Douglas v. State
| Decision Date | 06 May 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. SC02-1666.,SC02-1666. |
| Citation | 878 So.2d 1246 |
| Parties | Luther DOUGLAS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender, and Nada M. Carey, Assistant Public Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, FL, for Appellant.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, and Curtis M. French, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, for Appellee.
Luther Douglas, who was twenty-five years old at the time of the crime, was convicted of the December 1999 sexual battery and first-degree murder of eighteen-year-old Mary Ann Hobgood. The jury recommended a sentence of death by a vote of eleven to one. Finding that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances, the trial judge followed the jury's recommendation and imposed a sentence of death. This is Douglas's direct appeal of his convictions and death sentence.1
On the evening of December 25, 1999, Hobgood left her parents' house in Jacksonville, Florida, with her friend, Misty Jones. Douglas, who was Jones's boyfriend at the time and who had not previously met Hobgood, drove Jones to Hobgood's house and drove away with both women in his vehicle. The vehicle Douglas was driving that night was a red Ford Escort, which belonged to Jimela Dozier, the mother of one of Douglas's children. Jones later described the condition of the vehicle that night as dirty with trash inside and pollen and dirt on the exterior. After leaving Hobgood's, the three first stopped at a liquor store and bought a bottle of rum and soda, which Douglas and Hobgood drank. They then went to several bars in the Jacksonville area. Around midnight, Jones indicated that she was not feeling well and Douglas drove her home. Douglas then left Jones's house in the Escort with Hobgood.
Approximately two hours later, Douglas arrived at the apartment where he was living and asked a teenage occupant to go with him to "take care of some business." When Douglas's request was refused he left the apartment.
Jones testified that Douglas called her in the early morning hours of December 26, first telling her that he had dropped Hobgood off at a bar and then stating that he had taken Hobgood home. When Jones saw Douglas that morning she noticed scratch marks on his neck that had not been there the previous evening. In Douglas's presence, Jones called Hobgood's home, and after speaking with Hobgood's mother, learned that Hobgood had not returned home. When Hobgood's sister called Jones sometime later that day, Jones told her that they had been out the night before with Timothy Hightower, Jones's ex-boyfriend. Jones testified that she lied to Hobgood's sister because Douglas was with her and she figured that something was wrong.
Jones then confronted Douglas regarding Hobgood's whereabouts. The two went for a drive in the red Escort, which Jones noticed was newly clean inside and out. During the drive, Douglas admitted to Jones that he had beaten Hobgood and thrown her out of the car, leaving her for dead. Jones recalled that when she asked Douglas if he beat Hobgood because "she didn't have sex with black boys,"2 Douglas just smiled. Douglas also told Jones that if she was questioned she should point the blame toward Hightower or she would end up like Hobgood. When police officers questioned Jones later that night she told them the same story she relayed to Hobgood's sister — that she and Hobgood had gone out with Hightower. Jones also gave a sworn statement to that effect. Jones subsequently recanted those statements when the officers questioned her again in January 2000 and told her that they knew she had lied.3
On the afternoon of December 26, 1999, Hobgood's body was found along a set of railroad tracks. She was positioned on her back in a shrub line with her legs stretched out in front of her. Hobgood's body was nude from the waist down, except for her black socks. Her knit top and black bra were torn and pushed up to her shoulders, exposing her breasts. A few feet from Hobgood's body, the police found a tire lug wrench, a rubber car part and a blood soaked maroon jacket. The maroon jacket was later identified by Jones as the one worn by Douglas on December 25. A Jacksonville Sheriff's Office detective testified that the rubber car part looked identical to a part recovered from the red Ford Escort.
Associate medical examiner Dr. Matthew Areford, who went to the scene on December 26 and performed the autopsy on Hobgood on December 27, noted that Hobgood had suffered extensive injury, particularly to her head. Dr. Areford concluded that she died of blunt head trauma. Dr. Areford testified that while Hobgood was alive she received at least ten separate blows to her face, seven blows to the back of her head and seven to ten blows to her hands and arms. Her jaw and nose were broken, several of her teeth had been knocked out and her right shoulder was dislocated. Dr. Areford indicated that these injuries could have been inflicted by another person's fist or by a hard object such as the lug wrench found at the scene. Several of the wounds on Hobgood's arms and hands were consistent with defensive wounds.
Although Dr. Areford could not determine the sequence of the injuries inflicted on Hobgood while she was alive, he opined that it was unlikely that Hobgood was struck from behind, fell to the ground and was hit a number of times while unconscious. Dr. Areford explained that such a scenario was inconsistent with the defensive type injuries found on Hobgood's hands and forearm as well as with the fact that there were injuries to all sides of her head, which indicated that she was rolling from side to side.
The autopsy also disclosed extensive injuries to Hobgood's body, in addition to those described above, which were inflicted after her death. Dr. Areford testified that these injuries were consistent with her body having been run over by the undercarriage of a car.
During the autopsy, Dr. Areford collected a rape kit, which included a set of vaginal swabs. Further analysis of the rape kit was conducted by David George, a serology analyst employed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). George testified that the vaginal swabs tested positive for the presence of semen.
Subsequent DNA testing matched the semen collected from Hobgood to Douglas. Thomas Petree, an FDLE crime analyst with expertise in serology and DNA, testified that the odds of finding a random match between the sperm taken from the first vaginal swab and Douglas's known DNA profile are approximately one in 660 trillion African-Americans. The odds of finding a random match between the sperm taken from the second vaginal swab and Douglas's known DNA profile are approximately one in 170 quadrillion African-Americans.4
On December 27, 1999, Douglas called Jimela Dozier, who had returned to Jacksonville the night before. During the conversation, Douglas asked Dozier to retrieve some items from the trunk of the Escort. When Dozier opened the trunk she found a watch and two rings in the pocket of a black leather jacket. Douglas explained that the leather jacket and the jewelry were Christmas presents for her. The black leather jacket and jewelry were identified at trial as belonging to Hobgood.
The Ford Escort was taken to the FDLE laboratory in Jacksonville. Douglas's fingerprints were found on the inside and outside of the car and Jones's prints were found on the passenger side of the car. Human blood was identified at several locations inside and on the undercarriage of the Escort. DNA analysis of the blood samples taken from the Escort revealed a match with Hobgood's blood. The blood found on the black leather jacket Douglas gave to Dozier and the blood found on the maroon jacket recovered at the crime scene also matched Hobgood's blood. Petree testified that the odds of finding a random match between the DNA in the blood samples and Hobgood's known DNA are approximately one in 3.3 quadrillion Caucasians. Lastly, the lug wrench recovered near Hobgood's body tested positive for human blood but the DNA analysis yielded no results.
On January 24, 2000, lead detective Robert Hinson interviewed Douglas at the police station. Detective Hinson testified that Douglas admitted driving Dozier's red Ford Escort during the Christmas holiday and giving Dozier the black leather jacket and jewelry. Douglas claimed that on Christmas night he had been out with only Jones. After being shown a recent color photograph of Hobgood, Douglas claimed that he did not know Hobgood and had never seen her before. When asked about the presence of blood in the Escort, Douglas stated that the blood belonged to a friend named Eric Ransom, who had gotten into an altercation at a night club and was driven to the hospital by Douglas. However, jail records showed that Ransom was incarcerated in the Duval County Jail from March 25, 1999, to January 16, 2000. The police placed Douglas under arrest and questioned him a second time. Douglas then admitted that Jones had a female friend with her that night but stated he could not remember whether he had taken Jones's friend home.
While in jail awaiting trial, Douglas talked to fellow inmate Thomas Brown about Hobgood's murder. During their first conversation about the murder, Douglas told Brown that he was charged with the murder of a girl and that he had run over her with a car because she would not move. However, in a later conversation Douglas stated that he ran over the girl because he had beaten her to death but wanted to make it look like a vehicular homicide. Douglas also told Brown that the State had a lot of evidence against him because he "took the pussy." Brown testified that he understood Douglas's statement "took the pussy" to mean that Douglas raped the girl.
Douglas did not present any witnesses during the guilt phase. The jury found Douglas guilty, by...
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