Henry v. State, 70816

• Decision Date: 03 January 1991
• Docket Number: No. 70816,70816
• Citation: 16 Fla. L. Weekly 54,574 So.2d 73
• Parties: 16 Fla. L. Weekly 54 John Ruthell HENRY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 73

574 So.2d 73

16 Fla. L. Weekly 54

John Ruthell HENRY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 70816.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Jan. 3, 1991.

James Marion Moorman, Public Defender and A. Anne Owens, Asst. Public Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit, Bartow, for appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen. and Carol M. Dittmar, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tampa, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

John Ruthell Henry appeals from a judgment of guilt for first-degree murder and the subsequent death sentence. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla.Const.

According to the evidence adduced at trial, including a detailed confession Henry gave to police, the pertinent facts are set forth below: Henry was married but was living with another woman. Shortly before Christmas of 1985 Henry returned to his home in Pasco County to talk with his wife, Suzanne, about Christmas presents for her five-year-old son from a previous marriage, Eugene Christian. The couple began to argue and the dispute ended with Henry killing Suzanne by stabbing her repeatedly in the throat with a kitchen knife. He then took Eugene Christian from the house and drove the boy into Hillsborough County where, some nine hours after Suzanne's murder, he killed Eugene by stabbing him in the throat.

Henry was first tried for the murder of Eugene Christian. A Hillsborough County jury convicted him of first-degree murder and recommended the death penalty, which the trial court imposed. This Court reversed the conviction and sentence in Henry v. State, 574 So.2d 66 (Fla.1991), ¹ and remanded for a new trial. Henry was tried for the first-degree murder of Suzanne Henry in Pasco County. Again, the jury found him guilty. Following the jury's recommendation, the trial court sentenced Henry to death. It is from the Pasco County conviction that Henry appeals.

Henry raises eight issues, only four of which we need address. First, Henry contends that the court should have granted his motion for acquittal because the state failed to present sufficient evidence of premeditation. We disagree. There was physical evidence that was inconsistent with Henry's story that he stabbed his wife after she had cut him three times with a kitchen knife. Detective Wilber testified that the scratches on Henry's arm were not the type of wounds that would have been made with a knife. He said the scratches looked more like wounds one would suffer by crawling around through briars and shrubs, such as those present in the locale where Eugene's body was found. Of even more significance was the fact that the victim was killed by being stabbed thirteen times. See Preston v. State, 444 So.2d 939 (Fla.1984). There was enough evidence to present a jury question on the issue of premeditation.

Second, Henry asserts that his confession should have been suppressed because during the course of his interrogation he told one police detective that he did not wish to speak to him. The same contention was rejected by the majority of the Court in Henry v. State, 574 So.2d 66 (Fla.1991). Henry's argument is even less compelling in the instant case because he confessed to killing his wife several hours after he admitted that he had killed the boy.

Henry next claims that the trial court erred in admitting extensive testimony and documentary evidence concerning the killing of Eugene Christian. At trial, the court allowed the state, over objection, to introduce testimony concerning the search for Eugene Christian's body, how the body was found, and the statement from Henry's confession as to how he had carried out the killing. The state also introduced over objection, a medical examiner's eight-by-fourteen-inch color photograph of Eugene Christian's upper torso, showing the five stab wounds in his neck. The trial court allowed this evidence on two grounds: (1) The killings were part of one continuing criminal episode and the evidence of the second murder was necessary to provide the context; and (2) under the Williams ² rule, the evidence was relevant to prove motive, guilty knowledge, identification, lack of mistake, and intent. ³

We cannot agree that the killing of Eugene Christian qualifies as similar fact evidence. To be admissible evidence under the Williams rule, an event must be similar to the crime for which the defendant is being tried and must tend to prove some fact in issue. In this case, the killing of Eugene Christian was irrelevant to explain or illuminate the murder of Suzanne Henry. It did not prove motive, intent, knowledge, lack of mistake or, contrary to the state's assertion, identity, where the necessary factual points of similarity are totally absent. On this record, the fact that both victims were family members who were stabbed in the neck did not provide sufficient points of similarity from which it would be reasonable to conclude that the same person committed both crimes. Drake v. State, 400 So.2d 1217 (Fla.1981); C. Ehrhardt, Florida Evidence § 401.10 (2d ed. 1984). ⁴

There remains the question of whether the evidence of the killing of Eugene Christian was admissible as being part of a prolonged criminal episode. See Smith v. State, 365 So.2d 704 (Fla.1978), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 885, 100 S.Ct. 177, 62 L.Ed.2d 115 (1979). Some reference to the boy's killing may have been necessary to place the events in context, to describe adequately the investigation leading up to Henry's arrest and subsequent statements, and to account for the boy's...