Gill v. State, SC06-1572.

• Decision Date: 09 July 2009
• Docket Number: No. SC06-1572.,SC06-1572.
• Citation: 14 So.3d 946
• Court: Florida Supreme Court
• Parties: Ricardo I. GILL, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

14 So.3d 946

Ricardo I. GILL, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC06-1572.

Supreme Court of Florida.

July 9, 2009.

Nancy Daniels, Public Defender, and W.C. McLain, Assistant Public Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, FL, for Appellant.

Bill McCollum, Attorney General, and Stephen R. White, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, for Appellee.

PER CURIAM.

Ricardo I. Gill appeals his judgment of conviction and sentence of death for the first-degree murder of Orlando Rosello.¹ For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the conviction and sentence.

OVERVIEW

Ricardo I. Gill was convicted of the July 24, 2001, first-degree strangulation murder of his cellmate, Orlando Rosello, at the Department of Corrections Reception and Medical Center in Union County, Florida. The murder occurred just days after Gill was sentenced and incarcerated for the unrelated murder of Beverly Moore in Alachua County on July 20, 2001. In that case, Gill was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree murder and requesting that the court impose the death penalty. In the present case, Gill appeared pro se after a Faretta² hearing, entered a guilty plea to the Rosello murder and waived a penalty phase jury and presentation of mitigation at the penalty phase. After receiving evidence as to aggravation and after reviewing mitigation evidence that appeared in the record, the trial court sentenced Gill to death. Again, Gill sought the death penalty in this case.

On appeal, Gill's appellate counsel raises three penalty phase claims. He contends (1) that because of Gill's mental illness and brain abnormality, the trial court erred in finding that the murder was committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner; (2) that Gill's death sentence is disproportionate when compared to other capital cases; and (3) that Gill's sentence was improperly imposed in violation of the principles set forth in Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002).³ In addition to considering the claims raised by Gill, we have a mandatory duty to examine the sufficiency of the evidence or, as in this case, the knowing, intelligent, and voluntary nature of Gill's plea.⁴ As we will explain below, we conclude that Gill's plea was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary, and further conclude that his death sentence is proportionate and was properly imposed based on the trial court's weighing of the aggravating and mitigating factors found by the court. We turn first to the facts and circumstances of the murder of Orlando Rosello.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The Circumstances of the Murder

Approximately one year before Gill was sentenced to life in prison for the 1999 murder of Beverly Moore, a crime for which he entered a guilty plea, Gill wrote a letter to Judge Morris, the trial judge in that case. Gill stated:

What I told the Gainesville Sun was that "I will make the judge sentence me to death. If he doesn't, he's gonna make me be someone I don't want to be and make me do something I don't want to do. If he does not act accordingly, I will kill someone, and think of your mother, your wife or your daughter."

... [D]on't make the next judge do the job you should have done!

Gill also wrote the prosecutor a letter in the Beverly Moore case almost a year before sentencing in that case, stating:

I am gonna plea guilty to all the Alachua County charges including the murder charge. It would be wise to stick to the motion you filed to seek the death penalty. I will not do the rest of my life in prison! If I am sentenced to life, I will turn into someone I am not and do things I don't want to do. My actions will speak volumes of this last sentence. If I am sentenced to life, you and the judge will live with it on your shoulders for the rest of your life no matter what office you seek.... "What you don't do, the next prosecutor will do with a passion." "What the judge doesn't do tomorrow, the next judge will do the day after tomorrow." Think about it!

As the trial court found in its sentencing order in this case:

Gill told Judge Morris that if he did not receive a sentence of death [for the Moore murder], he (Gill) would make the next judge impose the death penalty. Judge Morris alerted the authorities to this threat, and Gill was transported to the Regional Medical Center at Lake Butler, Florida.

Despite the warning from Judge Morris, Gill was placed in a cell with Orlando Rosello, and in the following week Gill strangled Rosello to death using a strip of cloth from a bed sheet.

Gill gave a recorded confession to the Rosello murder in an interview with a special agent of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) on July 24, 2001, the day of the murder. The Inspector General of the Department of Corrections and defense attorney, Robert Rush, were present when Gill was given Miranda⁵ warnings and waived his right to remain silent. Gill said he arrived at the Department of Corrections Reception and Medical Center in Union County on Friday afternoon, July 20, 2001. His first cellmate, Shorty Black, complained about being housed with Gill because he had read that Gill threatened to kill someone in order to get the death penalty. After his first cellmate complained, officers moved Gill to another cell where the Rosello murder ultimately occurred. Gill told the FDLE agent that if he had stayed with the first cellmate, he "would have slit his throat." According to Gill, Shorty Black had a razor with him that Gill said he could have used.

In spite of the fact that the Department of Corrections had been advised of Gill's threat to kill someone, inmate Orlando Rosello was brought into Gill's cell in the early morning hours on Saturday, July 21, 2001. On Sunday, July 22, Gill wrote three advance confession letters—to the prison security supervisor, to the Gainesville Sun newspaper and to Judge Morris—about the murder he was going to commit. In his letter to the Gainesville Sun, written immediately before the Rosello murder, Gill stated in part:

I have stated numerous times in telephone interviews with the Gainesville Sun that I would rather die than spend the rest of my life in prison for something I didn't do. I have made the court—former Chief Judge Robert P. Cates aware of this dating back to Jan. 28, 2000 (19 months) prior to sentencing hearing in July 20, 2001 which is in the court file of case No. 99-2277-CFA.... So after knowing this for 19 months, that I would not spend the rest of my life in prison for something I didn't do, essentially all the appointed attorneys ... and Chief Judge Stan Morris assisted me by not upholding the oath they took to protect and defend, and represent the client as defense attorneys against said charges and each named persons could have prevented this death by taking the appropriate action in a number of ways and the most important of all was sentencing me to life without parole in which made each named persons therefore becomes an accessory before the fact and to the fact of 1st degree murder which was cold, calculated and premeditated manner without any pretense of moral or legal justification planned 19 months ago. My victim, the first inmate I came in contact with and was able to block all emotional feelings and put my mind in a state to actually take someone's life for the first time. I Ricardo I. Gill, took the life of Orlando Rosello by strangulation.... I was not under the influence of any mental or emotional disturbance at this time and will confirm this to any court appointed expert. Had I been given the death sentence for a murder I did not commit, I would have accepted it and had it carried out quickly without any appeals or appellate reviews, but you chose to give me life which I'm adamantly against....

In his interview with FDLE, Gill again said that he had decided some months earlier to commit a murder and that "I planned to kill him [Rosello] when they moved him in the room with me and I wrote those letters."⁶ Rosello and Gill interacted normally for several days; but later that week, in the early morning hours of Tuesday, July 24, Gill decided the time had come to kill Rosello. Gill explained,

[W]hen I woke up this morning, I said well, I've already committed myself [by writing and mailing the letters], and I've got to follow through with it. And about 5:00 this morning, when they turned on the lights and the officer came around and poked the flaps, eat breakfast.... I took a piece of torn sheet, I wrapped it around Mr. Rosello's neck while he was asleep, and I strangled him to death.

When Gill slipped the sheet strip around the sleeping Rosello's neck and began to strangle him, Rosello awoke and struggled briefly.

After he strangled Rosello, Gill changed the position of the body and put a T-shirt over Rosello's face because "his whole face was black, and tongue was hanging out of his mouth." A substantial amount of blood had also come from Rosello's ear. The murder occurred before breakfast, and when breakfast was served, Gill ate his own breakfast and dumped Rosello's breakfast down the toilet. Gill also flushed the piece of torn bed sheet down the toilet because it had a lot of blood on it. Gill later admitted he also flushed a wadded up piece of paper he was writing on after the murder, on which he had written, "I killed at 5:00 this morning." The paper was found in the trap of the cell toilet, along with the strip of sheet. All the physical evidence of the murder is consistent with Gill's detailed account of the crime.

Gill said he covered up the murder and told an inquiring officer that Rosello was asleep because he did not want the murder to be discovered on the midnight shift. Gill wanted to be out of the building on a false "psych emergency" when the body was discovered. However, the officer called for someone to open the cell, and when the officer tried to wake up Rosello and saw the blood, the officer asked Gill if...