Voorhees v. State
| Decision Date | 19 June 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. 83380,83380 |
| Citation | 699 So.2d 602 |
| Parties | 22 Fla. L. Weekly S357 Donald VOORHEES, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, and Robert F. Moeller, Assistant Public Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit, Bartow, for Appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and Robert J. Landry, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.
We have on appeal the judgment and sentence of the trial court imposing a death sentence upon Donald Voorhees. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons expressed below, we affirm the conviction but vacate his death sentence and remand for imposition of a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole for twenty-five years.
On January 3, 1992, Robert Sager and appellant Donald Voorhees, who was also known as James Densmore, agreed to drive Audrey Steven Bostic in Bostic's car from the Chasco Inn, a hotel where Voorhees and Sager were staying, to Bostic's residence because Bostic was drunk. On the way, Voorhees stopped the car at an automated teller machine (ATM), where Bostic withdrew $100. After stopping at a bar for some drinks, the three purchased a gallon of alcohol and arrived at Bostic's residence.
Testimony revealed that while there, all three of the men drank. Voorhees passed out on Bostic's couch, and when he awoke, Sager and Bostic were fighting, apparently over Sager's use of Bostic's telephone calling card. Voorhees got up, helped Sager tie Bostic to a chair with telephone cords, and searched the apartment for things to steal. Meanwhile, Bostic was making noise, and in an attempt to keep him quiet, Sager hit and kicked him. When that failed to keep him quiet, Voorhees and Sager kicked and tried to gag him. Again failing, the two dragged Bostic into the bedroom by his feet and continued hitting him. Because he was still making noise, Bostic was stabbed several times in the throat. As a result of the beatings and stabbings, Bostic suffered a broken hyoid bone, a severed windpipe, a broken nose, facial bruising, and several incised wounds on his arms which could have been caused by a knife. A medical examiner testified that Bostic died from a combination of blunt trauma to the head and chest, choking, binding, and incisions to the neck.
Voorhees then went into the bathroom and burned his shirt because it had blood on it. Next, he tried to wipe away any fingerprints in Bostic's house. He told Sager to turn on the oven, hoping that if it was gas-powered, it would cause the place to explode. However, the oven was electric. Sager and Voorhees left Bostic's residence in Bostic's car with Bostic's remaining cash, ATM card, and telephone calling card, and the two drove to Jacksonville.
They arrived in Jacksonville early on the morning of January 4 and went to Tony Watson's house. On the way, they stopped at several ATMs and tried unsuccessfully to withdraw money from Bostic's account. In Jacksonville, Sager told another person that he and Voorhees had beaten a guy and stolen his car. Voorhees and Sager left Jacksonville later that night and headed for Madison, Mississippi, where Voorhees had a paycheck waiting for him. During their trip, they made several long distance telephone calls using the victim's telephone calling card. After obtaining the check, Voorhees cashed it and bought camping supplies with the proceeds. In an attempt to avoid detection, they decided to get rid of Bostic's car.
On January 8, the Sheriff's Department in Wayne County, Mississippi, received several calls from residents reporting that there were two unknown men walking around in an area of the community which was inhabited mostly by older residents. At around 3:30 that afternoon, the two men went to the porch of one of the residents. This resident gave the men some coffee and notified the sheriff's department that the two men were there, were wet, and were wearing camouflage clothing. In response to the call, two sheriff's deputies went to the residence. One of the deputies testified that at the time it was cold, raining, and getting dark. The deputies asked the two men what they were doing, and the two men responded that they were camping in the nearby national forest but got lost from their camp. Following local custom, the deputies asked the two men if they would like to come to the jail to spend the night, get dry clothes while their clothes were washed, and have a hot meal. The two men agreed to go. The deputies did request that Voorhees give them a knife since it was policy to have no one in the back of the police car with a weapon. After Voorhees handed one of the deputies the knife, Voorhees and Sager went without any identification to the jail in the police car. They were not handcuffed on the ride. Once at the station, Voorhees and Sager, although not formally arrested, filled out arrest cards. They used fictitious names, addresses, and social security numbers. While the two slept in the jail for the night in the same cell, Mississippi officers ran a check on the names given, and the search revealed nothing.
At around 7 a.m. the next morning, Voorhees was told he could not leave the jail until he provided the officers with a true identification. By 12:30 that afternoon, Sager had told Mississippi officers his real name, which checked out. Voorhees said that he could prove who he was by calling a friend in Jacksonville, Florida. He telephoned Tony Watson and stated that he was James Densmore, was in Mississippi, and wanted Watson to verify Voorhees' identity as Densmore to the officer so that he could be released. The officer then spoke to Watson, who identified the man in the station in Mississippi as Donald Voorhees. Moreover, Watson told the Mississippi officer that a police officer from Pasco County, Florida, was looking for Voorhees and Sager in an attempt to ask them about a murder in Pasco County. Watson gave the Mississippi officer a telephone number for the Pasco County officer.
Immediately thereafter, the Mississippi officer asked Voorhees if his name was Voorhees. Voorhees said "yes" and gave that officer another date of birth and social security number. The Mississippi officer then told Voorhees that officers from the Pasco County Sheriff's Department wanted to talk to him and Sager about a murder. The Mississippi officer told Voorhees and Sager that they could not leave until he found out what the Pasco County officers wanted. He then placed Voorhees and Sager in separate cells.
Next, the Mississippi officer went back to his desk and called the Pasco County Sheriff's Department. An officer in that department confirmed that Pasco County officers were looking to talk to Voorhees and Sager about a murder and that these officers would go to Mississippi to talk to Voorhees and Sager later that same day. After relating this information to Voorhees, the Mississippi officer allowed Voorhees to tell Sager about the Pasco County officers coming to talk to them about a murder. The officer overheard Voorhees tell Sager: This occurred between 2 and 2:30 p.m.
Later that day, Voorhees had a conversation with a fellow inmate. In that conversation, he told the inmate that he had cut a guy's throat after being "pretty drunk." Pasco County officers arrived in Mississippi around midnight the same night. They read Voorhees his Miranda rights, and Voorhees confessed to his participation in the murder, stating that he tied up the victim with telephone cord, searched the victim's apartment for things to steal, and stuck a knife in the victim's throat.
An arrest warrant was obtained on January 10 after Pasco County officers interviewed Voorhees and Sager. Voorhees waived extradition and was returned to Florida on January 10. After a jury trial, he was convicted of first-degree murder. Thereafter, a sentencing proceeding was held, and the jury recommended death by vote of nine to three. Finding two aggravators, 1 three statutory mitigators, 2 and other nonstatutory mitigation, 3 the trial court followed the jury's recommendation and sentenced Voorhees to death.
On appeal to this Court, Voorhees raises fifteen issues, six relating to his conviction and the remaining relating to his sentence. In his first issue, Voorhees contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained as a result of his detention in Mississippi. This evidence includes the knife that was taken from Voorhees before he entered the police car, any statements made during the ride to jail, and confessions made to jailhouse trustee Benny Humphrey and to Pasco County officers when they arrived in Mississippi. For purposes of our analysis, we will break down his argument into two components. The first is whether the trial court abused its discretion in determining that Voorhees' encounter with and subsequent detention by Mississippi officers was initially legal, became unlawful, and thereafter the detention became again legal. The second component is a determination of whether the trial court abused its discretion in finding the evidence obtained as a result of the detention should not be suppressed. The sum of our analysis is that we do not find the trial court's finding the evidence to be admissible should be reversed.
Beginning with the first part, Voorhees contends that his initial encounter with police was illegal. Therefore, he claims that the knife which Voorhees gave to Mississippi officers when he entered the officers' car and the statements made while Sager and Voorhees were in the car should have been suppressed. The trial court found that the initial encounter with Mississippi officers was consensual and there was thus no illegal seizure warranting suppression of this evidence. The trial court stated in its order:
After making one fruitless attempt, Deputy Walker found...
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