Snelgrove v. State
| Decision Date | 10 November 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. SC02-2242.,SC02-2242. |
| Citation | 921 So.2d 560 |
| Parties | David B. SNELGROVE, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
James S. Purdy, Public Defender, James R. Wulchak, Chief Appellate Division, Assistant Public Defender and Larry B. Henderson, Assistant Public Defender, Seventh Judicial Circuit, Daytona Beach, FL, for Appellant.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, and Scott A. Browne, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, FL, for Appellee.
David Snelgrove was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, one count of robbery with a deadly weapon, and one count of burglary of a dwelling with battery. He was sentenced to death on both first-degree-murder convictions. He now appeals his convictions and his two death sentences.1 We affirm the convictions, but we reverse the death sentences and remand for a new penalty-phase proceeding because the trial court erred in permitting the jury to render only a single, undifferentiated advisory sentence rather than individualized advisory sentences for each capital murder conviction.
On Sunday, June 25, 2000, Glyn and Vivian Fowler were found dead in their home. The elderly couple had been brutally beaten and stabbed to death, as evidenced by multiple fractures and stab wounds spread throughout their bodies. Ultimately, Vivian died from a stab wound to the heart, and Glyn died of a brain injury caused by blunt force trauma to the head.
Evidence at the crime scene and in the surrounding area linked David Snelgrove, the twenty-seven-year-old nephew of one of the Fowlers' neighbors, to the murder. Snelgrove had recently moved in with his aunt and his cousin, Jeff McCrae, after being expelled from a drug rehabilitation program. Blood droplets matching Snelgrove's DNA were found throughout the house, as were bloody fingerprints and footprints matching Snelgrove's. A trained bloodhound followed a scent from the blood on the Fowlers' broken window to Snelgrove, and the police recovered a knife in the woods next to the Snelgrove home with blood matching Snelgrove's DNA.
Snelgrove denied any involvement with the murder. On the day the Fowlers' bodies were discovered, the Flagler County Sheriff's Office questioned Snelgrove about his activities that weekend and the cause of the cut on his hand. Snelgrove claimed he and Jeff McCrae had spent Friday evening at Don Silva's home.2 Around 12:30 a.m., he and McCrae left Silva's together, and Snelgrove claimed he spent the rest of the night at home. He attributed the cut on his hand to an accident that occurred on Monday, June 19, the last day of his landscaping job.
At trial, Jeff McCrae presented a different version of events. He testified that he and Snelgrove arrived at Silva's separately on Friday, June 23, and they left together at approximately 12:30 a.m. On the way back to their house, they stopped to purchase crack cocaine. He did not notice any cuts or bandages on Snelgrove's hand at that time. During the middle of the night, McCrae awoke to the sound of someone entering his house. He arose to find Snelgrove in the bathroom cleaning a cut on his hand and wiping what appeared to be blood from his leg and foot. Snelgrove stated that he had been in a fight, but he refused McCrae's offer to take him to the hospital. Instead, he wrapped his hand in what was possibly a shirt,3 and told McCrae that he wanted to get more cocaine. The two went to purchase cocaine from a man named "Kimo" (Cornelius Murphy). McCrae testified that the money used to buy the cocaine had blood on it. Later that night, police stopped "Kimo" at a Jiffy Food Store after he attempted to make a purchase with blood-stained money. DNA tests on one of the bills showed that the blood matched Snelgrove's DNA.
Two other witnesses also testified to the events of Friday night and the cause of the cut on Snelgrove's hand. Snelgrove's supervisor at the landscaping job testified that he did not notice any injury when he paid Snelgrove for his last day of work on Monday, June 19.4 Snelgrove's neighbor, Hans Reinholz, testified that when he met Snelgrove and shook hands with him, around 11:15 p.m. on Friday, June 23, he did not notice any cuts or bandages.
McCrae also testified that on Saturday, June 24, he and Snelgrove visited a number of pawn shops in an attempt to get cash. At one of the shops, McCrae waited in the car while Snelgrove allegedly went in to pawn an old fishing rod that a number of pawn shops had already rejected. Snelgrove returned with the fishing rod, but later a clerk at Value Pawn testified that Snelgrove pawned a necklace belonging to Vivian Fowler. Fingerprints on the necklace matched Snelgrove's.
Additional testimony came from Gary Matthews, an inmate at the Flagler County Jail, where Snelgrove was detained when he was arrested on June 25. Mathews alleged that Snelgrove made critical admissions to him. Hoping to secure a deal with the State on charges he faced, Matthews first wrote a letter to Irwin Connelly, the public defender representing him at the time Snelgrove was arrested. This letter informed Connelly that Matthews had information about a "certain case."5 Connelly withdrew from representing Matthews on June 28, the day after receiving the letter. Matthews also wrote two letters to the state attorney's office. The first was written on June 28. The State did not disclose this letter to the defense until after the guilt phase was complete. However, this letter was substantively the same as a second letter written by Matthews on July 20, which the State did disclose to the defense before trial. The July 20 letter informed the State that Matthews might have information that could save them "some legwork" and aid in Snelgrove's prosecution.
At trial, Matthews testified to his jail-house conversations with Snelgrove. Specifically, Matthews testified that Snelgrove told him of a cooperative effort between him and McCrae to break into the Fowlers' home and rob them of cash that the elderly couple kept in their bedroom. According to Matthews, Snelgrove claimed he knew of this money because he had borrowed money from the Fowlers in the past, and he was in need of money because another neighbor had refused his request for a loan. Snelgrove allegedly told Matthews that with McCrae acting as his lookout, Snelgrove broke a window with his hand and entered the house. He found his way to the master bedroom, but Glyn Fowler startled him before he could find the dresser where the money was kept. Glyn began to fight, and Snelgrove reported to Matthews that he beat and stabbed Glyn to death. In the commotion, Vivian awoke, and he beat and stabbed her as well. Matthews further testified that Snelgrove expressed remorse at his failure to look to the left when he entered the bedroom. If he had done this, he would have seen Vivian's purse, and he could have taken it without having to kill the victims.
Defense counsel first responded to Matthews' direct testimony by attempting to impeach him. He established that Matthews had pled guilty to all three charges for which he was being held (i.e., burglary, petit theft, and assault).6 He also confronted Matthews with inconsistent statements made at deposition in which Matthews claimed he did not remember anything Snelgrove told him. Matthews responded by acknowledging he had lied during deposition because he felt he "got messed around by the detectives and the State."
Defense counsel also offered a defense to the State's case. It admitted to the burglary, but denied the murders. Specifically, the defense claimed that Snelgrove did, indeed, enter the Fowlers' home through the broken window, but only after the Fowlers had been killed by someone else. In the process of coming through the window, Snelgrove cut his hand. Defense counsel claimed that the State's failure to find the Fowlers' blood mixed with Snelgrove's affirmed this defense. Alternatively, defense counsel argued that if the jury were to find Snelgrove guilty of murder, the evidence did not support premeditation.
The jury rejected both arguments. It found Snelgrove guilty of two counts of first-degree murder, one count of robbery with a deadly weapon, and one count of burglary of a dwelling with battery. On the two counts of first-degree murder, the jury found Snelgrove guilty of both premeditated and felony murder. In the penalty phase, the jury recommended the sentence of death by a vote of seven to five.7 However, this recommendation did not individually address the two capital murder convictions for which Snelgrove was to be sentenced. Instead, the undifferentiated recommendation was: that "[a] majority of the jury, by a vote of 7/5, advise and recommend to the court that it impose the death penalty upon David B. Snelgrove."
The circuit court sentenced Snelgrove to death on both capital murder convictions, and this appeal timely followed.
Snelgrove raises nine points on appeal: (1) that the circuit court erred in denying his public defender's motion to withdraw based on a conflict of interest; (2) that the circuit court failed to conduct a Richardson8 inquiry into an alleged discovery violation by the State, and, relatedly, that the State violated Brady9 by withholding the information; (3) that the prosecuting attorneys made improper and inflammatory remarks that rendered the trial fundamentally unfair; (4) that the circuit court erred in denying his motion to briefly recess the penalty phase at the close of the jury-charge conference, prior to closing arguments, due to the mental and physical exhaustion of his counsel; (5) that his two death sentences are invalid because the jury rendered only a single, undifferentiated recommendation of death; (6) that his death sentences are unconstitutional because Florida's capital-sentencing scheme puts a higher burden of persuasion on the defendant to prove...
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