State v. Williams

• Decision Date: 07 February 2001
• Docket Number: No. 4D99-2677.,4D99-2677.
• Citation: 776 So.2d 1066
• Parties: STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Derrick WILLIAMS, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

776 So.2d 1066

STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Derrick WILLIAMS, Appellee.

No. 4D99-2677.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.

February 7, 2001.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Douglas J. Glaid, Assistant Attorney General, Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.

Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Margaret Good-Earnest, Assistant Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

GROSS, J.

The state timely appeals an order granting Derrick Williams's renewed motion for judgment of acquittal.¹ We affirm, holding that because the unlawful use of the automobile in this case was not a distinct offense separate from the carjacking that occurred the night before, appellant's flight from the police in the stolen car twenty-four hours after the carjacking did not bring this case within the ambit of the felony murder statute.

At about 1:00 a.m. on February 3, 1997, Lisa Rouse was the victim of a carjacking. She drove to a Farm Store with two friends. She was sitting behind the wheel of her Jeep Cherokee when appellee Williams approached her and asked if he could get a light. Rouse then felt a hand "tearing [her] collar." Someone grabbed her and pulled her out of the car. Later, Rouse identified the three carjackers, including Williams, from photo line-ups.

Close to 1:00 a.m. on February 4, 1997, Officers Tammy Clyde and Steve Sparkman of the Hollywood Police Department observed a "black Jeep Cherokee with its lights off, facing the wrong way on the road." They approached the vehicle and obtained the tag number. After Officer Clyde called the tag in, she learned that the vehicle was stolen. When the officers got behind the Jeep, the driver "hit the gas" and "took off."

The Jeep turned left, heading west, and ran a stop sign. The officers turned on their emergency lights and siren and pursued the vehicle. The Jeep then ran a second stop sign, never slowing down or braking. Its headlights were still off.

The Jeep turned onto 21st Avenue. The police followed; at one point during the chase, the cars' speed reached about seventy-five miles per hour. Never slowing down, the Jeep passed a flashing yellow light. At the intersection of Sheridan Street and 21st Avenue, the Jeep ran a red light and crashed into the driver's side of a van. Officer Clyde described the impact as a "big explosion." When the officers arrived at the scene, they observed "two black males" running from the empty Jeep. Veronica Dunn, a passenger in the van, died from "[m]ultiple blunt force trauma to the head and chest," as a result of the accident.

The dog of a K-9 officer located Williams hiding underneath a car in a parking lot near the accident scene. Williams was transported to the hospital for treatment of injuries to his wrist resulting from a dog bite.

Detective Mark Smith took a statement from Williams at the hospital. Williams said that he was in the right front passenger seat during the chase. The chase occurred after they had turned the wrong way down a one-way street. A police car pulled up behind them. The chase began after a co-defendant told the driver, "[S]how-um what you can do." Williams admitted that the Jeep had been taken in a carjacking and that he had driven the car at some point. He told the detective that he and his friends "had been browsing around" in the car. They had eaten at Papa John's Pizza and "hung out" by a church near a 7-Eleven, nine blocks away from the accident scene. At one point while they were in possession of the Jeep, they had been approached by a police officer behind a Miami Subs in Hollywood.

The state charged Williams with carjacking and third degree murder. The carjacking was charged as a first degree felony under section 812.133(2)(b), Florida Statutes (2000).² The state did not use the carjacking as the underlying felony for the felony murder; such a charge would have been a capital felony under section 782.04(1)(a)2.l., Florida Statutes (2000). Instead, the state based the third degree felony murder charge upon the grand theft of the Jeep on February 4, 1997.³

The carjacking count was severed and Williams entered a plea of guilty to it.

At the conclusion of the state's case in the jury trial on the felony murder charge, Williams moved for judgment of acquittal. He argued that there had been a break in the chain of circumstances and that Dunn was not killed while Williams was "engaged in the commission of" grand theft auto.

The state agreed that the offense of carjacking had been completed prior to the victim's death, which was why the state had not charged Williams with first degree felony murder. The prosecutor argued that the underlying crime for the felony murder was grand theft auto and that grand theft was an offense continuing at the time of the flight from the police and the fatal crash. The trial court denied the defense motion for judgment of acquittal.

The jury found Williams guilty of third degree murder. Before sentencing, Williams filed a renewed motion for judgment of acquittal, which the trial court granted on the authority of Lester v. State, 737 So.2d 1149 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999).

To review the defendant's motion, the trial court was required to view the facts in the light most favorable to the state to see if they established a prima facie case of guilt. See, e.g., Thomas v. State, 743 So.2d 1190, 1192 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999)

.

Third degree murder is defined as "[t]he unlawful killing of a human being, when perpetrated without any design to effect death, by a person engaged in the perpetration of, or in the attempt to perpetrate" any felony other than those enumerated in the statute. § 782.04(4), Fla. Stat. (2000). The felony supporting the conviction is grand theft auto, not an enumerated felony. As contained in the information, the grand theft was described as

unlawfully and knowingly using or endeavoring to use the property of [the victim], to-wit: a Jeep motor vehicle, with the intent to temporarily or permanently deprive [the victim] of a right to the property or benefit therefrom, or to appropriate the property to [defendants'] own use or the use of any person not entitled to the use of the property, knowing or having reason to know said property was stolen.

See § 812.014(2)(c)6., Fla. Stat. (2000).

The crux of this case is the breadth of the phrase "engaged in the perpetration of... any felony" in the felony murder statute. The three gradations of felony murder in section 782.04 all make use of the same language in defining the crime. See § 782.04(1)(a)(2), (3), (4), Fla. Stat. (2000).

Construing the felony murder statute, Jefferson v. State, 128 So.2d 132, 136 (Fla. 1961), focused on whether the killing was "part of the same transaction as the felony." The supreme court quoted the res gestae rule from a learned treatise:

Whether the felony was technically completed, is not of itself sufficient to take the case out of the category of felony murders. It is a homicide committed during the perpetration of a felony, if the homicide is part of the res gestae of the felony.

Id. at 137 (quoting 1 WARREN, HOMICIDE. 332). The supreme court later cited this rule with approval in Campbell v. State, 227 So.2d 873, 878 (Fla.1969).

Translated from Latin to English, "res gestae" means "things done." BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 1173 (5th ed.1979). Although some cases have sought to define "res gestae,"⁴ the term has more recently fallen into disuse because of its tendency to obscure analysis. One commentator has recognized that there was no way that the scope of the res gestae rule could be defined with precision:

Although the vagaries in the use of the term "res gestae" have been frequently criticized, as in United States v. Matot,⁵ [146 F.2d 197 (2d Cir.1944)], there seems to be little indication that its meaning will be clarified in the future, no doubt because of the academic character of the problem, and also because of the weight and influence of prior decisions.

2 CHARLES E. TORCIA, WHARTON'S CRIMINAL EVIDENCE § 288, at 234 n. 38 (14th ed.) (1986) (footnote supplied).

In deciding whether a killing falls under the felony murder statute, the more recent supreme court case of Parker v. State, 641 So.2d 369, 376 (Fla.1994), looked for a "break in the chain of circumstances" between the killing and the underlying felony. See also McFarlane v. State, 593 So.2d 305, 306 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992)

(holding that no "break in the chain of events" occurred to relieve the defendant of "criminal responsibility for the deal of his accomplice"). To determine whether such a break had occurred, the supreme court considered that the purpose of the felony murder statute

is to protect the public from inherently dangerous situations caused by the commission of the felony. State v. Hacker, 510 So.2d 304, 306 (Fla. 4th DCA 1986). Therefore, "[i]n the absence of some definitive break in the chain of circumstances beginning with the felony and ending with the killing, the felony, although technically complete, is said to continue to the time of the killing." Mills v. State, 407 So.2d 218, 221 (Fla. 3rd DCA 1981).

Parker v. State, 641 So.2d at 376 (quoting Parker v. State, 570 So.2d 1048, 1051 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990)).

Some cases indicate that the felony murder statute accomplishes its purpose of protecting the public by deterring the commission of felonies.⁶ However, emphasizing the deterrent effect of the statute gives those who perpetrate felonies too much credit for reflective thought. Another, more realistic, view is to focus on the punitive aspect of the statute and conclude that the felony murder law is primarily result-oriented in its enhancement of punishment for dangerous conduct connected with a felony that causes the death of another.

To find what the supreme court calls "a break in the chain of circumstances" between the killing and the underlying felony, courts focus on the time, distance, and causal relationship between the underlying felony and the...