Murray v. State
| Decision Date | 03 October 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. SC95470.,SC95470. |
| Citation | 838 So.2d 1073 |
| Parties | Gerald D. MURRAY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Richard R. Kuritz, Jacksonville, FL, for Appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and Charmaine M. Millsaps, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, for Appellee.
We have for review appellant Gerald D. Murray's appeal from a judgment of conviction of first-degree murder and a sentence of death. We have jurisdiction. See Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For reasons that follow, we reverse Murray's convictions, vacate his sentences, including the sentence of death, and remand for a new trial.
Appellant was initially convicted in 1994 for the September 1990 murder of fifty-nine-year-old Alice Vest. The jury found Murray guilty of first-degree murder, burglary of a dwelling with assault, and sexual battery and recommended death by a vote of eleven to one. The trial court followed the jury's recommendation and sentenced appellant to death. On appeal, this Court reversed the convictions and sentences and remanded the case for a new trial. See Murray v. State, 692 So.2d 157, 158 (Fla. 1997)
.
Murray was retried in February 1999. The evidence presented at trial revealed that on September 15, 1990, the victim (Alice Vest) arrived home around 11:30 p.m. after having dinner with a friend. Earlier that same evening, appellant and two friends, James "Bubba" Fisher and Steve Taylor,1 had played pool together; between 10:45 and 11:15 p.m., Fisher dropped appellant and Taylor about a mile from his home. Around 12:40 a.m., another witness, who lived approximately two miles from the victim's house, saw Murray and Taylor in her barn; the men ran away when she sent her dog to attack them.
The victim's body was discovered the next morning (September 16, 1990) by a neighbor. The telephone lines leading into the house had been cut and a screen which covered the kitchen window had been removed. A shoeprint and some latent fingerprints were recovered from the scene of the crime, but none of the prints matched Taylor or Murray. In addition, several pieces of jewelry belonging to the victim were missing.
According to the medical examiner, the victim had been vaginally and anally raped and stabbed some twenty-four times. Most of the stab wounds were consistent with knife wounds, but some were consistent with infliction by a pair of scissors found near the victim's body. The victim also had a broken jaw and had been beaten about her head and face with several items, including a metal bar, a candle holder, and a glass bottle. The actual cause of death was ligature strangulation. The medical examiner asserted that the victim was probably stabbed first, then strangled with several ligatures, including a web belt and an electrical cord. Although he opined that the victim was alive during the stabbing, he could not say how long she remained conscious during the attack.
During the trial, the State admitted hair evidence found at the scene of the crime, which reflected that several hairs found on the victim's nightgown matched Murray's DNA profile. According to the State's DNA expert, Michael DeGuglielmo, the test results on those hairs also indicated the presence of a fainter, secondary DNA, consistent with the victim's DNA profile. This meant that while the fainter, secondary DNA could not be conclusively matched to the victim, the victim could not be excluded as a possible donor.
The police also recovered hairs from the victim's body. DNA tests on these hairs indicated that one matched the DNA profile of the victim and one matched the DNA profile of Taylor. Although none of these hairs matched Murray's DNA profile, DeGuglielmo testified that the test results on the hair matching the victim's DNA also indicated the presence of a fainter, secondary DNA which was consistent with Murray's DNA profile.
The hair evidence was also sent to an FBI lab in Washington, D.C., for comparison with known hair samples from three persons: Murray, Taylor, and the victim. According to Joseph DiZinno, a hair specialist with the FBI, some of the hairs found on the victim's nightgown were pubic hairs which had the same microscopic characteristics as Murray's hairs. As for the hairs found on the victim's body, the expert concluded that one of the hairs was a pubic hair which was consistent with Murray's hair. Taylor was excluded as a possible source of the hairs.
Additional evidence presented at trial revealed that approximately six months after his indictment for the murder of Alice Vest, Murray escaped from prison. While out, Murray confessed to the murder of Alice Vest to one of his co-escapees, Anthony Smith. According to Smith, Murray said that on the night of the murder Taylor came over to his house and wanted to go out. Murray initially refused, but Taylor was eventually able to convince him after the two consumed some beer. After drinking more beer, Taylor convinced Murray to rob a house, and together, the pair broke into what Murray thought was an unoccupied house. When Murray discovered the owner was home, he wanted to leave, but Taylor grabbed the female occupant, held a knife to her, and sexually assaulted her. Afterwards, Murray had the victim perform oral sex on him. Murray left Taylor alone with the victim and searched the house for things to steal. When he returned to the bedroom five or ten minutes later, Taylor had stabbed the victim. Together they found an extension cord and strangled her. On June 9, 1993, approximately seven months after his escape, Murray was captured in Las Vegas, Nevada. At the time of his arrest he was carrying two false identification cards.
The defense presented two witnesses: Dr. Howard Baum and Joseph Warren. Warren was the laboratory analyst who worked with DeGuglielmo and who actually performed the DNA tests. Warren testified that the DNA test results in this case were inconclusive and unreliable. He described several serious errors he committed during the test procedures and testified that, in addition, certain important controls were not maintained, thereby undermining the reliability of the test results. Dr. Baum, the Assistant Medical Examiner in New York City, criticized the DNA test procedures used in this case and expressed the opinion that the test results were both inconclusive and unreliable.
The jury convicted appellant of first-degree murder, burglary with assault, and sexual battery. During the penalty phase of the trial, the State presented evidence concerning appellant's three prior convictions for felonies in which he used violence or the threat of violence. The State also presented victim impact evidence from the victim's friend and daughter. The defense did not present any evidence or witnesses during the penalty phase.
The jury recommended death by a vote of twelve to zero, and the trial court followed the recommendation in imposing a sentence of death. The trial court found four aggravating factors to which it attributed substantial weight, found no statutory mitigators, but found five nonstatutory mitigating factors based on information presented in a PSI report.
Appellant raises nine issues for this Court's review, all of which pertain solely to the guilt/innocence phase of the trial.2 As Murray's fourth issue is dispositive, we treat it first.3
Murray challenges the admissibility of the DNA evidence introduced by the State on the ground that the procedure used in testing the DNA in this case did not comply with the accepted standards to ensure reliability and, therefore, the evidence should have been excluded.4 Specifically, he argues that the DNA evidence should have been ruled inadmissible because the laboratory's testing procedures did not meet the standards generally accepted within the scientific community and hence fell below the requirements for admissibility under Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C.Cir.1923).
We begin our analysis with the premise that the trial court's ruling on a Frye issue is subject to de novo review on appeal. See Brim v. State, 695 So.2d 268, 274 (Fla.1997)
. Therefore, we must review the trial court's ruling "as a matter of law rather than by an abuse of discretion standard." Id.
In Henyard v. State, 689 So.2d 239 (Fla.1996), we explained the applicable law when reviewing a claim that DNA testing procedures did not meet the necessary standards:
cert. denied, 488 U.S. 871, 109 S.Ct. 183, 102 L.Ed.2d 152 (1988) (emphasis supplied).
Id. at 1291. Subsequently, in Hayes v. State, 660 So.2d 257, 264 (Fla.1995), we took judicial notice "that DNA test results are generally accepted as reliable in the scientific community, provided that the laboratory has followed accepted testing procedures that meet the Frye test to protect against false readings and contamination."
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