Pearce v. State
| Decision Date | 01 July 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. SC02-476.,SC02-476. |
| Citation | 880 So.2d 561 |
| Parties | Faunce Levon PEARCE, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Steven Herman, Zephyrhills, FL, for Appellant.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, and Scott A. Browne, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, FL, for Appellee.
We have on appeal a judgment of conviction of first-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder and a sentence of death. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons expressed below, we affirm the judgments and sentences.
Faunce Pearce was charged as a codefendant in the murder of Robert Crawford and in the attempted murder of Stephen Tuttle.1 The following facts were revealed at Pearce's trial.
On the evening of September 13, 1999, Pearce visited Bryon Loucks at Loucks' home, which was also Loucks' place of business, a mobile home dealership known as We Shelter America. Pearce worked for the business by setting up mobile homes. Pearce was looking for Loucks' teenage stepson, Ken Shook, in order to obtain LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) geltabs. Shook called two friends, Stephen Tuttle and Robert Crawford, who in turn called another friend, Amanda Havner. Havner contacted her source for drugs, Tanya Barcomb, who said she could obtain the geltabs. Tuttle, Crawford, and Havner then went to Loucks' business, where Pearce gave them $1200 to obtain a book of 1000 geltabs. Pearce indicated that they should not return without either the money or the drugs. Shook, Tuttle, Crawford, and Havner went to Barcomb's house, where Barcomb indicated that she, her boyfriend, and Havner would obtain the drugs from a supplier while the three boys remained behind. After arriving at an apartment complex, Barcomb told Havner to stay in the car. Barcomb and her boyfriend entered a friend's apartment. The boyfriend hid the money in his own shoe and punched himself in the face. When Barcomb and her boyfriend returned to the car, they told Havner that their drug supplier stole the money. Because of Barcomb's deception, Shook, Tuttle, Crawford, and Havner eventually were forced to return to Loucks' business without the money or the drugs.
While the teenagers were gone, Pearce and Loucks received a telephone call from Barcomb explaining that Pearce's money had been stolen. Pearce became very angry and was standing outside with a gun visibly tucked in his pants when the four teenagers returned shortly thereafter. As Shook, Tuttle, Crawford, and Havner exited the car, Pearce waved the gun and ordered them inside Loucks' business office. This business location was surrounded by a twelve-foot fence, topped with barbed wire. The fence also had a locked gate. Pearce confined Loucks and the four teenagers at this location for an unknown period of time. During this confinement, the witnesses described Pearce's mood as swinging between calm and threatening. Pearce refused to allow anyone to leave and, at various times, waved his gun at the confined individuals. Havner made some phone calls in a futile attempt to recover Pearce's money. At one point, Pearce grabbed Havner by the throat and slammed her head against a wall. He also pointed the gun at Havner and threatened to shoot her in the head. Pearce eventually allowed Havner to leave when her brother arrived at the business location. At another point, Pearce took Tuttle outside and forced him at gunpoint to perform oral sex upon him.
At some point, Pearce called his friend Theodore Butterfield, and requested that Butterfield come armed to Loucks' business. Pearce also requested that Butterfield bring Lawrence Joey Smith with him. Heath Brittingham, who was at the house with Butterfield, accompanied Butterfield and Smith. When Butterfield, Smith, and Brittingham arrived at Loucks' business, they were visibly armed. Smith stated, "We're here to do business." According to Tuttle, Pearce spoke with these three men outside. Brittingham also testified that Pearce and Smith spoke to each other, but he was not able to hear their conversation. Pearce told the three men that Tuttle and Crawford were going to show them where to find the people who had stolen Pearce's money. While still holding his gun, Pearce told Tuttle and Crawford to get in his car. Loucks refused to allow Pearce to take his stepson, Shook. Loucks also offered to drive Tuttle and Crawford to their homes and to get Pearce his money in the morning. Pearce refused, but told Loucks he was not going to hurt the boys — only take them down the road, punch them in the mouth, and make them walk home. Pearce instructed Loucks to wait by the phone to hear from the boys.
Pearce, Smith, Butterfield, Brittingham, Tuttle, and Crawford left in Pearce's car, a two-door Trans Am with a t-top. Pearce drove the car and Smith sat in the front passenger seat. Tuttle sat on Crawford's lap in the middle of the backseat, with Butterfield and Brittingham seated on both sides of the boys. After driving south on Highway 41 in Pasco County, Pearce turned right on State Road 54 and drove to a dark, desolate area. According to Butterfield's testimony, sometime during this drive Smith told Pearce that his 9 mm pistol was jammed and the two men exchanged guns, with Smith receiving Pearce's functional .40 caliber pistol. Brittingham also testified that Pearce and Smith exchanged guns during the drive.
Pearce stopped the car along the side of the road and told Tuttle to get out of the car. Smith first exited from the passenger's side and stood between the door and the car while Tuttle exited the backseat on the passenger's side. Pearce told Smith either to "break [Tuttle's] jaw" or "pop him in the jaw for stealing my shit," to which Smith replied, "Fuck that." Smith then turned around and shot Tuttle once in the back of the head. When Smith got back in the car, Pearce asked, "Is he dead?," and Smith replied, Pearce then drove approximately two hundred yards down the road, stopped the car, and Smith exited the vehicle again. Pearce ordered Crawford out. Crawford complied while pleading, "No. Please no." Smith shot Crawford twice: in the head and in the arm.
After leaving the scene, Smith threatened to kill Butterfield and Brittingham if they "snitched" on him. Pearce drove to a restaurant where he and Smith ate breakfast. Pearce and Smith left Butterfield and Brittingham at a grocery store, telling them not to leave, and returned for them within an hour. Pearce then drove to the Howard Frankland Bridge over Tampa Bay, where Smith wrapped the .40 caliber pistol in newspaper and threw it in the water. Shortly thereafter, the four men split up. Smith attempted to leave town by bus but was unable to do so because of an approaching hurricane.
Tuttle survived the gunshot to his head. At trial, he testified that he remembered getting out of the car and then everything went black. His next memory was waking up on the side of the road. He felt the hole in his head, but did not remember being shot or who shot him. He eventually flagged down a passing motorist for assistance. Crawford, however, died at the scene. The medical examiner testified that Crawford's injuries suggested that he was shot first in the arm, with that bullet traveling through his body and lodging in his throat; that the gunshot wound to Crawford's head, which was fatal, entered the right side of Crawford's head about four inches above his ear and exited the left side; and that Crawford would have lost consciousness fifteen to twenty seconds after the shot to his head and died within two to five minutes.
The entire course of these events occurred during the evening of September 13, and into the morning of September 14, 1999. That morning, Butterfield and Brittingham were located and interviewed by police. Smith was arrested on the same day, and Pearce was located and arrested a few weeks later. The murder weapon, Pearce's .40 caliber pistol, was recovered from the location in Tampa Bay where Butterfield stated that Smith had thrown it. The bullets removed from Tuttle and Crawford were matched to the same pistol.
Butterfield and Brittingham agreed to cooperate with the State in exchange for not being charged with any crimes related to these offenses. Both testified at trial. During the cross-examination of Brittingham, Pearce's counsel attempted to offer a videotape of a prior statement that Brittingham made to an investigating officer. This prior statement was offered as impeachment evidence, but the court denied its introduction. A transcript of the videotape was proffered by the defense. In this videotaped statement, Brittingham stated that Pearce had no knowledge of Smith's intention to shoot the victims and that Pearce had asked Smith what he was doing when he shot the victims.
Pearce did not testify or present any evidence during the guilt phase. Pearce was convicted of first-degree murder with a firearm for Crawford's death and attempted second-degree murder with a firearm for the shooting of Tuttle. During the penalty phase, the State relied upon the evidence presented in its case in chief. Pearce chose not to testify or present penalty phase argument. The jury recommended death by a vote of ten to two.
During the Spencer2 hearing, Pearce declined to present evidence or argument and forbade his attorneys to do so. In imposing sentence, the trial court considered a handwritten letter from Pearce, letters from family members of Crawford, a comprehensive presentence investigation, and several hundred pages of court, criminal, school, and other records pertaining to Pearce. The trial court found three aggravating factors: a previous conviction of a violent felony, based on the attempted murder of Tuttle (given great weight); that the murder was committed while engaged in kidnapping (given great weight); and that the murder was cold, calculated, and...
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