Wood v. State

• Decision Date: 31 January 2017
• Docket Number: No. SC15–954,SC15–954
• Citation: 209 So.3d 1217
• Parties: Zachary Taylor WOOD, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

209 So.3d 1217

Zachary Taylor WOOD, Appellant,

v.STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC15–954

Supreme Court of Florida.

[January 31, 2017]

Clinton Andrew Thomas, Public Defender, and Nada Margaret Carey, Assistant Public Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, Florida, for Appellant

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, and Berdene Bevione Beckles, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, for Appellee

PER CURIAM.

Zachary Taylor Wood, who was twenty-three years old at the time of the crimes, appeals his conviction and death sentence for the April 2014 first-degree murder of James William Shores. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm Wood's conviction. However, we conclude that the trial court erred as a matter of law in finding two of the three aggravating factors, which served as a predicate for imposing Wood's death sentence, and erred as a matter of law in rejecting some of the uncontroverted mitigation offered. After conducting our independent review of the remaining single aggravating factor, which was that the capital felony was committed while Wood was engaged or was an accomplice in the commission of a burglary and robbery, we conclude that this murder is not among the most aggravated and least mitigated of first-degree murders and, therefore, conclude that Wood's death sentence is disproportionate. Accordingly, we uphold Wood's convictions but vacate the sentence of death and remand to the trial court for imposition of a mandatory life sentence without parole.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The Guilt Phase

On the evening of April 19, 2014, an Alabama State Trooper began a high-speed pursuit of a gold-colored Toyota Camry on Alabama State Highway 167, just south of the city of Enterprise, Alabama. The pursuit ended when the Camry and the patrol car crashed into a ditch off a nearby county road after the patrol car was shot at from the Camry during the chase. Once both cars were stopped, the Camry returned more gunshots to the nearby patrol car, and the Alabama State Trooper reciprocated. During the shootout, the driver of the Camry, Dillon Scott Rafsky, fled the Camry but was quickly apprehended by Alabama law enforcement approximately two miles from the scene. Wood, a passenger in the Camry, was taken into custody at the scene of the crash.

Upon processing the crime scene in Alabama the same night, law enforcement discovered inside the Camry a wallet and passport belonging to a sixty-six-year-old James William Shores, the registered owner of the car. The identification indicated that Shores resided in Washington County, Florida, a small, rural county in Northwest Florida. Concerned, Alabama law enforcement contacted the Washington County Sheriff's Office and asked them to conduct a welfare-check on Shores. Shores' brother, Joe Boy Shores, was subsequently contacted by an employee of the Washington County Sheriff's Office. He left his house and traveled to Shores' nearby trailer, where he was met at 1:30 a.m. on April 20, 2014, by a Washington County Sheriff's deputy responding to the welfare-check call. After both determined that Shores was not present, Joe Boy suggested to the deputy that they check a "family farmhouse" on Shores' property that was accessible by a small trail behind the trailer because he had seen a dark-colored Jeep Grand Cherokee parked near that house when he drove to Shores' trailer, even though Shores did not own such a Jeep. Joe Boy and the deputy walked to the house and discovered Shores' body lying face down at the back of the house. Shores was wearing a red flannel shirt and blue jeans. He was bound at the legs with a cloth. His hands were bound behind his back with a heavy metal chain. Shores had sustained massive trauma to his head. The deputy called for backup to secure the crime scene.

That same day, Washington County Sheriff's Office investigators traveled to the Geneva County, Alabama jail to interview Wood. Sitting in the jail's library after having recently been released from a local hospital where he had been treated for injuries sustained the previous day, Wood gave a statement in which he recounted an unfolding series of events occurring just north and south of the Florida–Alabama state line that led to Wood and Rafsky becoming stranded on Shores' Florida property the day before. Wood's statement was videotaped and later played to the jury during the guilt phase of the trial.

In his statement, Wood told investigators that on Thursday, April 17, 2014, he was residing at the Enterprise Inn & Suites in Enterprise, Alabama. That day, he went with Rafsky to borrow a dark-colored Jeep Grand Cherokee belonging to Kelly Eggleston, who was a mutual friend and former neighbor of Wood. Wood and Rafsky went "dirt road riding" in the Jeep, but got stuck on a dirt road in Coffee Springs, Alabama on Friday, April 18, 2014, and eventually spent the night on the road. On the morning of Saturday, April 19, 2014, a farmer who lived nearby pulled the stranded Jeep out of the mud. Rafsky and Wood continued "dirt road riding" that morning before heading to Rafksy's parents house a little outside of Elba, Alabama. Wood and Rafsky were at Rafsky's parents' house at 9:30 A.M. that Saturday morning, before they departed for Florida. Once in Florida, they stopped at a Dollar General Store near Bonifay, Florida, as well a foodmart inside a Chevron gas station. Passing Bonifay, they went to a small general store named "Fred's," where Wood stole some pants, a shirt, and two Gatorades. Rafsky continued driving on Highway 167¹ for about three or four miles before turning left on a dirt road.

Once on the dirt road, they continued "dirt road riding" and ended up splashing mud onto a mail carrier's car parked on the road. They pulled up next to the mail carrier, and Wood got out to apologize and also to ask the mail carrier if they could "bum" two cigarettes off of her. She obliged, and they continued to go "dirt road driving" until they passed an "abandoned house," where Rafsky proceeded to reverse the Jeep into its driveway. Upon reversing, Rafsky went too far off the driveway and got stuck in the yard.² Once the Jeep was stuck, Rafksy told Wood that they were "meant to be" at the house. Wood believed they were driving to meet a mutual friend, Heather Williamson, who also lived on a dirt road outside Bonifay.

Rafsky and Wood entered the house and then "plunder[ed]" it before eating cupcakes and drinking Gatorade they had gotten from Fred's general store. According to Wood, neither he nor Rafsky were looking for anything in particular, but Rafsky took some paperwork from the house and used the bathroom. They then left the house and began attempting to free the Jeep from the mud, without success.

About a half-hour after they got stuck, the victim, James Shores, pulled into the driveway in a gold-colored Toyota Camry and told them they needed to leave his property and that he would call the sheriff's office to remove the Jeep from the yard. Wood told Shores that he would fill in the holes caused by the Jeep and cover the holes with grass. Shores agreed, but advised that he would write down the Jeep's license plate number "just in case." After writing the license plate number down, Shores continued around the house.

According to Wood, Rafsky followed Shores around the house, and Wood soon after heard a "bumping" noise. Wood followed Rafsky and saw that he had beaten Shores with a garden hoe. Rafsky told Wood that Shores had tried to attack him. At the time Rafsky followed Shores around the house, Wood was "messing with" a mailbox in front of the house "out of frustration" because, as Wood explained, Rafsky "gets so angry." Therefore, Wood claimed that he was unsure of whether Rafsky took the garden hoe with him to assault Shores, or whether the garden hoe was already nearby.

Rafsky asked Wood for a chain, and asked him to find something else to bind Shores. Wood found a shirt in the house and bound Shores' legs with the shirt. Shores was still alive, and Wood may have punched him a few times to show Rafsky that he was not afraid and would not rat out Rafsky. However, Shores was not kicking or otherwise resisting. Wood claimed that Rafsky poured STP gas treatment on Shores and wanted Wood to "catch the old man on fire," but Wood struck every match he had so it would appear to Rafsky that the matches would not light. At Rafsky's instruction, he took the license plate off the Jeep and placed it in Shores' Camry. While taking the license plate off the Jeep in the front of the house, Wood heard one gunshot fired.

About thirty minutes after the altercation with Shores, Wood and Rafsky left the property in Shores' gold-colored Camry. Wood had moved a double-barrel shotgun from the Camry's trunk to the front seat when he placed the Jeep's license plate in the Camry's trunk. Wood threw the gym shorts he was wearing out of the window of the Camry somewhere outside Bonifay. They traveled to Hartford, Alabama, then to Enterprise, then to Daleville, Alabama, and then back to Hartford and Enterprise down Highway 167 when an Alabama State Trooper began pursuit. During pursuit, Rafsky asked Wood to hand him the shotgun Wood had previously placed in the front seat. Rafsky then asked Wood to shoot the gun at the officer, but Wood refused. Rafsky then slid the gun across his lap, aimed it out the window, and shot.

Wood was subsequently indicted and tried for the murder of Shores.³ At trial, Captain Mark Collins of the Washington County Sheriff's Office testified that Wood's statement to investigators was extremely helpful, and that investigators were able to verify many details of the unfolding events leading up to and after Shores' murder.

Wood also testified at trial about the events leading up to the murder that largely mirrored his initial statement given to police investigators, except that he admitted that he ingested about one-half gram of methamphetamine when...