Moody v. State

• Decision Date: 23 January 2003
• Docket Number: No. SC94435.,SC94435.
• Citation: 842 So.2d 754
• Parties: Darryl MOODY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

842 So.2d 754

Darryl MOODY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC94435.

Supreme Court of Florida.

January 23, 2003.

Rehearing Denied April 3, 2003.

Robert A. Norgard, Bartow, FL, for Appellant.

Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, and Robert J. Landry, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, FL, for Appellee.

PER CURIAM.

We have on appeal the judgment and sentence of the trial court finding Darryl Moody (Moody) guilty of first-degree murder and imposing a sentence of death. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons set forth below, we reverse the trial court's ruling denying Moody's motion to suppress, vacate the judgment and sentence, and remand for a new trial.

Factual and Procedural Background

On May 16, 1994, Scott Mitchell (Mitchell), the manager of a citrus grove, happened upon a stolen vehicle in a remote area of the grove, and was shot two times in the head with two different guns. Mitchell was found a short time thereafter, still in his vehicle. His wallet, cell phone, and other personal items were still in his vehicle. Mitchell's vehicle was located about fifty feet behind a stripped green Buick. The Buick had been reported stolen. Evidence of dirt behind the wheels of Mitchell's vehicle, and the fact that Mitchell's foot was still on his brake, indicate that Mitchell was attempting to back up quickly when he was fatally shot.

Neither of the murder weapons was found at the scene of the crime, and no latent fingerprints or hair samples were discovered. Tire and shoe imprints were made from impressions found around Mitchell's vehicle. Neighbors indicated they saw a silver or gray Cadillac and a green Buick pass near the scene of the homicide that morning and heard gun shots at some point thereafter. Other witnesses testified that they saw a gray or silver Cadillac and a large green car in the area of the citrus grove, but none were able to positively identify the occupants.

On May 23, 1994, a week after Mitchell was shot, Darryl Moody's vehicle was stopped by police in a high-crime, high-drug-use area. Sergeant Terry Dowdy (Dowdy) testified that on that day he was working undercover and patrolling the area with Investigator Eugene Bly. Dowdy recognized Moody and believed that Moody had a suspended driver's license. Because he was in an unmarked car, Dowdy called a uniformed officer to make a traffic stop. The officers were unable to confirm Moody's driving status before the stop because they needed Moody's date of birth to do so. Once stopped, Dowdy approached Moody and asked him for his driver's license. Moody admitted he did not have one. Moody was arrested and placed in the patrol car.

Officers called a tow truck for Moody's car and conducted a routine inventory search at the scene. A Davis P-380 handgun was found in the car, and Dowdy discovered through the police dispatch that the gun may have been reported stolen, although that information could not be confirmed. Officers confiscated the gun for further investigation. Moody was taken to the police station, issued a citation for driving with a suspended license, and released. The next day, the sheriff's department informed police that the Davis P-380 handgun found in Moody's car was the same gun that was reported stolen from the Buick found at the scene of Mitchell's homicide. The Davis P-380 was not, however, one of the weapons used to shoot Mitchell.

After Moody left the police station, he contacted his friend Bruce Foster and sold Foster a Rossi .38 Special. About a month before the Mitchell murder, Moody had in his possession a .38 revolver handgun at a nightclub, and Foster thought that the gun he was buying was that same handgun. When Moody sold Foster the gun, Moody said that the gun had "been through a lot." After purchasing the Rossi .38, Foster heard on the street that the gun was used to shoot somebody. The Rossi .38 was listed as part of the contents in a rose or pink colored Cadillac reported stolen on April 10, 1994.

On May 24, 1994, the day after the traffic stop and the sale of the Rossi .38 to Foster, Moody was arrested again, this time for possession of a firearm (the Davis P-380) by a convicted felon. This second arrest came after the sheriff's office linked the Davis P-380 found in Moody's car to the stripped green Buick that was found at the scene of the Mitchell homicide. Police then obtained a search warrant for Moody's car and for Moody's house. They also searched, by consent, Moody's girlfriend's sister's house, where Moody sometimes stayed. The probable cause affidavits in support of the applications for the warrants stated that Moody was in possession of the Davis P-380 handgun from the stolen Buick, as well as stereo equipment and other items believed to have been taken from the Buick. Police searched Moody's house, car, and his girlfriend's sister's house, and found certain items matching the description of items reported stolen from the Buick, as well as a pair of Sierra hiking boots. The boots were taken to compare the treads to footprints found at the scene of the homicide.

After Moody's second arrest (for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon), Foster attempted to help Moody get out of jail. He contacted the police, turned in the Rossi .38, and told police he had gotten the gun from some men in a drug deal. Foster indicated he thought this would help Moody. However, after several hours of questioning, Foster eventually told police that he purchased the gun from Moody. The Rossi .38 was one of the handguns used to shoot Mitchell.

The State's theory at trial was that Moody and his brother Dexter Moody were stripping the Buick in a secluded area of a citrus grove when Scott Mitchell came upon them unexpectedly. Mitchell was shot in the head twice by separate guns, and either shot was fatal. The State theorized that the second shot, at close range, came from Moody. Moody was convicted of felony murder and sentenced to death. Dexter Moody was never charged with any crime related to the Mitchell murder.

Moody raises five claims on appeal: the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress; the State's circumstantial evidence was insufficient to establish his guilt; the trial court erred in allowing an alternate juror to be substituted for a juror who became ill after the jury began deliberations; the State failed to present sufficient evidence that the dominant motive for the murder was to avoid or prevent a lawful arrest and this aggravating factor should be stricken; and the sentence of death is disproportionate. Because we find that the trial court erred in denying Moody's motion to suppress, we do not discuss the other claims.¹

Motion to Suppress

The State's case against Moody arose out of a traffic stop initiated by Sergeant Dowdy based on Dowdy's belief that Moody did not have a valid driver's license. Following the stop, police discovered a Davis P-380 handgun that linked Moody to the murder crime scene, which in turn led police to search Moody's house, car, and his girlfriend's sister's house. When Moody was arrested for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, in relation to the Davis P-380 found in his car, Bruce Foster came forward with one of the murder weapons, a Rossi .38, telling the police he got it from Moody.

Moody filed at least three motions to suppress evidence, seeking to exclude the P-380 handgun, bullets, stereo equipment, and items taken from the stolen Buick. He claimed that all of the items were obtained as a result of an illegal traffic stop and were the "fruit of the poisonous tree." See Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963)

. The trial court denied Moody's motion, holding that the initial stop was not an illegal Terry² stop because it was not the product of "random or capricious police activity" and was not based on an "inarticulate hunch" or "unparticularized suspicion," all of which Terry condemns. In its sentencing memorandum, the trial court stated that:

In this case, Sgt. Dowdy knew that the Defendant had no license at the time of their last encounter, he knew the Defendant was inclined to drive without lawful authority, and he knew from the common experience that it is unlikely that driving privileges are restored during incarceration. Thus, it was reasonable to be suspicious that the Defendant's driving privileges still had not been restored.

In reaching this conclusion, the trial court relied on cases involving the staleness doctrine which examine the period of time between when an officer has knowledge that a driver has an invalid license and when the stop occurs. See State v. Wade, 673 So.2d 906 (Fla. 3d DCA 1996)

(a traffic stop made eleven days after knowledge of suspension was found to be reasonable); State v. Leyva, 599 So.2d 691, 693 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992) (four- to five-week-old "knowledge of defendant's previously suspended driver's license was not stale and provided the officer with a reasonable suspicion upon which to make a valid legal stop"); State v. Carrs, 568 So.2d 120, 120 (Fla. 5th DCA 1990) (predicate knowledge for stop was "two days to a week old"). The trial court also cited to cases from other states involving the same issue. See Stewart v. State, 220 Ga.App. 295, 469 S.E.2d 424 (1996) (no time frame specified, but stop declared legal); State v. Duesterhoeft, 311 N.W.2d 866 (Minn.1981) (stop valid based on knowledge that was one month old); State v. Gibson, 665 P.2d 1302 (Utah 1983) (stop valid based on actual knowledge three months old). Based on these cases, the trial court found there to be no bright-line test for establishing when facts giving rise to a reasonable and articulable suspicion become stale. The court then found that in this case, Dowdy's suspicion was reasonable because the knowledge he had concerning Moody's driving status was not stale. We disagree with the trial court's conclusion that Dowdy's knowledge was not stale.

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