Pittman v. State, 78605

• Decision Date: 29 September 1994
• Docket Number: No. 78605,78605
• Parties: 19 Fla. L. Weekly S489 David PITTMAN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 167

646 So.2d 167

19 Fla. L. Weekly S489

David PITTMAN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 78605.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Sept. 29, 1994.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 19, 1994.

James Marion Moorman, Public Defender and A. Anne Owens, Asst. Public Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit, Bartow, for appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen. and Robert J. Landry, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tampa, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

David Joseph Pittman appeals his convictions on three counts of first-degree murder and his sentences of death. We have jurisdiction pursuant to article V, section 3(b)(1), of the Florida Constitution. For the reasons expressed, we affirm Pittman's convictions and death sentences.

The record reflects that, shortly after 3 a.m. on May 15, 1990, a newspaper deliveryman in Mulberry, Florida, reported to law enforcement authorities that he had just seen a burst of flame on the horizon. When the authorities investigated they found the home of Clarence and Barbara Knowles fully engulfed in fire. After the fire was extinguished, the police entered the house and discovered the bodies of Clarence and Barbara, as well as the body of their twenty-year-old daughter, Bonnie. Although all of the bodies were burned in the fire, a medical examiner determined that the cause of death in each instance was massive bleeding from multiple stab wounds. In addition, the medical examiner testified that Bonnie Knowles' throat had been cut. A subsequent investigation revealed that the fire was the result of arson, that the phone line to the house had been cut, and that Bonnie Knowles' brown Toyota was missing.

A construction worker testified that, when he arrived at work at 6:30 a.m. on the morning of the fire, he noticed a brown Toyota in a ditch on the side of the road near his job site. Other testimony revealed that the location of the Toyota was about one-half mile from the Knowles residence. The worker also observed a homemade wrecker, which he later identified as belonging to Pittman, pull up to the Toyota and, shortly thereafter, saw a cloud of smoke coming from that direction. Another witness who lived near the construction site also saw the smoke and observed a man running away from a burning car. This witness later identified Pittman from a photo-pack as the man she saw that morning. Investigators determined that the car fire, like the earlier house fire, was the work of an arsonist.

At the time of the murders, another of the Knowles' daughters, Marie, was in the process of divorcing Pittman. The divorce was not amicable and the State introduced testimony that Pittman had made several threats against Marie and her family. The State also produced evidence that Pittman had recently learned that Bonnie Knowles had tried to press criminal charges against him for an alleged rape that had occurred five years earlier.

Carl Hughes, a jailhouse informant, testified that Pittman told him that he had gone to the Knowles' house on the evening of the murders to speak with Bonnie Knowles about the problems he was having with her family. Bonnie let Pittman in the house and, when she refused his sexual advances, he killed her to stop her cries for help. Pittman then admitted to killing Barbara Knowles in the hallway outside Bonnie's bedroom and to killing Clarence in the living room as Clarence tried to use the phone. Pittman also told Hughes that he burned the house, stole the Toyota and abandoned it on the side of the road, and later returned to the Toyota and burned it as well.

The record further reflects that Pittman feared that the police suspected his involvement in the murders, and, at the prompting of his mother, Pittman turned himself in to the police on the day after the murders.

In response to the prosecution's case, the defense presented testimony critical of the police investigation and attempted to establish that Marie, Pittman's former wife, and her new husband had a motive to commit the murders. Pittman testified in his own defense and stated that he had nothing to do with the crimes charged. He also denied that he had told anyone he had committed the murders. The jury found Pittman guilty of three counts of first-degree murder, two counts of arson, and one count of grand theft, and found him not guilty of burglary.

In the penalty phase, the State established that Pittman was convicted of aggravated assault in 1985. In mitigation, Pittman presented the testimony of his mother that he was a difficult child to deal with and that she had disciplined him severely. A clinical psychologist testified that Pittman's father was a paranoid schizophrenic; that as a child Pittman suffered from a severe attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity; and that Pittman has organic personality syndrome, which causes paranoia and an unstable mood. After hearing this testimony, the jury recommended the death penalty for each murder conviction by a vote of 9 to 3. In his sentencing order, the judge found two aggravating circumstances for each murder: (1) previous conviction of another capital or violent felony, and (2) the murders were heinous, atrocious, or cruel. ¹ The judge then expressly rejected the mitigating factors of Pittman's being under the influence of extreme mental and emotional disturbance and concluded that the aggravating factors outweighed the proven mitigating factors. The judge imposed the death penalty for each murder. ² Pittman has raised ten issues in his appeal to this Court, three of which are directed to the guilt phase of the trial. ³

Guilt Phase

In his first claim Pittman contends that the trial court erred in allowing the State to introduce evidence of Pittman's collateral crimes and bad acts. Pittman asserts that the trial court erroneously permitted the State to introduce evidence of threats Pittman made against his former wife and the Knowles family, an attack on a prison informant, and testimony that Pittman had once made a gas bomb. Section 90.404(2)(a), Florida Statutes (1989), states: "Similar fact evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is admissible when relevant to prove a material fact in issue, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident, but it is inadmissible when the evidence is relevant solely to prove bad character or propensity." See Williams v. State, 110 So.2d 654 (Fla.) (same), cert. denied, 361 U.S. 847, 80 S.Ct. 102, 4 L.Ed.2d 86 (1959). However, evidence of bad acts or crimes is admissible without regard to whether it is similar fact evidence if it is relevant to establish a material issue. See Gorham v. State, 454 So.2d 556, 558 (Fla.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1181, 105 S.Ct. 941, 83 L.Ed.2d 953 (1985). We have acknowledged that "such evidence, even if relevant, should not be admitted if its probative value is substantially outweighed by undue prejudice." Bryan v. State, 533 So.2d 744, 746 (Fla.1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1028, 109 S.Ct. 1765, 104 L.Ed.2d 200 (1989). We find that each bit of evidence of which Pittman complains was clearly relevant to a material fact in issue and of sufficient probative value to be admitted. We find no error in the admission of this evidence.

In his second claim, Pittman asserts that the trial court erred in admitting identification testimony that was influenced by unduly suggestive identification procedures. This claim is based on three separate instances. First, a witness testified that he saw a brown Toyota abandoned on the side of the road early on the morning of the murders. The witness also testified that he saw a homemade wrecker approach the Toyota minutes before it was set on fire. Later that evening, the police drove the witness to Pittman's house to view Pittman's wrecker. The wrecker had been disassembled, ⁴ and the witness was unable to confirm whether it was the wrecker he had seen that morning. Later, after the police had reassembled the wrecker, the witness was brought back to Pittman's house and this time made a positive identification. Second, another witness testified that he saw a homemade wrecker stop near his house in the early morning hours on the day of the murders; that the driver, whom he later identified as Pittman, got out of the wrecker, shook out the contents of a gas can, returned to the wrecker and then drove off. This witness first identified the wrecker several weeks after the murders from a photo-pack that included photographs of Pittman's wrecker only. Finally, another witness identified Pittman as the man she saw running away from the burning Toyota on the morning of the murders. Her identification was based on a photo-pack that, according to Pittman, was impermissibly suggestive because no other photograph in the photo-pack closely resembled Pittman.

In Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 199, 93 S.Ct. 375, 382, 34 L.Ed.2d 401 (1972), the United States Supreme Court stated that the test for allegedly suggestive identification procedures is "whether under the 'totality of the circumstances' the identification was reliable." The Court also set out the following factors to aid in an evaluation of the likelihood of misidentification:

[T]he opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime, the witness' degree of attention, the accuracy of the witness' prior description of the criminal, the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the confrontation, and the length of time between the crime and the confrontation.

Id. We have reviewed the record and find that, under the facts of this case, none of the identifications described above were unduly suggestive under the Neil test. The first and second witnesses had a sufficient opportunity to view the wrecker and had given fairly accurate descriptions before the in-person identification. The third witness's identification of Pittman from the photo-pack was preceded by a general but accurate description of Pittman; the identification was...