Parker v. State
| Decision Date | 06 September 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 63700,63700 |
| Citation | 458 So.2d 750 |
| Parties | Robert Lacey PARKER, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Robert J. Link of Goodstein & Link, Jacksonville, for appellant.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen. and Barbara Ann Butler, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jacksonville, for appellee.
Appellant was tried on three counts of first-degree murder. A jury found him guilty of first-degree murder on two counts and of third-degree murder on the other and recommended a sentence of life on each of the first-degree murder convictions. The trial judge overrode the jury recommendation on one of the convictions and imposed the death penalty. We have jurisdiction to review the convictions and the imposition of the death penalty pursuant to article V, section 3(b)(1), Florida Constitution. We affirm both the convictions and the sentence.
Parker was charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Richard Padgett, Jody Dalton and Nancy Sheppard. The state introduced evidence at trial that Parker was a drug dealer and Tommy Groover sold drugs for him. Groover had allegedly fronted some drugs to Padgett. When Groover was unable to pay Parker, Parker allegedly threatened to hang Groover unless the debt was satisfied. Testimony indicated Parker was of a violent temperament, had possession of firearms and was irritated over the drug debt. Uncontroverted evidence showed that Padgett was located at a bar, taken to Parker's junkyard and beaten by Groover and driven into the woods and shot by Groover. Later that same evening, Groover beat and shot Jody Dalton and Parker helped weight her body and sink it in a lake. Finally, Nancy Sheppard, Padgett's seventeen-year-old girlfriend, was lured from her home and taken to the ditch where Padgett's body had been left. She was killed by Billy Long, who testified that he was ordered to kill her by Parker, who threatened to kill him in her place unless Long complied. Parker then took Sheppard's necklace and ring from her body.
Parker did not deny being present during these events, but he testified in his own behalf that he had been an unwilling accomplice, forced into cooperation by Groover's threats against Parker's family. He further claimed to have had no indication that Groover planned to kill Padgett or Dalton and that these murders were not part of any common scheme or in furtherance of any common goal. On the contrary, Parker claimed friendship with Padgett and disclaimed more than the slightest acquaintance with either of the women.
The jury convicted Parker of third-degree murder in the death of Jody Dalton and first-degree murder in the Padgett and Sheppard homicides. The jury recommended life imprisonment on both first-degree convictions. The trial judge sentenced Parker to life in the Padgett killing, but he imposed the death penalty for the Sheppard murder.
Appellant raises twenty issues as assignments of error in the guilt phase. All have been considered in depth and found insufficient to require reversal. We find it necessary to discuss only three at any length.
First, Parker contends that the Padgett murder was an independent act of Tommy Groover's, and the trial court erred in denying Parker's request for a jury instruction on the independent act of a co-felon, citing Bryant v. State, 412 So.2d 347 (Fla.1982). It is true that an act in which a defendant does not participate and which is "outside of and foreign to, the common design" of the original felonious collaboration may not be used to implicate the non-participant in the act. 412 So.2d at 349. Where any evidence which would support the theory of independent act has been presented, the defendant is entitled to the jury instruction. We do not find any evidence on the record which would require the instruction.
In Bryant, the defendant had agreed to help burgle a supposedly empty apartment. Upon entering the apartment, the defendant discovered the victim to be present--bound hand and foot, naked on the floor. The defendant admitted to retying the victim and moving him to the bed, but he testified that when he left the apartment fifteen minutes later the victim was alive and had not been sexually assaulted. The victim's dead body was later discovered; he had been violently assaulted anally and strangled with a necktie.
Bryant is clearly distinguishable from the present case even when all the evidence presented is viewed in the light most favorable to Parker. In Bryant the defendant did not participate in creating the circumstances which directly led to the victim's death. Parker, on the other hand, created the initial situation by threatening to kill Groover if he did not reimburse Parker for drugs he had fronted to Padgett. In Bryant, the defendant claimed to have withdrawn entirely from the scene and to have fulfilled his role in the criminal enterprise before the rape and murder began. Parker was on the scene and was still demanding repayment when Padgett was murdered. Finally, the acts of rape and murder are not inspired by the same criminal motivation which induced Bryant's participation in a burglary for pecuniary gain. Parker, however, was, at the very least, aware that Padgett was being driven to the woods against his will as part of the ongoing terrorization for failure to pay his drug debt and to keep him from seeking reinforcements from his relatives and mounting a retributive attack on Groover and Parker. The murder was a natural and foreseeable culmination of the motivations for the original kidnapping. As a principal to the kidnapping, Parker is a perpetrator of the underlying felony and thus a principal in the homicide. Goodwin v. State, 405 So.2d 170 (Fla.1981). We find no error in the failure to give the requested instruction.
Of more concern is the state's advising the jury that Elaine Parker, appellant's ex-wife and a participant in the sequence of events giving rise to the murders, had pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree murder pursuant to a plea bargain. Appellant cites Thomas v. State, 202 So.2d 883 (Fla. 3d DCA 1967), and Moore v. State, 186 So.2d 56 (Fla. 3d DCA 1966), as holding that revealing a co-felon's conviction or entry of a guilty plea was impermissibly prejudicial to the fairness of the trial. We agree in principle with Judge Pearson's analysis in Thomas:
As a general rule, it is improper for a prosecuting attorney to disclose during trial that another defendant had been convicted or has pleaded guilty. This is because competent and satisfactory evidence against one person charged with an offense is not necessarily so against another person charged with the same offense. Each person charged with the commission of an offense must be tried upon evidence legally tending to show his...
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