Lee v. State
| Decision Date | 29 May 1964 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 32981,33022,s. 32981 |
| Parties | Wilbert LEE, Alias Slingshot Lee, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. Freddie L. PITTS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
W. Fred Turner, Lynn Haven, for appellants.
James W. Kynes, Atty. Gen., and A. G. Spicola, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
The above causes reached this court by separate appeals which were consolidated for disposition. The appellants had been jointly indicted for the murder in the first degree of each of two victims.
When arraigned both appellants pleaded guilty of the charge, in one indictment, that they 'unlawfully and from a premeditated design to effect the death of Jessie L. Burkett' shot him with a gun and in identical language, in the second indictment, that they killed Grover Floyd, Jr.
Upon return of the indictments by the grand jury the court appointed counsel for the appellants.
When pleas of guilty were entered by both appellants to both indictments they were adjudged guilty of murder in the first degree in each instance and a date was set for the imposition of sentence.
At the culmination of the hearing we will presently describe, the circuit judge sentenced the appellants to death in the electric chair. The circuit judge directed the attorney originally appointed for appellants to bring the appeals as it was proper for him to do under Sec. 909.21, Florida Statutes, F.S.A., since, evidently, the attorney had not been relieved of that duty making it incumbent on the judge to appoint a successor for the purpose.
Two points are stressed here to support the contention of appellants that the case should be remanded to the trial judge so that he alone might 'hear the question of mercy and impose the proper sentence.' The first of these constitutes a challenge of the judge's action in determining in the manner he adopted whether the appellants should be granted mercy reducing the penalty to life imprisonment or be executed in expiation of their crime.
At the outset of discussion of the first question we refer to Sec. 909.10, Florida Statutes, F.S.A., which the circuit judge evidently applied when the appellants entered their pleas of guilty, without specifying the degree of the offense to which they were pleading guilty, for he considered their pleas as ones to the highest crime, namely, murder in the first degree. This was obviously his attitude because in each case he immediately adjudged the defendant guilty of the highest degree of the crime charged. But at the outset of arraignment of the defendants he had explained to them that a plea of guilty could result in a sentence of death by electrocution.
As we have written, in each order adjudicating guilt was imbedded a provision that a hearing would be conducted later, on 28 August 1963, to determine the punishment which would be inflicted.
The judge seems then to have turned to Sec. 909.12, Florida Statutes, F.S.A., containing the provision that when a judge accepts a plea to an indictment, as undoubtedly he did in the instant cases, and 'has discretion as to the punishment for the offense,' he may hear witnesses to set the penalty to be imposed. At this point a plea of guilty to murder in the first degree had been received by the court but the exact nature of the penalty had not been fixed inasmuch as the appellants could be sentenced to death or, if found by the judge, there being no jury, 'to be entitled to a recommendation to mercy, [could] be sentenced to imprisonment for life, at the discretion of the court.' Sec. 919.23(2), Florida Statutes, F.S.A. (Italics supplied.)
With the stage set for the final act in the trial, the receipt of testimony of the homicide and the determination of the punishment to be inflicted at the discretion of the judge, he introduced unusual, and, so far as we know unprecedented, procedure when he empanelled a jury of 12 men to render a verdict on the lone question whether or not mercy should be recommended reducing the penalty from death to life imprisonment.
Four verdicts were returned by the jury all signed by the same person as foreman and relating to the murder of each victim by each defendant, all bearing the...
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Pitts v. State
...1963, the trial judge sentenced them to death on their tendered pleas of guilty. The Supreme Court of Florida affirmed. (Lee v. State, Sup.Ct.Fla.1964, 166 So.2d 131) The first post-conviction collateral attack against said convictions was denied by the trial judge and affirmed on appeal. (......
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Reyes v. Kelly
... ... Petitioner Reyes, hereinafter called defendant, was first arrested upon a warrant charging murder in the first degree for the killing of one Hattie Lee Randall. With the advice of counsel, defendant agreed to plead guilty to murder in the second degree, and the State Attorney was agreeable to such plea. A direct information for murder in the second degree was accordingly filed by the State Attorney. Defendant was arraigned thereon in open Court, attended by his counsel, and thereupon entered a plea of guilty thereto. The trial Judge, Honorable Richard Kelly, ... ...
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State v. Boggs
...In Chatman v. State, Fla., 199 So.2d 475, 476, the Florida court stated: 'We think that in accordance with our decision in Lee et al. v. State, 166 So.2d 131, once the plea of guilty was entered it was the judge's sole responsibility to fix the punishment. * * 'The court after an extensive ......
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State v. Pitts
...The jury refused to recommend mercy. On appeal, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and death sentences, Lee v. State, 166 So.2d 131 (1964). The Supreme Court of the United States denied certiorari, 380 U.S. 917, 85 S.Ct. 905, 13 L.Ed.2d 802 In 1965 Pitts and Lee filed a moti......