Chandler v. StateChandler v. State
Eric Jim Chandler appeals his convictions and sentences of death for first-degree murder. We have jurisdiction pursuant to
An Indian River County grand jury rеturned an eight-count indictment charging Chandler with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, three counts of trafficking in stolen property, and one count of aggravated assault. The charges arose from the robbery of an elderly couple and their death by bludgeoning. The victims, Harold
Chandler raises a number of issues in this appeal. Having examined and heard argument on each of them, we find only two of these issues merit extensive discussion.1
The first issue we address relates to admission, pursuant to
The common рoints shared by Chandler‘s Texas crime and the crime charged below may not be sufficiently unique or unusual, when considered individually, to establish a common modus operandi. We find, however, no error in the trial court‘s determination that these points, considered one with another, establish a sufficiently unique pattern of criminal activity to justify admission of evidence of Chandler‘s collateral crime as relevant to the issue of identity in the crime charged.2 In so concluding, we recognize that the passage of several years between the collateral crime and the crime charged has often been reckoned to destroy the relevance of the previous crime to the issue of identity. Where, as in this case, however, the defendant spent almost the entire time between the two offenses incarcerated for the first crime, the relevance of that collateral crime to the proof of a common modus operandi is preserved, if not enhanced. See Rossi v. State, 416 So.2d 1166 (Fla. 4th DCA 1982).
We turn now to the issue of whether the trial court, in dismissing certain jurors for cause ovеr the defendant‘s objection, violated the rule established by the United States Supreme Court in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968). The line of questioning employed during voir dire by the prosecutors below suggests that some confusion exists as to the precise standard set forth in Witherspoon. The last paragraph of note 21 of that opinion is unambiguous:
We repeat, however, that nothing we say today bears upon the power of a State to execute a defendant sentenced to death by a jury from which the only veniremen who were in fact excluded for cause were those who made unmistakably clear (1) that they would automatically vote against the imposition of capital punishment without regard to any evidence that might be developed at the trial of the case before them, or (2) that their attitude toward the death penalty would prevent them from making an impartial decision as to the defendant‘s guilt.
Id. at 522 n. 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1777 n. 21 (emphasis in original).
Examination of the voir dire record before us indicates that at least two3 of the venire members for whom the state was granted cause challenges never came close to expressing the unyielding conviction and
The state urges, however, that any errоr in the granting of cause challenges was purely harmless. The argument is made that, since the state used a total of only eight of the eighteen peremptory challenges available to it, the challenged members of the venire would have been excused peremptorily had the trial court refused to grant cause challenges. We do not deny that this harmless error theory has a certain logical appeal. Nevertheless, our analysis of the case law, especially the decision in Davis v. Georgia, 429 U.S. 122, 97 S.Ct. 399, 50 L.Ed.2d 339 (1976), compels us to conclude that the dismissals for cause complained of by Chandler cannot be sanctioned as “harmless error,” regardless of whether the state, at trial, could have pеremptorily challenged the same jurors.
In Davis the Supreme Court of Georgia acknowledged that one prospective juror had been excluded in violation of the Witherspoon standard. Nevertheless, the court affirmed the conviction and death sentence, reasoning that the exclusion of a single death-scrupled venireman did not deny the petitioner а jury representing a cross-section of the community. In reversing the state court decision the majority opinion of the United States Supreme Court stated flatly:
Unless a venireman is “irrevocably committed, before the trial has begun, to vote against the penalty of death regardless of the facts and circumstances that might emerge in the course of thе proceedings,” he cannot be excluded; if a venireman is improperly excluded even though not so committed, any subsequently imposed death penalty cannot stand.
Id. at 123, 97 S.Ct. at 400 (citations omitted, emphasis supplied). As noted in a dissenting opinion by Justices Blackman and Rehnquist and Chief Justice Burger, the plain language of the majority in Davis precludes application of a harmless-error test. Moreover, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has addressed itself to the very situation faced in the case before us. In Burns v. Estelle, 592 F.2d 1297 (5th Cir.1979), the fifth circuit summarized Witherspoon and its progeny, including Davis, as providing, inter alia:
2. No jury from which even one person has been excused on broader Witherspoon-type grounds ... may impose a
death penalty or sit in a case where it may be imposed, regardless of whether an available peremptory challenge might have reached him.
Id. at 1300. See also Moore v. Estelle, 670 F.2d 56 (5th Cir.1982).
Our understanding of these federal court decisions is confirmed by the decision of the Georgia Supreme Court in Blankenship v. State, 280 S.E.2d 623 (Ga. 1981). In earlier decisions, including Alderman v. State, 241 Ga. 496, 246 S.E.2d 642, cert. denied, 439 U.S. 991, 99 S.Ct. 593, 58 L.Ed.2d 666 (1978), cited by the state here, the Georgia high court had adopted the view that Witherspoon-type error could be harmless when the challenged juror(s) could have been reached by unused peremptory challenges. Upon rеexamination of Davis and Burns, the court was forced to reverse its prior position:
[Having reexamined Davis and Burns,] we now hold that in cases where the death penalty is imposed, the improper exclusion from the initial panel of an otherwise qualified juror in violation of Witherspoon v. Illinois is harmful error regardless of whether the state utilized all of its peremptory strikes.
Blankenship, 280 S.E.2d at 623 (citations omitted).
Accordingly, we affirm the convictions, but, because of the erroneous exclusion for cаuse of the aforementioned two prospective jurors, we vacate the sentences of death imposed below and remand for resentencing. Such resentencing shall, of course, include an advisory verdict to be rendered by a jury chosen in compliance with the holding expressed herein.
It is so ordered.
ALDERMAN, C.J., and BOYD, OVERTON, McDONALD, EHRLICH and SHAW, JJ., concur.
ADKINS, J., concurs in part and dissеnts in part with an opinion.
ADKINS, Justice, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the affirmance of guilt and dissent to the order vacating the sentence.
It is impossible for an appellate court to examine the cold words in a record and make an independent judgment that a juror is impartial. The trial judge is in a position to observe the demeanor of the juror during the interrogation and, from his оbservations, can form an opinion as to the attitude of the juror. In Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968), it is stated that a juror may be excused for cause if he could not consider a penalty of death, or, if his attitude against the death penalty would be such as to interfere with the impartiality required to sit as a juror in the guilt phase of the trial.
In Christopher v. State, 407 So.2d 198, 200 (Fla. 1981), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 910, 102 S.Ct. 1761, 72 L.Ed.2d 169 (1982), the following question was presented to us for cоnsideration on appeal:
Did the trial court systematically exclude for cause prospective jurors who did not state they were irrevocably committed to vote against the death penalty, but voiced only general, indefinite reservations to capital punishment, in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and аrticle I, sections 9 and 16 of the Florida Constitution?
In disposing of this issue, we said:
As to the first issue, the law is settled that the competency of a challenged juror is a mixed question of law and fact and is to be determined by the trial judge in his discretion. Manifest error must be demonstrated before the judge‘s decision will be disturbed. Singer v. State, 109 So.2d 7, 22 (Fla. 1959); Ashley v. State, 370 So.2d 1191, 1194 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979). No such error has been demonstrated in the case sub judice.
The trial judge, being in a position to study the demeanor of the jurors and hear their rеsponses first-hand, made factual
In Williams v. State, 228 So.2d 377, 379 (Fla. 1969), we said:
The Witherspoon case, however, makes it еqually clear that the State is also entitled to a jury that is similarly impartial and neutral as to penalty. In essence then, Witherspoon recognizes that both the prosecution and the defense in a capital case are entitled to jurors who are impartial as to penalty. A prospective juror is considered impartial, even though he may have a natural bias against capital punishment, so long as his bias is not so strong as to preclude or prevent him from at least considering the issue of punishment. The decision leaves unaffected the right of the prosecution to challenge for cause those prospective jurors who state that their reservations about the wisdom of the death sentence would prevent them from making an impartial decision as to defendant‘s guilt.
There is nothing in the record to suggest that the jurors selected were not in every way competent, qualified, and unbiased. If a qualified prospective juror is improperly rejected by the trial court, the trial should not be reversed unless through rejecting the qualified рerson, the necessity of accepting an objectionable juror has been created. It should be enough if it appears that the case has been tried by an impartial jury. Leaptrot v. State, 51 Fla. 57, 40 So. 616 (1906).
The records disclose that the state exercised only eight peremptory challenges out of eighteen that the trial court gave each side. The state had ten peremрtory challenges left. Had the trial court denied the prosecution‘s challenge to any of the jurors in question for cause, the prosecution would have used those peremptory challenges it had remaining.
Even if the excusal of the jurors was error, it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The United States Supreme Court has held that constitutional error may be harmless if the error is demonstrated to be harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967).
I would affirm the judgment and the sentence.