Talley v. State, 3D16-1500
| Decision Date | 09 January 2019 |
| Docket Number | No. 3D16-1500,3D16-1500 |
| Citation | 260 So.3d 562 |
| Parties | Maurice A. TALLEY, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Law Offices of Aubrey Webb, P.A., and Aubrey Webb, Coral Gables, for appellant.
Ashley Brooke Moody, Attorney General, and Natalia Costea, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Before LOGUE, and LINDSEY, JJ., and SUAREZ, Senior Judge.
Maurice Talley appeals his conviction and sentence for the first-degree murder of Roger Glenn. Talley contends reversal is required because (i) the trial court erred in denying his motion for mistrial following the emotional outburst of the victim's family in front of the jury; (ii) the trial court abused its discretion in denying his proposed special jury instructions; (iii) the improper comments made by the prosecutor during closing arguments, collectively, constitute fundamental error; and (iv) the trial court erred in denying his motions for judgment of acquittal given the insufficient evidence and circumstantial nature of the case. For the reasons set forth below, we disagree and affirm.
Police responded to an apartment complex located in Miami Gardens where Roger "Loso" Glenn was killed after being shot in the head. Upon arriving at the scene, police found Glenn's girlfriend, Stacy Tyler, crying hysterically over the victim's body in the hallway outside of the door of her apartment. Stacy's sister, Tracy Tyler, was also there and identified herself and Stacy to Officer Bryan Blanco, who was one of the first officers on the scene. According to Officer Blanco, Tracy told him that immediately preceding the shooting, an individual she knew as "Maurice" was outside Stacy's apartment yelling for the victim to come outside. Tracy further told Officer Blanco that, shortly after the victim exited the apartment, she heard an argument followed by a loud bang, which she described as a gunshot. According to Officer Blanco, Tracy described an individual running from the scene who was of a medium build with a short haircut, in his 20s, and wearing a gray hoodie jacket with dark jeans. This description also matched the description Tracy gave to the 911 operator. Further, Stacy provided Officer Blanco with the same description.1
Tracy testified about the interaction she had with Talley upon arriving at the apartment complex on the day of the shooting. Specifically, Tracy testified that Talley asked where Stacy and the victim were because the victim "wanted his money back" and that "today is the deadline." Tracy explained that Stacy was dating the victim who was known to her as "Loso." Tracy further testified that later the same day the victim and Talley got into a heated argument in the courtyard over the money, with a physical altercation avoided only after people nearby held the two men back. After that heated argument, Tracy, Stacy, and the victim returned to Stacy's apartment where they all consumed alcohol, joined by Helen Tyler, Tracy and Stacy's aunt.
Tracy further testified that after drinking for approximately ten minutes, she left the apartment and went upstairs to another apartment to visit her mother's friend. Tracy stated that when she returned to her sister's apartment "a couple of seconds" later, Talley was knocking on the door and yelling for the victim to come outside. Tracy testified that no one else was in the hallway, and that she went inside the apartment and told the victim that Talley was at the door. As she had previously explained to Officer Blanco, Tracy testified that she heard a gunshot shortly after the victim walked out of the apartment.
When Tracy opened the apartment door, she saw the victim on the ground and immediately called 911, telling the operator that "Maurice" had shot the victim. A portion of the 911 recording was played for the jury during which Tracy can be heard frantically telling the operator that "some boy name Maurice" shot the victim after "[h]e knocked on my sister's door and say that he wanted to talk to ‘em." Tracy further told the operator that "[h]e had on a sweat, a sweatshirt that was gray, and some black jeans." In addition, Tracy identified Talley in a photo line-up.
Further, during the State's direct examination, Tracy testified that she suffers from paranoid schizophrenia
and depression. She also testified that, while she did sometimes take the prescription drug, Valium, she had not taken any on the day of the murder. During cross-examination, Tracy testified that she sometimes hears voices, thinks people are following her, and has seen spirits since she was a little girl.
Stacy testified that she was the victim's girlfriend and that her nickname for him was "Loso." She also witnessed the argument between Talley and the victim over money on the day of the shooting. Stacy testified that she had consumed alcohol with the victim, Tracy, and her aunt Helen, but was not so impaired that she was unable to perceive what was going on. Stacy further testified that when her sister told the victim that Talley was at the door, the victim exited the apartment, alone and unarmed, and closed the door behind him. She stated that the victim did not own a gun. A few seconds after the victim walked outside, Stacy testified that she heard a single gunshot.
Once outside the apartment, Stacy saw the victim on the ground and, except for a single male running from the scene, the hallway was empty. Stacy testified that she could not discern the fleeing man's identity from behind, but that he was wearing a gray hoodie sweatshirt and "had a fro."2 Later at the police station, Stacy identified Talley from a photo line-up as the person involved with the victim in the argument earlier in the day in the courtyard. In addition, she testified that she had previously seen Tally because he has two children with her neighbor, Lenora, and visits often. Similar to her sister, Stacy testified that she sometimes sees dead people and that they sometimes touch her.
Helen testified that she too saw Talley in the courtyard earlier on the day of the murder. She further testified that Tracy came into the apartment and said that someone wanted to talk to the victim and that the victim exited the apartment. Within seconds, a gunshot rang out.
Crime scene technicians found a single spent casing underneath the victim's body, but no fingerprints or DNA was collected. Additionally, a single projectile was recovered from the victim's body following the medical examiner's autopsy. A firearm and tool mark examiner with the Miami-Dade Police Department testified that the spent projectile and recovered casing were most likely fired from the same 9mm firearm; however, no weapon was found at the scene or subsequently recovered.
At trial, during the State's opening statement, proceedings were briefly interrupted when several members of the victim's family became emotional during the State's remarks on the medical examiner's expected testimony. The family members abruptly left the courtroom crying, and defense counsel moved for a mistrial based on the disruption in front of the jury. At a sidebar discussion, the trial court denied Talley's motion because "there was nothing directed to any particular juror or at the jury," there was no verbal communication by the spectators, and that the upset family members "acted in an appropriate manner by exiting from the courtroom." At defense counsel's request, the trial court gave a curative instruction for the jury to disregard any disruptions that may occur and that the jury's verdict "must be based on the evidence."
After the State rested, Talley moved for judgment of acquittal and argued the State was unable to exclude every reasonable hypothesis of innocence as required in a purely circumstantial evidence case. The trial court denied Talley's first and second motions for judgment of acquittal. The trial court also denied defense counsel's request for a special jury instruction specifically addressing how the jurors should weigh testimony of witnesses under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The jury found Talley guilty of first-degree murder with the discharge of a firearm. This timely appeal followed.
On appeal, Talley seeks reversal on the following grounds: (i) the trial court erred in denying his motion for mistrial following the emotional outburst of the victim's family in front of the jury; (ii) the trial court abused its discretion in denying his proposed special jury instructions; (iii) the improper comments made by the prosecutor during closing arguments, collectively, constitute fundamental error; and (iv) the trial court erred in denying his motions for judgment of acquittal given the insufficient evidence and circumstantial nature of the case. We address each of these arguments below.3
A trial court's denial of a motion for mistrial is reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard. Knight v. State, 76 So.3d 879, 885 (Fla. 2011). We similarly review the denial of a criminal defendant's request for a special jury instruction under an abuse of discretion standard. Billie v. State, 963 So.2d 837, 839 (Fla. 3d DCA 2007) (citing Stephens v. State, 787 So.2d 747, 755 (Fla. 2001) ).
A motion for judgment of acquittal is reviewed under a de novo standard, and a conviction will not be reversed where it is supported by competent substantial evidence. Giralt v. State, 935 So.2d 599, 601 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006) (citing Boyd v. State, 910 So.2d 167, 180 (Fla. 2005) ). However, a special standard of review of the sufficiency of the evidence applies where a conviction is wholly based on circumstantial evidence. State v. Law, 559 So.2d 187 (Fla. 1989). The State must only introduce competent evidence "inconsistent with the defendant's theory of events, and is not required to conclusively rebut every possible variation of events which can be inferred from the evidence." Giralt, 935 So.2d at 601.
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