Zack v. State
| Decision Date | 06 January 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. SC92089.,SC92089. |
| Citation | 753 So.2d 9 |
| Parties | Michael Duane ZACK, III, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender, and David A. Davis, Assistant Public Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, Florida, for Appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and Sara D. Baggett, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, Florida, for Appellee.
We have on appeal the judgment and sentence of the trial court imposing the death penalty upon Michael Duane Zack, III. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.
On June 16, 1996, the Escambia County Sheriff's Office arrested Michael Duane Zack (Zack) for the sexual assault, robbery, and first-degree murder of Ravonne Kennedy Smith (Smith). Zack, who was twenty-seven at the time of these crimes, was indicted by the grand jury on June 25, 1996. A jury trial was commenced before the Honorable Joseph Q. Tarbuck on September 8, 1997, and guilty verdicts on all counts were returned by the jury on September 15, 1997. In the penalty phase held October 14-17, 1997, the reconvened jury recommended a sentence of death by a vote of eleven to one. The trial court followed the jury's recommendation and on November 14, 1997, sentenced Zack to death.
In support of the death sentence, the trial judge found the following six aggravating circumstances: (1) the defendant was convicted of a capital felony while under a sentence of felony probation; (2) the crime was committed in conjunction with a robbery, sexual battery, or burglary; (3) the defendant committed the crime to avoid lawful arrest; (4) the defendant committed the crime for financial gain; (5) the crime was especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel; and (6) the crime was committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner. The trial court found that the following four mitigating circumstances were entitled to little weight: (1) the defendant committed the crime while under an extreme mental or emotional disturbance; (2) the defendant was acting under extreme duress; (3) the defendant lacked the capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law; and (4) nonstatutory mitigating factors of remorse, voluntary confession, and good conduct while incarcerated. Zack's age was not considered a mitigating factor. A timely notice of appeal was filed on December 18, 1997.
Although the murder of Smith took place on June 13, 1996, the chain of events which culminated in this murder began on June 4, 1996, when Edith Pope (Pope), a bartender in Tallahassee, lent her car to Zack. In the weeks prior, Zack had come to Pope's bar on a regular basis. He generally nursed one or two beers and talked with Pope; she never saw him intoxicated. He told her that he had witnessed his sister murder his mother with an axe. As a result, Pope felt sorry for Zack, and she began to give him odd jobs around the bar. When Zack's girlfriend called the bar on June 4 to advise him that he was being evicted from her apartment, Pope lent Zack her red Honda automobile to pick up his belongings. Zack never returned.
From Tallahassee, Zack drove to Panama City where he met Bobby Chandler (Chandler) at a local pub. Over the next several days, Zack frequented the pub daily and befriended Chandler.1 Chandler, who owned a construction subcontracting business, hired Zack to work in his construction business. When Chandler discovered that Zack was living out of a car (the red Honda), he invited Zack to live with him temporarily. On the second night at Chandler's, Zack woke up screaming following a nightmare. Chandler heard Zack groan words which sounded like "stop" or "don't." Although Chandler questioned him, Zack would not discuss the nightmare. Two nights later, on June 11, 1996, Zack left Chandler's during the night, stealing a rifle, a hand gun, and forty-two dollars from Chandler's wallet. Zack drove to Niceville, and on the morning of June 12, 1996, pawned the guns for $225.
From Niceville, Zack traveled to Okaloosa County and stopped at yet another bar. At this bar, Zack was sitting alone drinking a beer when he was approached by Laura Rosillo (Rosillo). The two left the bar in the red Honda and drove to the beach, reportedly to use drugs Zack said he possessed. Once on the beach, Zack attacked Rosillo and beat her while they were still in the Honda. He then pulled Rosillo from the car and beat her head against one of the tires. Rosillo's tube top was torn and hanging off her hips. Her spandex pants were pulled down around her right ankle. The evidence suggests she was sexually assaulted; however, the sperm found in Rosillo's body could not be matched to Zack. He then strangled her, dragged her body behind a sand dune, kicked dirt over her face, and departed.
Zack's next stop on this crime-riddled journey was Dirty Joe's bar located near the beach in Pensacola. He arrived there on the afternoon of June 13, 1996, and met the decedent, Ravonne Smith. Throughout the afternoon, Smith, a bar employee, and Zack sat together in the bar talking and playing pool or darts. The bar was not very busy, so Smith spent most of her time with Zack. Both bar employees and patrons testified that Zack did not ingest any significant amount of alcohol and that he did not appear to be intoxicated. In the late afternoon, Smith contacted her friend Russell Williams (Williams) and invited him to the bar because she was lonely. Williams arrived at the bar around 5:30 p.m. Prior to leaving the bar around 7 p.m., Smith called her live-in boyfriend, Danny Schaffer, and told him she was working late. Smith, Williams, and Zack then left the bar and drove to the beach where they shared a marijuana cigarette supplied by Zack. Afterwards, they returned to the bar and Williams departed. Zack and Smith left the bar together sometime around 8 p.m. and eventually arrived at the house Smith shared with her boyfriend.
Forensic evidence indicates that immediately upon entering the house Zack hit Smith with a beer bottle causing shards of glass and blood to spray onto the living-room love seat and two drops of blood to spray onto the interior door frame. Zack pursued Smith down the hall to the master bedroom leaving a trail of blood. Once in the bedroom Zack sexually assaulted Smith as she lay bleeding on the bed. Following the attack Smith managed to escape to the empty guest bedroom across the hall. Zack pursued her and beat her head against the bedroom's wooden floor. Once he incapacitated Smith, Zack went to the kitchen where he got an oyster knife. He returned to the guest bedroom where Smith lay and stabbed her in the chest four times with the knife. The four wounds were close together in the center of Smith's chest. Zack went back to the kitchen, cleaned the knife, put it away, and washed the blood from his hands. He then went back to the master bedroom, placed Smith's bloody shirt and shorts in her dresser drawer, stole a television, a VCR, and Smith's purse, and placed the stolen items in Smith's car.
During the night, Zack drove Smith's car to the area where the red Honda was parked. He removed the license plate and several personal items from the Honda then moved it to a nearby lot. Zack returned to Panama City in Smith's car and attempted to pawn the television and VCR. Suspecting the merchandise was stolen, the shop owners asked for identification and told Zack they had to check on the merchandise. Zack fled the store and abandoned Smith's car behind a local restaurant. Zack was apprehended after he had spent several days hiding in an empty house.
After he was arrested, Zack confessed to the Smith murder and to the Pope and Chandler thefts. Zack claimed he and Smith had consensual sex and that she thereafter made a comment regarding his mother's murder. The comment enraged him, and he attacked her. Zack contended the fight began in the hallway, not immediately upon entering the house. He said he grabbed a knife in self-defense, believing Smith left the master bedroom to get a gun from the guest bedroom.2
The defense additionally contended that Zack suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Thus, the defense postulated Zack was impulsive, under constant mental and emotional distress, and could not form the requisite intent to commit premeditated murder. The State's theory of the case was that Zack was a calculated stalker/predator, who stalked his prey in bars. His method of operation included befriending his prey, gaining each person's sympathy with stories of his mother's death and his abusive childhood, then taking advantage of the persons by either robbing or sexually assaulting them.
After the jury returned verdicts of guilty for first-degree murder, sexual battery and robbery, a second phase was commenced to determine the appropriate punishment—death or life in prison. The defense presented expert witnesses who discussed Zack's mental and emotional health. Dr. William Spence, a forensic psychologist, evaluated Zack in Tallahassee after he had been arrested for grand theft of an automobile. Dr. Spence diagnosed Zack with posttraumatic stress disorder. He admitted the social history was given to him by Zack, who claimed to have witnessed his sister murder his mother. Dr. James Larson, Dr. Barry Crown, and Dr. Michael Maher evaluated Zack and investigated his social history. Each of them also diagnosed Zack as suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder and fetal alcohol syndrome. They further opined that the murder was committed while Zack was under an extreme mental or emotional disturbance and that Zack's ability to appreciate the criminality of his conduct was substantially impaired. None of them had spoken with anyone who had contact with Zack around the time of the murder.
In addition to experts, Zack presented the testimony of friends and family....
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