Owen v. State

• Decision Date: 23 October 2003
• Docket Number: No. SC95526.,SC95526.
• Citation: 862 So.2d 687
• Parties: Duane OWEN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

862 So.2d 687

Duane OWEN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC95526.

Supreme Court of Florida.

October 23, 2003.

Rehearing Denied December 19, 2003.

Glenn H. Mitchell, West Palm Beach, FL, for Appellant.

Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, and Celia A. Terenzio, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, FL, for Appellee.

PER CURIAM.

We have on appeal the judgment and sentence entered in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Court imposing the death penalty upon Duane Owen. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons stated below, we affirm the judgment and sentence under review.

This is the second appearance of Duane Owen before this Court to review a conviction and sentence of death for the murder of fourteen-year-old Karen Slattery. In 1990, we reversed his original conviction and sentence of death and remanded for a retrial. See Owen v. State, 560 So.2d 207, 212 (Fla.1990)

.¹ In early 1999, following retrial, Owen was again found guilty by a jury of the offense of first-degree murder, and was further found guilty of attempted sexual battery with a deadly weapon or force likely to cause serious personal injury and burglary of a dwelling while armed.

In March 1999, the same jury recommended, by a ten-to-two vote, that Owen should be sentenced to death. The judge followed the jury's recommendation, and on March 23, 1999, Owen was adjudicated guilty and sentenced to death for the murder of Karen Slattery.²

In support of the sentence of death, the trial court found that four aggravating circumstances existed to support the death sentence: (1) the defendant had been previously convicted of another capital offense or a felony involving the use of violence to some person; (2) the crime for which the defendant was to be sentenced was committed while he was engaged in the commission of or an attempt to commit or flight after committing or attempting to commit the crime of burglary; (3) the crime for which the defendant was to be sentenced was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel (HAC); and (4) the crime for which the defendant was to be sentenced was committed in a cold and calculated and premeditated manner without any pretense of moral or legal justification (CCP). In mitigation, the trial judge considered three statutory mitigating factors: (1) the crime for which the defendant was to be sentenced was committed while he was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance; (2) the capacity of the defendant to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirement of the law was substantially impaired; and (3) the age of the defendant at the time of the crime was twenty-three. The trial court also considered sixteen nonstatutory mitigating factors.³

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Duane Owen has an extensive criminal history, with this appeal marking his sixth occasion before this Court. As noted above, Owen first appeared before this Court in 1990 seeking review of the sentence of death he received following the original Slattery murder trial. This Court reversed his conviction on the basis of a Miranda⁴ violation. See Owen, 560 So.2d at 211

. There, this Court held that the law enforcement officers questioning Owen about the Slattery homicide violated the dictates of Miranda when they continued to question him after he responded to two of their questions with the answers "I don't want to talk about it" and "I'd rather not talk about it." See id. Following well-established principles of law applicable at the time, this Court explained that "a suspect's equivocal assertion of a Miranda right terminates any further questioning except that which is designed to clarify the suspect's wishes." Id. Applying this rule of law, this Court determined that Owen's responses of "I don't want to talk about it" and "I'd rather not talk about it" were "at the least, an equivocal invocation of the Miranda right to terminate questioning, which could only be clarified." Id. The law enforcement officers continued to question Owen after his responses and failed to clarify his wishes, and, therefore, this Court held that Owen's right to terminate questioning was violated, and any statements made after his right was violated, namely his confession to the Slattery murder, should have been suppressed. The trial court had failed to suppress the statements, an error that this Court determined was not harmless, which prompted this Court to reverse Owen's convictions and remand for retrial. See id.

Owen's next appearance before this Court came in 1992 in the direct appeal of a sentence of death imposed upon him for the murder of Georgianna Worden. See Owen v. State, 596 So.2d 985 (Fla.1992)

. The facts surrounding the death of Worden were substantially similar to those of the Slattery murder. As this Court detailed, "The body of the victim, Georgianna Worden, was discovered by her children on the morning of May 29, 1984, as they prepared for school. An intruder had forcibly entered the Boca Raton home during the night and bludgeoned Worden with a hammer as she slept, and then sexually assaulted her." Id. at 986. This Court affirmed the conviction and sentence of death in that case and, notably, held that there was sufficient evidence to support the trial court's findings that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel and that the murder was committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner. See id. at 990.

In 1997, Owen was again before this Court in connection with a question certified by the Fourth District Court of Appeal, which related to the admissibility of Owen's confession to the Slattery murder. See State v. Owen, 696 So.2d 715 (Fla. 1997)

. Following this Court's decision in Owen's first direct appeal for the Slattery homicide, but before his retrial, the United States Supreme Court issued an opinion in Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 114 S.Ct. 2350, 129 L.Ed.2d 362 (1994). As this Court outlined, Davis held that "neither Miranda nor its progeny require police officers to stop interrogation when a suspect in custody, who has made a knowing and voluntary waiver of his or her Miranda rights, thereafter makes an equivocal or ambiguous request for counsel." Owen, 696 So.2d at 717. Prior to Owen's retrial, the State requested that the trial court reconsider the admissibility of Owen's confession in light of Davis, and the trial court concluded that the confession was inadmissible. See id. The district court of appeal subsequently denied the State's petition for a writ of certiorari because this Court had previously ruled that the confession was inadmissible, thereby making the decision of inadmissibility the law of the case. See id. However, the district court certified the following question to this Court: "Do the principles announced by the United States Supreme Court in Davis apply to the admissibility of confessions in Florida, in light of Traylor v. State?" Id. at 716 (citations omitted).⁵

Initially, this Court held that while the ruling in Davis pertained specifically to requests for counsel, the reasoning upon which the decision was based was equally applicable to requests to terminate interrogation. See Owen, 696 So.2d at 718

. Further, this Court held that Traylor did not control, because in Traylor the defendant made no indication that he wished to invoke his Miranda rights, while Owen made an equivocal request to terminate questioning. See id. at 719. We proceeded to apply the Davis rationale to the issue before us, and, answering the certified question in the affirmative, held that "police in Florida need not ask clarifying questions if a defendant who has received proper Miranda warnings makes only an equivocal or ambiguous request to terminate an interrogation after having validly waived his or her Miranda rights." Id.

Finally, we analyzed the law of the case doctrine and determined that "the [United States] Supreme Court's decision in Davis qualifies as an exceptional situation" and therefore the law of the case as to the admissibility of Owen's confession, as determined in Owen's first direct appeal, could be modified. Id. at 720. This Court reasoned: "[R]eliance upon our prior decision in Owen's direct appeal would result in manifest injustice to the people of this state because it would perpetuate a rule which we have now determined to be an undue restriction of legitimate law enforcement activity." Id. This Court refused to retroactively reinstate Owen's prior conviction, but instead noted: "With respect to this issue, Owen stands in the same position as any other defendant who has been charged with murder but who has not yet been tried. Just as it would be in the case of any other defendant, the admissibility of Owen's confession in his new trial will be subject to the Davis rationale that we adopt in this opinion." Id.

Owen's final two prior appearances before this Court pertained to the Worden murder. In 2000, this Court denied Owen's rule 3.850 postconviction motion in that case. See Owen v. State, 773 So.2d 510 (Fla.2000)

. Owen then filed a successive 3.850 motion, which was denied by the trial court. On July 11, 2003, we affirmed the trial court's denial of postconviction relief, and also denied Owen's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. See Owen v. Crosby, 854 So.2d 182, (Fla.2003).

Now before this Court on a direct challenge of his conviction and sentence of death for the murder of Karen Slattery, Owen raises seven claims on appeal: (1) the trial court erred in failing to suppress Owen's confession on the basis of voluntariness; (2) the trial court erred in failing to suppress Owen's confession because Owen made an unequivocal invocation of his right to remain silent which was ignored by the law enforcement officers questioning him; (3) the trial court improperly applied the aggravating factor of heinous, atrocious, or cruel (HAC); (4) the trial court improperly applied the aggravating...