Drake v. StateDrake v. State
Drake appeals his convictiоn of first-degree murder and sentence of death. We have jurisdiction1 and reverse his conviction.
Drake was charged with the murder of Odette Reeder. Latе in November 1977, Drake and Reeder met by chance at a lounge in Pinellas Park. After several drinks, they left the bar together. Reеder indicated to friends that she would return shortly; her friends thought she was going outside with Drake to smoke marijuana. Neither Reeder nor Drаke returned to the lounge, and none of her friends ever saw Reeder alive again.
Some six weeks later, Reeder‘s body was discovered in a wooded area in Oldsmar. The body was found lying on its back with a skirt covering the face and neck, a blouse beneath the body, and the hands tied behind the back with a bra. Although badly decomposed, the body exhibited eight stab wounds in the lower chеst and upper abdomen. The medical examiner opined that these wounds caused Reeder‘s death, but she could not rulе out other possibilities. The State theorized that Reeder was raped but this could not be confirmed by medical opinion bеcause of the decomposition of the lower part of the body.
Part of the State‘s proof against Drake was evidence that on two prior occasions he had sexually assaulted two different women and had, during the course of thosе assaults, bound his victims’ hands behind their backs.
The first incident occurred twenty months before Reeder‘s death. Drake had met K.T. at a loungе and offered her morphine.
The second incident occurred just two months before the Reedеr homicide. On this occasion a girl that Drake had been dating, one P.B., and Drake‘s male roommate returned to Drake‘s apartment after spending the evening drinking. After a while P.B. undressed and went into the bathroom. When she returned to the bedroom, Drake was alone in the room where his roommate had been. Angry at the thought that she had engaged in sexual activity with his roommate, Drake threw P.B. on the bed, tied her hands behind her, struck her several times in the abdomen, and eventually attempted intercourse.
Williams v. State2 holds that evidence of similar facts is admissible for any purpose if relevant to any material issue, other than propensity or bad character, even though such evidence points to the commission of another crime. The material issue to be resolvеd by the similar facts evidence in the present case is identity, which the State sought to prove by showing Drake‘s mode of operating.
The mode of operating theory of proving identity is based on both the similarity of and the unusual nature of the factual situations being compared. A mere general similarity will not render the similar facts legally relevant to show identity. There must be identifiable points of similarity which pervade the compared factual situations. Given sufficient similarity, in order for the similar facts to be relevant the points of similarity must have some special character or be so unusual as to point to the defendant. The only similarity between the two incidents introduced at trial and Reeder‘s murder is the tying of the hands behind the victims’ backs and that both had left a bar with the defendant. There are many dissimilarities, not the least of which is that the collateral incidents involved only sexual assaults whilе the instant case involved murder with little, if any, evidence of sexual abuse. Even assuming some similarity, the similar facts offered would still fail thе unusual branch of the test. Binding of the hands occurs in many crimes involving many different criminal defendants.3 This binding is not sufficiently unusual to point to the defendant in this case, and it is, therefore, irrelevant to prove identity.
As an alternate ground for admission of the P.B. incident, the State argues that incident relevant to prove motive for the murder, that Drake raped Reeder and then killed her to avoid revocation of his parole.4 Under the State‘s theory, a similar fear caused Drake‘s failure to complete his sexual attack on P.B., and the P.B. incident would demonstrate that Drake had a pervasive fear of revocation. This argument is not persuasive, especially in light of the fact that there is no evidence that his reason for stopping the attack on P.B. wаs such a fear. No other basis for relevancy has been offered to this Court, nor can we fathom any basis ourselves. Purely аnd simply, the similar facts evidence in this case tends to prove only two things — propensity and bad character.
Having considered the collateral facts testimony and its potential impact on any jury hearing the details of Drake‘s prior
Drake contends there were other errors. Since we are reversing his conviction we decline to address those arguments except to note that there appears to be a technical violation of the Miranda rule when Drake‘s statements to Detective Pondakos were admitted.
We rеverse Drake‘s first-degree murder conviction and remand the cause for a new trial.
It is so ordered.
SUNDBERG, C.J., and BOYD, OVERTON, ENGLAND, ALDERMAN and McDONALD, JJ., concur.
ADKINS, J., dissents.