Williams v. State

• Decision Date: 21 June 2007
• Docket Number: No. SC04-857.,SC04-857.
• Citation: 967 So.2d 735
• Parties: Ronnie Keith WILLIAMS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

967 So.2d 735

Ronnie Keith WILLIAMS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC04-857.

Supreme Court of Florida.

June 21, 2007.

As Revised on Denial of Rehearing October 18, 2007.

Carey Haughwout, Public Defender and Jeffrey L. Anderson, Assistant Public Defender, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, West Palm Beach, FL, for Appellant.

Bill McCollum, Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL and Leslie T. Campbell, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, FL, for Appellee.

PER CURIAM.

In his first trial, the appellant, Ronnie Keith Williams, was convicted and sentenced to death for first-degree murder. On appeal, this Court reversed the conviction, vacated the sentence, and remanded for a new trial. See Williams v. State, 792 So.2d 1207 (Fla.2001). Williams was retried, and he was again convicted and sentenced to death. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the conviction and sentence.¹

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On March 4, 1993, a grand jury indicted Williams on one count of first-degree premeditated murder for the murder of Lisa Dyke. The charges against Williams arose as a result of the death of Dyke nineteen days after she was stabbed multiple times with a knife in a Wilton Manors apartment complex. The evidence presented at trial established the following:

On Tuesday, January 26, 1993, at approximately 8:30 a.m., a call was made to 911 from a woman who identified herself as Lisa Dyke. Dyke stated that she had been stabbed in her heart and back, and she was more than seven months pregnant. When the operator inquired of Dyke as to who stabbed her, she responded with a name that sounded to the operator like "Rodney." Dyke then informed the operator that her attacker was a black male and, although she did not know his last name, she could provide a phone number from which that information could be obtained. Dyke provided the phone number and stated that it belonged to the girlfriend of the man who had stabbed her.

When Dyke opened her door for the police, Officer Brian Gillespie observed an eighteen-year-old black female who was nude, bloody, and wet, "as if she tried to take a shower." Dyke was holding clothing in front of herself in an attempt to cover her nudity. According to Gillespie, Dyke was upset and beginning to lose consciousness. Gillespie observed stab wounds on Dyke's upper torso and back and noticed that there was blood "pretty much everywhere." As she lay on the couch, Dyke stated repeatedly to Gillespie that she did not want to die. While the paramedics were treating Dyke, Gillespie asked who had stabbed her. Through the oxygen mask that covered Dyke's face, and over the sounds of numerous police and paramedic radios, Gillespie heard Dyke say the name "Rodney."² When Gillespie asked Dyke who Rodney was, Dyke replied, "Ruth's sister's boyfriend." Dyke gave Gillespie the telephone number of "Ruth's sister." Dyke then made the unsolicited statement to Gillespie, "He raped me." Soon after, the paramedics transported Dyke to the hospital. Hospital personnel were unable to perform a rape examination or collect evidentiary samples for analysis before Dyke was rushed into surgery.

While processing the crime scene, Detective Bob Cerat noticed that there were no signs of forced entry into the apartment. In the bedroom, Cerat discovered a knife that was stained with the same reddish substance that appeared throughout the apartment. Cerat collected the knife, as well as other items from the scene that were stained with the reddish substance. Cerat and another detective lifted or photographed latent fingerprints from the scene.

Detective Anthony Lewis determined that Ruth Lawrence rented the apartment where the stabbing had occurred. He met with Ruth, and she stated that Lisa Dyke had been babysitting Ruth's nine-month-old son in the apartment. Dyke had been living with Ruth for approximately two weeks. Dyke was connected with Ruth because Dyke was dating Ruth's brother, Julius, and Julius was the father of Dyke's unborn baby. The detective discovered that Ruth's sister was named Stefanie Lawrence, and the name of Stefanie's boyfriend was Ronnie Williams. At the time of the attack, Stefanie and Ronnie had been dating for approximately six months. Stefanie lived with her father and Julius, and her telephone number was the number that Dyke provided to police and the 911 operator to identify her attacker. Ruth testified at trial that when she left the apartment that morning to go to school, there was no blood in the apartment where Dyke was found, and Williams had never before bled in her apartment.

Subsequent investigation revealed that on the night before the crime, Ruth had participated in a three-way telephone call with Stefanie and Williams during which Ruth informed Stefanie of a disagreement between Ruth and Williams. Dyke was listening to the conversation on another extension in Ruth's apartment. During that call, Ruth prompted Stefanie to break her relationship with Williams, and Stefanie proceeded to do so during the phone conversation. Stefanie then advised Williams that he was not to return to Ruth's apartment again. According to Stefanie, Williams was upset, and he repeatedly stated that they could resolve the problem. After the call ended, Stefanie did not speak to Williams again, but he paged her four or five times that night. Stefanie did not respond to the pages, and the last page from Williams was around midnight.

Stefanie Lawrence agreed to assist the police in locating where Williams lived. Officer David Jones went to the house identified by Stefanie and encountered Williams's sister, Clinita Lawrence,³ who informed Officer Jones that she had transported Williams to a mental health crisis facility earlier that day when she noticed that he was acting bizarrely. Officer Jones proceeded to the crisis center and located Williams. Officer Jones observed that Williams had several fresh bandages on both of his hands. Williams was transported to the police station, and Officer Jones advised him of his Miranda⁴ rights.

When Dyke regained consciousness after her surgery, she wrote a note to a nurse indicating a desire to speak to the authorities. Detective Daniel James spoke to Dyke in the intensive care unit. Dyke agreed to respond to Detective James's questions by nodding her head for "yes" and moving her head from side-to-side for "no" because she was unable to speak with the tubes which had been placed in her mouth. Detective James produced a photographic lineup of six individuals and asked Dyke if she recognized the person who attacked her. Dyke tapped on the photo of Ronnie Williams with her finger.

At the police station, Williams admitted to Officer Jones that he knew Dyke, but stated that he had not been in Ruth's apartment at the time Dyke was stabbed. With regard to the bandages on his hands, Williams stated that he had cut his fingers on a knife as he was washing dishes. He mentioned that he was having problems with his girlfriend, and that Dyke had been "kind of the go-between person." When Williams was informed that Dyke had identified him as the person who stabbed her, Williams requested an attorney, and the interview was terminated. At that time, Williams was arrested for the attack on Dyke.

On January 28, 1993, when Detective James returned to check on Dyke's condition and to photograph her wounds, he realized that some of the wounds appeared to be bite marks. James photographed bite marks on Dyke's chest, arm, breast, and the back of her shoulder. Dyke also indicated a bite mark in her groin area, but James was unable to photograph that area because Dyke was again taken into surgery to deliver her baby by cesarean section. Dyke died on February 14, 1993, nineteen days after the stabbing.

At trial, forensic pathologist Ronald Wright noted that Dyke had sustained six stab wounds in her back, some of which penetrated her lungs, which caused bleeding into the chest cavity and collapse of the lungs. Further, one stab wound had penetrated Dyke's sternum and was at least four inches deep.⁵ Wright opined that the original stab wound would have been deeper, but it was impossible to determine the exact depth because Dyke's wounds had been healing for nineteen days before her death. The doctor noted that Dyke had defensive wounds on her hands and bite marks on her body. Dr. Wright ultimately concluded that the cause of Dyke's death was multiple stab wounds which, over a period of nineteen days, produced a fatally high level of toxicity in Dyke's body.⁶ Dr. Wright further reviewed the photos of the cuts on Williams's hands, and concluded that the cuts were consistent with slippage — a phenomenon that occurs when a person hits a hard surface (such as a sternum)⁷ with a hiltless knife (such as that which was recovered from the apartment), and the hand slides down the knife, producing a cut on the hand of the person holding it.

Fingerprint analyst Fred Boyd testified that a fingerprint found in a reddish substance that was located on the bathroom door of Ruth's apartment matched the known print of Williams's left ring finger. DNA testing on blood samples taken from two pieces of clothing collected from the apartment generated DNA profiles that matched the profile of Williams at four genetic locations. According to a DNA analysis expert, the frequency of occurrence of finding the same profile in two unrelated individuals who matched at four of these points would be one in 120 million African-Americans. Finally, forensic dentist Richard Souviron compared the photographs of the bite mark on Dyke's breast with dental casts made from the mouth of Williams and concluded with reasonable certainty that the bite on Dyke's breast was made by Williams.

At trial, Williams testified that on the night before the stabbing he was upset that Stefanie had severed their relationship. This caused him to begin using drugs, specifically, crack cocaine, powder cocaine, and marijuana. He also...