Garron v. State

• Decision Date: 19 May 1988
• Docket Number: No. 67986,67986
• Citation: 528 So.2d 353,13 Fla. L. Weekly 325
• Parties: 13 Fla. L. Weekly 325 Joseph Henry GARRON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 353

528 So.2d 353

13 Fla. L. Weekly 325

Joseph Henry GARRON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 67986.

Supreme Court of Florida.

May 19, 1988.

James Marion Moorman, Public Defender and Douglas S. Connor, Asst. Public Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit, Bartow, for appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen. and Kim W. Munch, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tampa, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

This cause is before the Court on appeal of a conviction of first-degree murder and a sentence of death. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons which follow, we reverse both the conviction and the sentence. Although any one of these reasons would warrant reversal, we address each point of error as a guide for the trial court in the retrial of this case.

On the night of November 11, 1982, the appellant, Joseph Henry Garron, shot and killed his wife, Le Thi, and his step-daughter, Tina. Appellant's other step-daughter, Linda, escaped the shooting physically unharmed and later testified against appellant. Linda, who was fourteen years old at the time of these events, testified at trial that on the night of the shooting appellant had been drinking wine at home and was in a foul mood. She stated that appellant touched the outside of her thigh and made an obscene remark just as her mother, Le Thi, arrived in a car with Tina. Linda ran outside to Le Thi for protection. Le Thi entered the house and began arguing with appellant, threatening to take the children away.

While it is unclear how long the argument lasted, Linda testified that she saw appellant get a gun and hide it under a towel. She heard two shots fired and saw Le Thi collapse with a chest wound. Tina then ran to the telephone, called the operator, and requested the police. Appellant followed Tina to the phone, leveled the gun at her, and fired. At this point, Linda ran to a neighbor's house hearing shots fired which she presumed were aimed at her. Upon the arrival of police, appellant, who had apparently shot himself, was read his Miranda rights and taken to the hospital.

Appellant's sole defense at trial was insanity. To this end, all three court-appointed psychiatrists testified that appellant did not know right from wrong and was, therefore, insane under the legal definition of insanity. The only rebuttal to this defense presented by the state was the testimony of Linda Garron and the law enforcement officers that, in their lay opinion, appellant appeared to be sane. It should be noted pursuant to the claim of insanity that, while awaiting trial, appellant was twice declared incompetent to stand trial and was sent to the state hospital at Chattahoochee.

Following a verdict of guilty and judgment of conviction, the jury returned advisory sentences of death on both counts. The sentencing judge rejected this recommendation as to the murder of Le Thi, sentencing appellant to life imprisonment. The judge accepted the jury's recommendation as to Tina and entered a sentence of death. This appeal followed.

Appellant's first contention is that he was denied due process of law as a result of comments made by the prosecutor regarding the invocation of his Miranda rights. During the direct examinations of the arresting police officers, the prosecutor asked each whether appellant appeared to understand his Miranda rights. During direct examination of rebuttal witness, Detective Phillips, the prosecutor asked two questions: whether he believed appellant was "coherent," and whether appellant indicated he understood his constitutional rights. Detective Phillips answered yes to both questions. The state contends that this procedure was proper to show appellant's state of mind at the time of the crime in order to rebut the sanity defense.

In State v. Burwick, 442 So.2d 944 (Fla.1983), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 931, 104 S.Ct. 1719, 80 L.Ed.2d 191 (1984), this Court held as inadmissible "evidence of a defendant's post-arrest conduct, including silence and the request to see an attorney after receiving Miranda warnings, as it relates solely to the issue of mental condition near the time of the offense when the defendant has asserted the insanity defense and the evidence is presented by the state in rebuttal." 442 So.2d at 945 (citation omitted). The Court reasoned that to penalize a defendant for exercising his constitutional rights would violate "a fundamental principle of our constitutional law." Id. at 947. There is little doubt that the admission of such evidence would raise an inference of guilt or, in this case, sanity. More recently, the United States Supreme Court in Wainwright v. Greenfield, 474 U.S. 284, 106 S.Ct. 634, 88 L.Ed.2d 623 (1986), held that because Miranda warnings carry an implied promise that "silence will carry no penalty," Id. at 295 (quoting Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, at 618, 96 S.Ct. 2240, at 2245, 49 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976)), use of a defendant's post-Miranda silence as evidence of sanity violates due process. Id.

In the present case, appellant contends that he was penalized severely for invoking his constitutional rights, and then replying that he understood them. The state argues that because the evidence was not expressly used for proving sanity neither Burwick nor Greenfield controls. To this end, the state argues that the prosecutor's questions cannot be construed as comments on the exercise of constitutional rights. The state further contends that if it was error to allow either of these questions, the error was harmless.

It should be noted that, with respect to the questioning of Detective Phillips by the prosecutor on rebuttal, the questions were directly and expressly related to the insanity defense. The question regarding appellant's coherency was immediately followed by the question of whether he appeared to understand his Miranda rights. Because "coherency" is significant in terms of sanity, these questions are fairly susceptible to an interpretation that they were comments by the prosecutor on appellant's sanity. It is not dispositive that the prosecutor did not expressly comment on the exercise of appellant's constitutional rights. However, when taken in context, it is clear that the questions asked by the prosecutor were intended to at least impliedly be a comment on the invocation of those rights as they relate to appellant's guilt or sanity. As we stated in Burwick, "[p]ost-arrest, post-Miranda silence is deemed to have dubious probative value by reason of the many and ambiguous explanations for such silence." 442 So.2d at 948.

The questions asked by the prosecutor in this case are precisely the sort of comment the United States Supreme Court condemned in Greenfield. ¹ Any distinction between the questions asked in Greenfield and the questions asked in the case at bar is imagined. They are similarly worded and have the same effect. It is clear that the effect of the questions in both cases was to deprive the respective defendants of their right to due process by penalizing them for invoking their constitutional rights.

There is no merit to the state's argument that allowing these questions was harmless error. We believe that under our analysis in State v. DiGuilio, 491 So.2d 1129 (Fla.1986), it cannot be said beyond a reasonable doubt that the questions and answers elicited did not contribute to appellant's conviction. Therefore, the error was not harmless.

Appellant also contends that the trial court erred in allowing William Webb, the former assistant state attorney originally charged with prosecuting this case, to testify as to his lay opinion that appellant was sane. While we believe it was proper for Webb to testify ² in light of the jury instructions given as to weight and credibility accorded such a witness, the content of his testimony is somewhat suspect. Webb's contact with appellant began with the first appearance hearing conducted the day after the shooting. Webb testified that, at this hearing, appellant did not, in his opinion, appear to be psychotic or insane under the legal definition of sanity.

Webb was permitted to give this testimony regarding the legal and medical conclusion that appellant was sane despite his lack of contact with appellant. Moreover, the lapse in time between the shootings and the meeting between Webb and appellant further served to render the opinion testimony invalid. The testimony was both highly inflammatory and of dubious probative value. Hence, the unfair prejudice resulting from this testimony renders it inadmissible.

In a related issue, appellant contends that it was error to allow the state's rebuttal witnesses to give lay opinion testimony on his sanity without laying the proper foundation to support the opinions. Only one of the five witnesses who gave a nonexpert opinion as to appellant's sanity was actually an eyewitness to the shooting and knew appellant well enough to render such an opinion. Only Linda Garron was technically competent to make that determination. Of the other four lay witnesses who opined as to appellant's sanity, only the deputy who arrested appellant could even arguably have been capable of rendering such an opinion. The others simply did not know appellant well enough, had not observed him enough, and did not observe him close enough in time to the shooting to give competent, lay testimony as to his sanity at the time of the act.

We do not, however, hold that admission of all of this testimony is error. As this Court stated in Rivers v. State, 458 So.2d 762, 765 (Fla.1984), "[i]t is a well established principle of law in this state that an otherwise qualified witness who is not a medical expert can testify about a person's mental condition, provided the testimony is based on personal knowledge or observation." E.g., Sealey v. State, 89 Fla. 439, 105 So. 137 (Fla.1925); Hixon v. State, 165 So.2d 436 (Fla. 2d DCA 1964). The Rivers case, like the present case, involved the testimony of a detective who was allowed to give...