Gorham v. State, 62882
| Decision Date | 19 July 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 62882,62882 |
| Citation | 454 So.2d 556 |
| Parties | David GORHAM, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Michael D. Gelety, Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen. and Max Rudmann, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for appellee.
This direct appeal from conviction of first-degree murder and sentence of death is before us pursuant to article V, section 3(b)(1). We affirm the conviction and sentence.
The body of Carl Peterson was found in a bathroom inside a warehouse on the evening of October 30, 1981, by officers of the Pompano Police Department. The officers were accompanied by Kenneth Gardner, an inmate of Pompano Correction Center who, while returning from work-release, had seen two men at the warehouse and soon after had heard shots. Peterson's pockets had been pulled inside-out and various papers and Peterson's wallet were found near the body. Peterson had been shot twice with .38 caliber ammunition.
The next day, Carl Peterson's credit cards were used at various stores in the area. The phone number on the receipts led police to Moses Jordan, who in turn directed the police to appellant's cousin. From the cousin, police learned that appellant matched the descriptions provided by store clerks of the man using the credit cards. Appellant's fingerprints were on file and matched a fingerprint found on one of Peterson's papers. Also, two of the store clerks were able to positively identify appellant from a photograph.
Police investigation led to an apartment rented by Diane Walker, where appellant lived with Walker's mother. Upon searching the apartment, with Walker's permission, the police found some of the purchases charged to Peterson's credit cards and .38 caliber bullets. After his arrest by the Pompano police, appellant made three tape-recorded statements.
He was tried and found guilty, but a mistrial was declared before sentencing. On retrial, the victim's wife testified that her husband was in the habit of carrying large sums of money. Ada Johnson testified that appellant had attempted to rent an apartment from her, had shown her a pistol and promised to get the approximately $600 he would need for rent and deposits. Both Gardner and Johnson testified to having seen a man run from the scene of the crime. Gardner said the appellant was definitely not the man; Johnson testified she could not see the man's face, but that she thought it was the appellant.
The jury found appellant guilty of first-degree murder and attempted robbery and recommended a life sentence. The judge overrode the jury recommendation and imposed the death penalty and a fifteen-year sentence for attempted robbery.
Appellant raises nine points in appealing the conviction, only one of which merits discussion. Before the first trial, Gorham filed a motion in limine to prevent the state from presenting evidence of other criminal activity by the defendant. Specifically, Gorham objected to extensive evidence of the use of the victim's credit cards, claiming it would simply put his character at issue and tend to show a criminal propensity. The trial court ordered that evidence of Gorham's use of the cards would be admitted but should not become a major feature of the trial. At trial, Gorham offered to stipulate possession and use of the cards before evidence of every purchase was presented by the prosecution.
On appeal, Gorham contends that the presentation of six witnesses who testified to Gorham's use of the victim's credit cards and identified the items purchased with those cards was a major feature of the trial and was unduly prejudicial. The state replies that the discovery of some of the merchandise in the same closet as the box of bullets identical to those which killed Peterson was an important link in the largely circumstantial case against Gorham. Appellant concedes the relevance but argues that the stipulation, if accepted, would have served the prosecution's purpose and would have avoided prejudicing the jury against Gorham because of irrelevant character evidence.
First, we note that the evidence presented is not similar-fact evidence and thus does not fall within the Williams rule, Williams v. State, 110 So.2d 654 (Fla.), cert. denied, 361 U.S. 847, 80 S.Ct. 102, 4 L.Ed.2d 86 (1959). The evidence adduced by the prosecution witnesses did not bring before the jury unrelated bad acts of the appellant, rather it served to link the appellant to the victim circumstantially. Neither is this character evidence, which is offered to show that appellant acted in conformity with past character, as proscribed in section 90.404, Florida Statutes (1981).
We must therefore weigh the danger of unfair prejudice to the defendant against the admitted relevance of the evidence. § 90.403, Fla.Stat. (1981). Not only was the defense willing to stipulate to the purchases Gorham made with Peterson's credit cards, the prosecution later submitted into evidence Gorham's own taped statements detailing his shopping spree. To the extent the testimony of the shop assistants who processed these purchases and the merchandise itself reflected on Gorham's character, it was illustrative only of greed, not of a propensity toward violent crime. The jury's unfair prejudice against Gorham, if any, which the evidence would promote would have been reflected in its findings on the second count of the indictment, the robbery charge. In fact, the jury convicted Gorham only of the lesser-included offense of attempted robbery. While we do not necessarily approve the repetitious and cumulative nature of the evidence of the purchases in the state's case, we do not find any prejudice to the defendant which outweighed the evidence's relevance to the state's case.
We have considered the other eight points raised and find them meritless. We have thoroughly examined the entire record and find that the evidence more than sufficient to support appellant's convictions, and we find no error which would require reversal. Accordingly, the convictions for first-degree murder and for attempted robbery are affirmed.
Appellant takes issue with the trial court's imposition of sentence for both the murder and what appellant characterizes as the underlying felony, attempted robbery. However, the evidence presented was clearly supportive of a finding of first-degree premeditated murder; the attempted robbery was an...
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State v. Palmer
...[sic] or pitiless crime which is unnecessarily tortuous [sic] to the vicitm. " During that same year, Florida, in Gorham v. State, 454 So.2d 556 (Fla.1984), held that where one shot penetrated the victim's heart, causing death within 10 seconds, and where the evidence disproved any possibil......
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State v. Joubert
...[sic] or pitiless crime which is unnecessarily tortuous [sic] to the victim." During that same year Florida, in Gorham v. State, 454 So.2d 556 (Fla.1984), held that where one shot penetrated the victim's heart, causing death within 10 seconds, and where the evidence disproved any possibilit......
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...from on other grounds by Patterson v. State, 513 So.2d 1257 (Fla.1987), Thompson v. State, 456 So.2d 444 (Fla. 1984), Gorham v. State, 454 So.2d 556 (Fla. 1984), and Maxwell v. State, 443 So.2d 967 (Fla. 1983). In each of these cases, however, there was no evidence of a heightened premedita......
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Hunter v. State
...evidence is admitted not under 90.404(2)(a) as similar fact evidence but under section 90.402 because it is relevant. Gorham v. State, 454 So.2d 556, 558 (Fla.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1181, 105 S.Ct. 941, 83 L.Ed.2d 953 (1985). We find no error in the trial court's conclusion that the ......
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"A dangerous bend in an ancient road": the use of similar fact evidence for corroboration.
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