Evans v. State
| Decision Date | 12 November 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. SC12–2160.,SC12–2160. |
| Parties | Patrick Albert EVANS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Howard L. Dimmig II, Public Defender, and Cynthia Jean Dodge, Assistant Public Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit, Bartow, FL, for Appellant.
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, and Christina Zuccaro, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, FL, for Appellee.
Patrick Albert Evans appeals his two convictions for first-degree murder and two sentences of death.1 Because of errors that occurred during the trial, we vacate the convictions and sentences of death and remand for a new trial.
Among other errors, the lead detective usurped the role of the jury by being permitted to opine that a voice heard on a 911 call-back recording belonged to the defendant, even though the detective had no prior knowledge of the defendant and no expertise in voice identification. In addition, the State insinuated unsubstantiated and incriminating facts when it cross-examined the defendant, by implying through its questions that the defendant was obsessed with his estranged wife and stalking her boyfriend—the victims. Yet, the prosecutor recognized that he could not present any evidence to support such statements because they were based on speculation and hearsay. The prejudicial effect of these errors was then amplified by patently improper comments in the closing argument, during which the prosecutor repeatedly disparaged the defendant's theory of the case and defense attorneys in general; relied on facts and statistics not in evidence to imply that the victims must have been murdered by a family member; and criticized the defendant's decision to pursue his constitutional right to a jury.
The cumulative effect of these preserved errors was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, and the existence of additional unpreserved errors buttresses our conclusion that Evans is entitled to a new trial. Accordingly, for the reasons more fully explained in this opinion, we vacate Evans' convictions for first-degree murder, vacate the sentences of death, and remand for a new trial.
On January 22, 2009, Evans was indicted for the first-degree murders of Elizabeth Evans ("Beth"), his estranged wife, and Gerald Taylor, Beth's new boyfriend. The two were fatally shot in the master bedroom of Beth's condominium on December 20, 2008.
The record reflects that Evans and Beth had a tumultuous marriage. While married to Beth, Evans had an affair with his ex-wife, Andrea, the mother of his minor son. Evans ended the affair in April 2008, but then filed a petition to divorce Beth, stating that the marriage was irretrievably broken. Shortly thereafter, Evans changed the locks on the marital home and, without Beth's knowledge, moved the belongings of Beth and her daughter from a prior marriage, Molly, to a condominium that Evans and Beth owned. However, approximately one week later, again without Beth's or Molly's knowledge, Evans returned their belongings to the marital home. Soon after, Beth independently and individually leased a condominium, but was unable to collect her furniture from the marital home so she purchased new furniture. In addition to bedrooms for her and Molly, Beth set up a third bedroom at the condominium for her stepson because, despite the pending dissolution of marriage, she wanted to maintain a relationship with him. Her stepson occasionally visited Beth at the condominium, and Evans would drop him off and pick him up.
In July 2008, Evans attempted to rekindle his relationship with Beth and voluntarily dismissed the petition for dissolution of marriage that he had filed only a few months prior. According to Molly, Evans began to wear his wedding ring. He also made an effort to visit the condominium, and when the door was unlocked, Evans would simply enter without knocking or announcing himself. Molly stated that Beth did not appreciate Evans' efforts to rekindle the relationship, and she became upset when he entered her condominium unannounced. Beth never gave Evans a key to her condominium. However, during the fall of 2008, Beth discovered that the keys to her condominium were missing. She eventually retrieved the keys from Evans' mother, Marcy. In November 2008, Beth filed a petition for dissolution of marriage, which Evans testified did not upset him.
Evans testified that he was aware Beth had a date on December 20, 2008—the day of the murders—but claimed he did not know her date's name. During the late afternoon of December 20, 2008, Molly's boyfriend saw Beth with a man, whom Beth introduced as Jerry, hitting golf balls at the course where Molly's boyfriend worked. Beth and her companion left the course around 5:30 p.m. At approximately 6:15 p.m., Beth's next-door neighbor, Pamela Ashby, who had dinner plans, became nervous because the person who was to pick up a child in Ashby's care was running late. Ashby intended to call Beth to see if the child could stand in Beth's driveway until the person arrived, but she accidentally dialed Evans' number. Evans informed Ashby that Beth was not available because she was on a date.
At approximately 6:45 p.m., Scott Graham, who also lived in the same condominium complex as Beth, was walking his dog. A man approached Graham and asked if he had seen two Yorkshire Terriers, to which Graham replied that he had not. The man departed in the direction of Beth's condominium. The only person in this fifteen-unit complex that Graham knew to have Yorkshire Terriers was Beth Evans. He testified that, while the man who approached him that night definitely resembled Evans, Graham could not definitively identify him.
At 7:09 p.m., the 911 dispatch service received a hang-up call from the landline at Beth's condominium. When a public safety telecommunicator called the number, the following was recorded:
No further voices were heard until law enforcement arrived.
The two deputies who responded to the 911 hang-up call discovered that the door to Beth's condominium was unlocked, and there was no sign of forced entry. Once they entered the home, they saw one Yorkshire Terrier. After determining that no one was present on the lower level of the home, the deputies proceeded upstairs.
The deputies found Gerald Taylor on the floor of the master bedroom, nude, with a small wound
in his neck. Taylor was alive but nonresponsive and subsequently died. The deputies discovered the body of Beth Evans, also nude and with a wound in her neck, on the screened-in patio that was attached to the master bedroom. Sitting next to her body, shaking, was a second Yorkshire Terrier. Two .40 caliber shell casings were discovered at the scene—one in the vicinity of where each victim lay. On a nightstand in the master bedroom was an Uncle Mike's Sidekick holster.
Upon learning that Evans was Beth's next of kin (the dissolution of marriage was not yet final), the lead detective, Edward Judy, proceeded to Evans' home at approximately 11:15 p.m. At that point, Detective Judy had not heard the 911 callback recording. Although Evans' truck was present, he did not answer the door when Detective Judy attempted to make contact. Detective Judy placed his card in the door of Evans' home and departed. Detective Judy subsequently heard the recording during which Beth referred to the shooter as "Rick."
Evans was taken into custody by a tactical team that had been conducting surveillance on his residence. Thereafter, a warrant was issued to search the home for a handgun and ammunition. Inside a safe at the residence were three boxes of Speer Gold Dot .40 caliber hollow-point ammunition, the same brand of ammunition as the casings found at the scene of the murders. Two of the boxes had bullets removed. Also inside the safe was a factory box for a .40 caliber Glock firearm, but no gun was found. The police were able to match the serial number on the box with the serial number of the gun that Evans purchased on November 22, 2005, from a sporting goods store. The holster recovered from the crime scene appeared to match a holster Evans purchased at the same time.
Inside the Glock factory box was an envelope that contained two shell casings from test firings that had been conducted at the factory. The serial number on the envelope matched the serial number on the box and the receipt from the sporting goods store. A firearms analyst with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement testified that the shell casings found at the crime scene matched the test-fired shell casings from the Glock factory.
During trial, Beth's daughter Molly, Ashby (Beth's neighbor), and Detective Judy all identified Evans as the male voice on the 911 call-back recording saying, "Sit on the bed."3 The medical examiner testified that Beth Evans and Gerald Taylor died from gunshot wounds
to the neck, and the cause of death was homicide. Stippling was present around Taylor's entrance wound, which indicated that the muzzle was 2 to 24 inches away at the time the weapon was discharged. No evidence of stippling was present on Beth's body. The handgun that was used to commit the murders was never found.
During the defense case-in-chief, Evans and his brother, Rodney, testified that from approximately 4:15 p.m....
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