Darling v. State

• Decision Date: 03 January 2002
• Docket Number: No. SC94691.,SC94691.
• Citation: 808 So.2d 145
• Parties: Dolan DARLING, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

808 So.2d 145

Dolan DARLING, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC94691.

Supreme Court of Florida.

January 3, 2002.

Rehearing Denied February 12, 2002.

James B. Gibson, Public Defender, and Christopher S. Quarles, Assistant Public Defender, Seventh Judicial Circuit, Daytona Beach, FL, for Appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and Judy Taylor Rush, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, FL, for Appellee.

PER CURIAM.

We have on appeal a judgment of conviction of first-degree murder and a sentence of death. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.

MATERIAL FACTS

The victim in this case, Grazyna Mlynarczyk ("Grace"), was a thirty-three-year-old Polish female living illegally in the United States. The State's first witness, Zdzislaw Raminski (known as "Jesse"), had met the victim in Poland in 1990 or 1991. Grace and Jesse developed a personal relationship, which continued when Grace moved to Orlando on September 28, 1992.

Jesse owned and operated Able Transportation, which provided shuttle service to and from the airport, and Grace was employed part-time with this enterprise. The last time Jesse saw Grace alive was on the morning of October 29, 1996, at around 9:30. At that time she was wearing shorts and a small shirt, as she was doing laundry in a facility at her apartment complex. Jesse did not exit his vehicle when talking with Grace only briefly that morning. She told Jesse that she had an appointment with a gynecologist later that day. Jesse gave Grace an AmSouth Bank envelope containing three hundred dollars cash in payment for work she had performed for the company during the prior week. Jesse drove away from the apartment complex and proceeded to work. Jesse again spoke with Grace around 10:15 a.m. by phone, and she indicated that she was still doing laundry, and would call him after she returned from her doctor's appointment. Although Jesse continued to telephone Grace throughout the day, he was unable to reach her again. Around 4:10 p.m., Jesse called again and was still unable to reach Grace. He became concerned that she had not telephoned him after her doctor's appointment, so he returned to her apartment complex.

Upon arriving there, he was surprised to find that the blinds to Grace's apartment— which she never closed during the day-time —were closed. He used his key to enter the apartment, where he found a basket with laundry in the living room, and the door to the bedroom closed. He recalled seeing no disturbed objects in the apartment. Upon entering the bedroom, however, he found Grace. She was on her back on the floor, naked from the waist down, with her face near the bed and her legs inside the closet. When she did not respond to him, Jesse moved Grace to the bed, and discovered that she was cold, and had blood on her. He proceeded to call 911 for assistance and members of the fire department arrived shortly thereafter. They soon determined that Grace was dead.

Officers from the Orange County Sheriffs Office responded to the scene and secured items of evidence found in the bathroom, which included a lotion bottle, a pair of panties, and a pink throw pillow. The pillow had a blackened area and a gunshot hole through the sides. There was blood spatter on the door of the closet, and blood present in the closet area. Two AmSouth Bank envelopes were found which contained cash totaling approximately twelve hundred dollars and a shoe box was discovered which contained one thousand dollars. There was also a wallet which held fifty-eight dollars. Jewelry located in boxes appeared to be undisturbed.

An officer who had canvassed Grace's neighborhood to determine whether there were witnesses with information regarding the murder testified that he had contacted Darling on October 30, the day after the murder. Darling's apartment was located just north of Grace's apartment. In response to the investigating officer's inquiry, Darling had said that "he was working and didn't know anything of the incident."

Dr. William Robert Anderson of the Orlando Medical Examiner's Office testified at trial. His testimony included a discussion concerning the "defect" in the pillow, particularly the "cloud of soot" from the "burning gun powder" left on the pillow as the "bullet comes out." The gun was fired at close range because he observed "in the victim only a small amount of soot material. But ... on the pillow there is a significant amount of that soot material." Dr. Anderson indicated that "the end of the weapon was up against that pillow ... fairly tightly." He also testified that the "defect in the middle is consistent with a bullet passing through ..., creating a tear." When the doctor first saw Grace, "[r]igor mortis was complete," and he estimated that she "was probably dead at least six hours from the time we saw her, which was about seven."

Dr. Anderson testified that the bullet entered "the right back of the head." Grace had an abrasion there "consistent with something having been up against the cloth transferring energy across to the skin and creating that." "That pillow" was consistent with the abrasion. The doctor found that Grace had "some vaginal injuries, but nothing that would make her bleed significantly." There was "[a] lot of bleeding ... inside the brain," but "she's gonna die pretty quick." He stated that "[c]onsciousness would probably not be more than a few seconds," and that "[s]he would have no motor activity" or any "ability to move anything at that point." The doctor stated that "the rapidity [with] which she dies" is "one of the reasons she probably didn't bleed."

The doctor stated that there was "seminal purulent" in Grace's vaginal area and bruising on the "back of the elbows ... consistent with some moving around." There was "a hemorrhage," which "means that took place when circulation was alive." The vaginal area abrasions were "consistent with vaginal trauma from penetration of some object, penial, digital, some other object." The doctor pointed out that the "tear of the labia majora, which is a very sensitive area" was "quite painful," adding: "This would not be consistent with consensual sex, in that the pain would interrupt the activity. It would be painful enough that consensual sex would not apply after that point." The doctor observed that "there wasn't anything in the labia that would explain those abrasions other than trauma."¹ The victim's "rectal area" had "some tears," which were caused by "[d]igital penetration, penial penetration, some trauma." The doctor opined that this, too, was painful. He further indicated that the "gunshot wound to the head with the injuries... described" was the cause of Grace's death.

Photographs and records of fingerprints found in Grace's apartment were developed and submitted to a comparison expert. A photograph of fingerprints from the lotion bottle was developed, and admitted into evidence as Exhibit 14. At trial, the State's expert in the detection, enhancement, and recording of fingerprints opined that the fingerprint on the lotion bottle had been there for less than one year. The State's expert in the area of fingerprint comparison compared the fingerprints on Exhibit 14 with fingerprints obtained from Darling. He testified at trial that he found a print on the lotion bottle which matched that of Darling's right thumb.

The State's expert in the area of forensic serology tested vaginal swabs and a rectal smear which were taken from the victim's body, and found semen on them. A stain card containing Darling's blood which had been prepared for examination and comparison was admitted into evidence at trial without objection.

David Baer, a Senior Crime Laboratory Analyst in the DNA Section of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) Orlando Crime Laboratory, also testified as an expert at trial. He indicated that he had been with FDLE for some nineteen years. He had begun doing DNA work in the laboratory upon its inception in 1991, and had continued to work there until the date of trial. Upon Baer's being tendered as an expert by the State, defense counsel objected on the basis that "this witness hasn't indicated any qualification in the area of statistical analysis."

Baer stated that, although he did not "claim to be a statistician," he was "familiar with how statistics are used in this instance." He indicated that he relied on the expertise of other statisticians in reaching his expert opinion. However, he also indicated that he had been qualified to render an expert opinion in the area of statistical interpretation of DNA tests "just about any time I testify on DNA," having never been denied expert qualification in that area. He stated that he had been qualified as an expert in the performance and interpretation of DNA allowances in Florida courts "fifty to sixty times." His training in the area of DNA statistical analysis included completion of a 160 hour course which included "about sixteen hours in statistics"; in addition, he had been educated in statistics in several "other short courses," including a statistics workshop in 1995.

Baer testified that he used the modified ceiling principal formula, which is a variation of the product rule recommended by the National Research Council² in its 1992 Report. He acknowledged that there are "issues about the genetic variation between different populations," and to compensate for that, he did three calculations in Darling's case. Each calculation utilized a different database: one was based on African-American data,³ one was based on Caucasian data, and one was based on Southeastern Hispanics from the Miami area, where there are racial differences in DNA types. In Baer's opinion, use of the ceiling principal compensated for any differences within the major ethnic groups, which he stated are regarded as "very insignificant," in any event.⁴

Baer testified that "[t]here is no one formula for a sample size" for a DNA...