Rogers v. State
| Decision Date | 01 March 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. SC91384.,SC91384. |
| Citation | 783 So.2d 980 |
| Parties | Glen Edward ROGERS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, and A. Anne Owens, Assistant Public Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit, Bartow, FL, for Appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and Robert J. Landry, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, FL, for Appellee.
We have on appeal the judgment and sentence of the trial court imposing the death penalty upon Glen Edward Rogers. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the judgment and sentence.
Rogers was convicted of first-degree murder, armed robbery, and grand theft of a motor vehicle and sentenced to death for the brutal stabbing of Tina Marie Cribbs in a Tampa motel room. Cribbs was last seen alive leaving the Showtown Bar in Tampa with Rogers on Sunday, November 5, 1995. A bartender testified that Rogers arrived at the bar around 11 a.m. Cribbs and three female friends arrived a few hours later. Rogers purchased the women a round of drinks and introduced himself to several bar patrons as "Randy." Rogers informed Cribbs and her friends that he had no interest in married women or women with boyfriends. Rogers asked Cribbs, the only single woman of the group, for "a ride" and she agreed. Upon leaving the bar with Rogers, Cribbs told one of her friends that she would be back in fifteen or twenty minutes to meet her mother.
When Cribbs' mother, Mary Dicke, arrived twenty minutes later to meet her daughter as they had planned, Cribbs had not yet returned. Dicke waited for her daughter at the bar for nearly an hour and a half. Then Dicke began paging Cribbs, but received no response despite thirty pages. According to Dicke, it was unusual for her daughter not to return her calls. The next morning, Cribbs did not show up for work.
A motel clerk testified that Rogers had arrived at the motel by cab on Saturday, November 4, 1995. Rogers told the motel clerk that he was a truck driver whose truck had broken down. At that time, Rogers paid for a two-night stay. A desk clerk testified that Rogers returned to the motel office on Sunday evening, November 5, 1995. Shortly before Rogers entered the motel office, the clerk had observed Rogers with two suitcases near his motel room. According to the clerk, it appeared as if Rogers was packing a white Ford Festiva automobile. Rogers then entered the motel office, paid for an additional night's stay at the motel, informed the clerk that he did not want anyone going into his room, and requested a "Do Not Disturb" sign. When the clerk informed Rogers that the motel did not have such signs, Rogers requested that the clerk leave a note for the cleaning crew not to enter and clean his room. The next morning, at approximately 9 a.m., the clerk saw Rogers leaving the motel alone in the same white automobile. The evidence at trial established that the white vehicle belonged to Cribbs.
On Tuesday, November 7, 1995, a cleaning person at the motel went into the room that Rogers had rented. The cleaning person noticed a handwritten "Do Not Disturb" sign hanging on the doorknob.1 She testified that she had observed the same sign hanging on the door on Monday morning and thus did not enter the room to clean it. Upon entering the room on Tuesday, the cleaning person found Cribbs' body in the bathroom. Cribbs was found lying on her back in the bathtub. She was clothed, wearing a damp T-shirt, underwear, and socks. On the bathroom floor, authorities found a damp pile of clothes and bloodstained towels. A pager and black wristwatch were lying at Cribbs' feet in the bathtub. Although Cribbs' mother testified that her daughter habitually wore a sapphire and diamond square ring and a gold heart-shaped watch, no such jewelry was recovered from Cribbs' body.
The State's forensic pathologist estimated that Cribbs could have been dead for one to three days before she was found. He testified that Cribbs died as a result of two stabs wounds, one to the chest and one to the buttocks. In addition to these injuries, Cribbs had several bruises and abrasions, and a shallow wound to her left arm, which the pathologist believed was a defensive wound. The evidence showed that Cribbs had been wearing her clothing when she was stabbed.
A senior forensic serologist with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement ("FDLE") also testified for the State. He found no evidence of semen in Cribbs' body. An FBI agent who was an expert in the field of forensic serology also testified that the blue jean shorts and T-shirts found in the motel bathroom tested positive for blood. In addition, a biological forensic examiner for the DNA unit of the FBI testified that neither Cribbs nor Rogers could be excluded as a contributor to the blood stains on the jean shorts. He also stated that Rogers was a potential contributor to the DNA samples found on a T-shirt recovered from Cribbs' vehicle.
The State established through the testimony of maintenance workers that Cribbs' wallet was found early in the afternoon of Monday, November 6, 1995, at a rest area on Interstate-10 ("I-10") near Tallahassee, Florida. A crime lab analysis revealed that two latent fingerprints belonging to Rogers were inside the wallet. Fingerprints lifted from the motel room also matched Rogers' fingerprints.
Rogers was eventually apprehended in Kentucky on November 13, 1995, a week after Cribbs was murdered. After being informed that Rogers was in the area, Detective Robert Stephens saw Rogers driving a white Ford Festiva and requested back-up. A high speed chase ensued, and during this pursuit, Rogers threw beer cans at the pursuing officers as he tried to elude them. Authorities set up a roadblock and successfully forced Rogers off the roadway.
A subsequent inventory of Cribbs' vehicle revealed a substantial amount of food, a cooler, a duffel bag, a comforter, two pillows, Mississippi and Florida license plates, a key to the motel room where Cribbs' body was found, and a bloodstained T-shirt. A small smear on the inside driver's door tested positive for blood. Police also found a pair of blue jeans, which contained blood.
During an interview with Kentucky Police, Rogers claimed that "a girl," whom he could not describe, loaned him the vehicle. Rogers stated that he met the "girl" in a bar and brought her to his motel room. After dropping the "girl" off at the motel, Rogers left to get some beer and cigarettes. According to Rogers, the "girl" was alive when he left and Rogers claimed that he never returned, or intended to return, to the motel. This statement contradicted the testimony of the motel desk clerk, who testified that he saw Rogers leaving the motel on Monday morning. When the investigating officer stated that he just wanted Rogers to tell the truth, Rogers replied, "I can't tell you the truth."
In his defense, Rogers attempted to establish that someone else was the perpetrator of Cribbs' murder. First, the defense introduced the testimony of Tampa police officers who stated that the surrounding area of the motel was a high crime area and that many of the residents of that motel and the motel located across the street had criminal records. The defense established that the Tampa Police did not investigate any of these individuals as potential suspects in the murder. According to the defense, this supported the defense's theory that the Tampa police "rushed to judgment" in this case.
Second, the defense called another highway maintenance worker who testified that Cribbs' wallet was not recovered on Monday afternoon, but that it was found around 10:30 a.m. According to the defense, the time the wallet was found was crucial because if Rogers had left the Tampa area at 9 a.m., as the motel desk clerk testified, he could not have disposed of the wallet at the highway rest stop near Tallahassee any earlier than 1 p.m.
Finally, the defense also called several expert witnesses, including Dr. John Feegel, a forensic pathologist, consulting medical examiner and practicing attorney. Doctor Feegel estimated that Cribbs died approximately twenty-nine or thirty hours before she was found. Contrary to the State expert's estimate, Dr. Feegel opined that it was unlikely that Cribbs had been dead for forty-eight hours before her body was discovered.
Rogers was convicted on all charges and, at the conclusion of the penalty-phase proceedings, the jury unanimously recommended the death penalty. The trial court accepted the jury's recommendation and sentenced Rogers to death. The trial court found two aggravating circumstances: (1) that the murder was committed for pecuniary gain; and (2) that the murder was heinous, atrocious, or cruel ("HAC"). The court found one statutory mitigating circumstance—that Rogers' capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was substantially impaired (some weight). The court also found the following nonstatutory mitigating circumstances: (1) Rogers had a childhood deprived of love, affection or moral guidance and lacked a moral upbringing of good family values (slight weight); (2) Rogers' father was an alcoholic who physically abused Rogers' mother in the presence of Rogers and his siblings (slight weight); (3) Rogers was introduced to controlled substances at a young age and encouraged by his older brother to participate in burglaries (slight weight); (4) Rogers has been lawfully and gainfully employed at various times in his adult life (slight weight); (5) Rogers was solely responsible for the care of his two children at one time in his adult life (slight weight); and (6) Rogers had been drinking alcohol for a few hours on the day he came into contact with the victim (little weight).
On appeal, Rogers raises ten issues.2 We address each of these issues.
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Geralds v. Inch
...2d 415, 419 (Fla. 1990), receded from on other grounds by Trease v. State, 768 So. 2d 1050, 1055 (Fla. 2000); see also Rogers v. State, 783 So. 2d 980, 995 (Fla. 2001). Accordingly, appellate counsel could have raised a claim that the trial court erred in not giving more express considerati......
-
Johnson v. State
...Florida law also requires that aggravating factors in death penalty cases be established beyond a reasonable doubt. See Rogers v. State, 783 So.2d 980, 992-93 (Fla.2001). The Supreme Court cautioned in Ring that its determination of who decides whether a defendant is eligible for the death ......
-
Yacob v. State
...to prevent the imposition of ‘unusual’ punishments contrary to article I, section 17 of the Florida Constitution.”); Rogers v. State, 783 So.2d 980, 1002 (Fla.2001) (“This Court performs proportionality review to prevent the imposition of ‘unusual’ punishments contrary to article I, section......
-
Martin v. State
...in its written order each mitigating circumstance proposed by the defendant.”857 So.2d 845, 857 (Fla.2003) (quoting Rogers v. State, 783 So.2d 980, 995 (Fla.2001)); see also Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 102 S.Ct. 869, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982) (holding that a sentencer may not “refuse to co......
-
Charging a crime, arraignment and pleas
...court papers shortly before trial is clearly improper where the reason for searching related to defendant’s trial. Rogers v. State, 783 So. 2d 980 (Fla. 2001) First District Court of Appeal Prosecutor required to promptly disclose to defense counsel a witness’ statement to prosecutor on the......