night of July 13, 2005. Photo surveillance captured Jackson making several of these withdrawals. Cole drove Jackson to the ATM machines in the rented Mazda; the Mazda could be seen in some of the surveillance photographs.
Detective James Rowan of the North Charleston Police Department testified that he found the rented Mazda in the parking lot of an abandoned office building near the rental company. Detective Rowan went to Cole's residence near Charleston, South Carolina, and David Duncan, Cole's brother, led Detective Rowan and other officers to the nearby Best Western Hotel where Cole, Jackson, and Wade were staying. Two rooms were rented to Cole. At the motel, officers found and arrested Cole, Jackson, and Wade. The police obtained a search warrant for the motel rooms. In the motel room where Cole and Jackson were...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Yacob v. State
...and premeditated (CCP), the aggravating factor in this case is not typically considered especially weighty. See Cole v. State, 36 So.3d 597, 610 (Fla.2010) (noting that CCP and prior violent felony conviction are “particularly weighty” aggravators); Larkins v. State, 739 So.2d 90, 95 (Fla.1......
-
Jackson v. State
...(citing Morton v. State , 789 So.2d 324, 331 (Fla. 2001) ; Larkins v. State , 739 So.2d 90, 95 (Fla. 1999) ). But see Cole v. State , 36 So.3d 597, 609–10 (Fla. 2010) (concluding that an invalid finding of the HAC aggravating circumstance was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in light of t......
-
Mullens v. State
...gloves, did not use a mask, and stated that if he ever committed a robbery, he would not leave any witnesses”); see also Cole v. State, 36 So.3d 597, 607 (Fla.2010) (approving the avoid arrest aggravating circumstance when the defendant transported a victim before killing the victim); Loone......
-
Cole v. State
...first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping, and two counts of robbery for the 2005 murders of James and Carol Sumner." Cole v. State , 36 So.3d 597, 599 (Fla. 2010). On appeal, this Court set out the facts of the crimes:The evidence presented at trial established that on the night of Jul......
-
Pretrial motions and defenses
...cross of a flipped codefendant (the judge corrected counsel regarding the terms of a plea deal) is not fundamental error. Cole v. State, 36 So. 3d 597 (Fla. 2010) (See Hurst v. State , 18 So. 3d 975 (Fla. 2009) for discussion of the effect and legality of ex parte communications between the......
-
Evidence
...financial gain motive for the murders. Photos of people partying at the beach present little danger of unfair prejudice. Cole v. State, 36 So. 3d 597 (Fla. 2010) Defendant was arrested for a murder and taken to an interview room. He gave a statement admitting to the crime, and the officer t......