Johnson v. State, 61937

• Citation: 10 Fla. L. Weekly 123,465 So.2d 499
• Decision Date: 14 February 1985
• Docket Number: No. 61937,61937
• Parties: 10 Fla. L. Weekly 123 Daniel Karr JOHNSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Florida

Page 499

465 So.2d 499

10 Fla. L. Weekly 123

Daniel Karr JOHNSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 61937.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Feb. 14, 1985.

Rehearing Denied April 11, 1985.

P. Douglas Brinkmeyer, Assistant Public Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, for appellant.

Jim Smith, Atty. Gen. and Barbara Ann Butler, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jacksonville, for appellee.

BOYD, Chief Justice.

This cause is before the Court on appeal from a judgment of conviction of capital felony and sentence of death. This Court has jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.

The appellant was charged with and convicted of the first-degree murder of Jacqueline Propster. The evidence presented against appellant at trial consisted principally of inculpatory pretrial statements voluntarily made by appellant to police investigators, together with the circumstances of appellant's conflicting series of statements to police, which included false exculpatory statements; testimony about incriminating out-of-court statements made by appellant to other persons; corroboration of that testimony by tangible evidence; and testimony concerning the discovery and examination of the body of the victim. The evidence was sufficient to establish appellant's guilt of first-degree murder.

I. FACTS

State witness Linda Warren was a bartender at the nightclub where the victim Jacqueline Propster was employed as a dancer. The witness testified that at 2:45 a.m. on July 21, 1981, after the bar had closed, appellant came to the lounge and asked to see Ms. Propster, saying that he was to give her a ride home. The witness said that after checking with Ms. Propster, she told appellant that the dancer had already left. After appellant appeared to have departed the premises, Ms. Propster also left. This was the last time she was seen by her friends and co-workers.

State witness Randy Thomas testified that at 10:00 a.m. on July 21, 1981, appellant arrived at Thomas's home driving a blue Buick Regal with a loose, dragging muffler and tailpipe. First, appellant told Thomas that he needed help disposing of the car because he had killed a man. According to Thomas's testimony, appellant wanted Thomas to crush the car at his father's salvage yard. Instead, Thomas suggested burning the car and sinking it in a borrow pit. Then appellant, who was on parole at the time, told Thomas it was a woman he had killed and that he had done it because "she was going to send me back." Thomas testified that he went with appellant to a borrow pit where he saw appellant empty a woman's purse, retain some of the contents, and throw a gold-colored belt into the woods. Then appellant set fire to the car. Thomas declined appellant's invitation to go and view the body. Thomas's testimony that appellant came to his home at 10:00 a.m. on July 21 was corroborated by Thomas's wife and other witnesses.

Later that day Thomas met appellant again and appellant told him that he had killed the woman by strangling her with a rope. This conversation was also heard by state witness Andy Padgett. Thomas saw that appellant was in possession of some jewelry including a ring and necklace he identified as being shown in a photograph of the victim. Thomas anonymously informed the Jacksonville sheriff's office of his knowledge of the crime. Later, Thomas called an acquaintance who was a former police officer. The former officer passed the information on to the Jacksonville sheriff's office. Thereafter, a deputy sheriff located the borrow pit, the car, and the gold belt. The officer later found the body near an unoccupied house nearby in adjacent Clay County.

The body was identified through dental X-ray records. The medical examiner testified that the cause of death was strangulation by ligature and that a rope found around the victim's neck was probably the instrument used to effect the killing. A fiber analyst testified that the rope found on the body was similar to other lengths of rope found in the vicinity where the body was found and that it was the kind of rope used for baling hay in that rural area.

A Clay County detective arrested appellant in Jacksonville on July 28, 1981. Appellant was taken to the Jacksonville sheriff's headquarters in Duval County where he signed a consent to be interviewed after being advised of his rights. During this first interview appellant said he did not know the victim and was not at the lounge where she worked on the night of her disappearance. He denied any knowledge of the murder. Following the initial interview, appellant was taken to the Clay County jail.

On August 6, appellant asked to talk to detectives again. That day, he made a series of three statements. First, he said that he went to the bar at 10:00 p.m., and that Ms. Propster agreed to meet him later. After the nightclub closed, they went to a cemetery and injected drugs. They both passed out of consciousness, and when he awoke, she was dead. Appellant's second statement of August 6 was that after taking the drugs at the cemetery, the victim passed out and appellant, at 4:00 a.m., went to Randy Thomas's house. Thomas returned to the cemetery with appellant. Then, according to this story, appellant left Thomas there with the woman. When appellant returned half an hour later, Ms. Propster was dead and Thomas said he had strangled her with his hands because she resisted his advances. Then they took the body to the empty house and the car to the borrow pit.

At 9:00 p.m. on August 6 appellant made another statement, this one written and signed. It was essentially a repetition of the earlier statement that the victim died from drugs at the cemetery. This statement also included reference to appellant's enlisting, later that morning, the aid of Randy Thomas in disposing of the car.

On August 27, 1981, appellant asked to speak to an investigator again and made his fifth statement. He said that after he and Ms. Propster got together that morning, they started out for Atlanta. They drove into Georgia and had an argument. He said that he killed her in Georgia, then brought her back through Jacksonville into Clay County where he left the body. He said that he had killed her by strangling her with his hands but later put the rope around her neck in order to drag the body to where he left it.

II. ISSUES ON APPEAL OF THE CONVICTION

Appellant contends that the trial court should have granted his motion for mistrial made during the selection of the jury. Appellant asserts that during the jury selection process, when a recess in the proceedings was announced, appellant was handcuffed within the sight of at least one member of the jury venire. Appellant argues that this improperly conveyed to the prospective jurors that the bailiffs regarded appellant as dangerous or a security risk. Appellant relies on Estelle v. Williams, 425 U.S. 501, 96 S.Ct. 1691, 48 L.Ed.2d 126 (1976), and Shultz v. State, 131 Fla. 757, 179 So. 764 (1938). Upon the making of the motion for mistrial, the judge held a hearing in chambers to inquire into the circumstances of the handcuffing. The bailiffs told the court that the handcuffing was done not in the courtroom but outside the courtroom in the hall leading to the holding cell. They said that the door to the courtroom was open but that one of the bailiffs stood in the doorway to block the view from the courtroom. The appellant told the judge that he saw that at least one prospective juror saw him being handcuffed. Appellant argues that the judge should not have denied the motion for mistrial without making inquiry of the jury panel members.

In connection with our evaluation of appellant's argument, we make the following observations. (1) Defense counsel in making the motion did not specifically ask for the remedy now put forward as the only proper alternative to a mistrial--inquiring of the prospective jurors whether they had seen appellant being handcuffed. (2) The jury had not yet been selected and sworn, so a mistrial would have meant nothing except that the court would have had to begin jury selection anew with a fresh jury venire. There is no showing that any prospective juror who actually saw the incident was among the jurors later empaneled and sworn to hear the case. (3) As jury selection was still in progress, defense counsel could have asked the prospective jurors whether they had seen the handcuffing and whether they would be affected by it. Little, if any, purpose would have been served by declaring a mistrial where the problem could have been remedied through continued jury selection. Defense counsel could have tried to use such inquiry as a basis for challenging such prospective jurors for cause, or could have excused some of them peremptorily. He could have asked for additional peremptory challenges if needed to fully deal with the problem. (4) While such open inquiry by defense counsel would have informed more prospective jurors of the matter than had known of it before, the inquiry appellant says the court should have conducted would have had the same effect. On the other hand, since appellant saw which prospective juror or jurors witnessed him being handcuffed, he could have told defense counsel which one it was and defense counsel could have simply excused that juror or argued a challenge for cause at the bench.

The foregoing factors and observations are sufficient to distinguish this case from the authorities cited by appellant. This is not a case where the accused was brought into court in prison garb, shackles, or leg irons. We therefore reject appellant's argument that the possible witnessing of his handcuffing by one or more prospective jurors entitles him to a new trial.

Appellant's next argument is that the trial court erred by not giving a specific instruction that the state was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Florida had territorial jurisdiction of the crime. He says that the statutory presumption of jurisdiction...