Delgado v. State

948 So. 2d 681, 2006 WL 3313734
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedNovember 16, 2006
DocketSC04-2274
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 948 So. 2d 681 (Delgado v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Delgado v. State, 948 So. 2d 681, 2006 WL 3313734 (Fla. 2006).

Opinion

948 So.2d 681 (2006)

Jesus DELGADO, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC04-2274.

Supreme Court of Florida.

November 16, 2006.

*682 Roy D. Wasson of Wasson and Associates, Chartered, Miami, FL, for Appellant.

Charles J. Christ, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, and Sandra S. Jaggard, Assistant Attorney General, Miami, FL, for Appellee.

*683 PER CURIAM.

In 2004, Jesus Delgado was retried for the 1990 murders of Tomas and Violetta Rodriguez pursuant to this Court's decision in Delgado v. State, 776 So.2d 233, 242 (Fla.2000) (hereinafter Delgado I). Delgado now appeals his convictions and death sentences from his 2004 retrial. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons expressed below, we affirm Delgado's convictions and death sentences.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The record of Delgado's 2004 retrial establishes the following facts. In the early evening hours of August 30, 1990, Marlene McField saw her neighbors, Tomas and Violetta Rodriguez, arrive home. Later that night, around 10 p.m., Ms. McField heard dogs in the house directly behind the Rodriguezes' home, wailing and crying in an unusual fashion. The following morning, Ms. McField went to the Rodriguezes' home and noticed that the gate leading to the front porch was ajar and that the key was still in the lock on the inside portion of the gate. She removed the key from the gate, entered the front porch area, and rang the doorbell. No one answered. Knowing that the Rodriguezes were extremely security-conscious, Ms. McField became suspicious and called the police.

When the police arrived, they discovered that the front door was unlocked. The first officer on the scene did not notice any sign of forced entry or any sign of struggle in the living room and bedrooms. However, as the police moved toward the kitchen area, they discovered a bloodstained knife and a pistol lying on the floor. The police noticed signs of struggle in the kitchen, the garage, and the utility room connecting the kitchen to the garage. The wooden door leading from the utility room into the garage was cracked in the center and its hinges were broken. Mr. Rodriguez's body was found lying next to this door, just inside the garage, with multiple bullet and stab wounds. Mrs. Rodriguez's body was also discovered in the garage, wedged between the Rodriguezes' car and the garage wall. Her body exhibited signs of blunt force trauma, multiple stab wounds, and lacerations on her hands that the medical examiner later classified as defensive wounds. A single set of bloody shoeprint impressions led from the garage into the kitchen and up to two open kitchen drawers. In these drawers, the police found a knife similar to the one they had discovered earlier on the floor. Mr. Rodriguez was found without shoes and the soles of Mrs. Rodriguez's slippers did not match the bloody shoeprints.

The pistol found earlier was a .22 caliber Ruger semiautomatic that had been equipped with a homemade silencer, and its serial number had been removed. Six .22 caliber shell casings were recovered from the house and later determined to have been fired from the Ruger. No other .22 caliber ammunition was found in the home. Police discovered a .38 caliber revolver, which belonged to Mr. Rodriguez, in a zippered pouch inside a closed cabinet in the master bedroom, but testing on this revolver revealed that it had not been fired and tests performed on the victims' hands indicated that neither had triggered a firearm.

Several drops of blood matching Delgado's blood type, which is found only in one percent of the population, were found in the garage. A mixture of Delgado's blood type and the victims' blood types was found in the garage, on the handgun, at the base of the kitchen phone that hung from a wall, and on the kitchen phone itself. Delgado's palm print and fingerprint *684 were discovered on the kitchen phone in a mixture of Delgado's and the victims' blood types. The police later determined that the last call on the kitchen phone was made to the home of Delgado's girlfriend, Barbara Lamellas, with whom Delgado was residing at the time.

In addition to the physical evidence gathered from the crime scene, police learned that Delgado knew the Rodriguezes. In June 1990, the Rodriguezes sold their dry cleaning business to Horatio Lamellas, the father of Delgado's girlfriend, Barbara Lamellas. Barbara and Delgado ran the business. An employee at the dry cleaning business under both the Rodriguezes and Delgado, Maria Hernandez, testified that after the sale, Delgado complained that the machines were not working properly and that the customers were dissatisfied. She also heard Delgado state that the Rodriguezes had tricked him with regard to the machines and the business. Ms. Hernandez stated that when the Rodriguezes owned the dry cleaning business, business was steady and the machines worked well.

On December 23, 1992, nearly two years after the murders of Tomas and Violetta Rodriguez, police apprehended Delgado. On July 27, 1993, he was indicted by a grand jury on one count of first-degree murder for the killing of Tomas Rodriguez, one count of first-degree murder for the killing of Violetta Rodriguez, one count of armed burglary, and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. In addition, for the two counts of first-degree murder, Delgado was indicted on alternative theories, that the murders were either premeditated or committed during the commission of a felony. His first trial was conducted in 1994, and the jury found Delgado guilty on all counts. Delgado I, 776 So.2d at 235. After the penalty phase, the same jury recommended that Delgado be sentenced to death for the murder of Mr. Rodriguez by a vote of seven to five and that Delgado be sentenced to death for the murder of Mrs. Rodriguez by a unanimous vote of twelve to zero. Id. The trial court agreed and sentenced Delgado to death for each murder[1] and to life for armed burglary. Id.

On direct appeal, this Court granted Delgado a new trial. We held that the State's theory of burglary, which formed the basis of a conviction on felony murder, was legally inadequate because the State had not shown that Delgado remained in the Rodriguezes' dwelling surreptitiously. Id. at 242, superseded by § 810.015, Fla. Stat. (2001).[2] At Delgado's new trial, the State tried him on two counts of first-degree murder based exclusively on the theory that the murders were premeditated.[3] Delgado maintained a theory of innocence *685 and presented no evidence or testimony.

On May 26, 2004, Delgado was convicted of two counts of first-degree premeditated murder for the deaths of Tomas and Violetta Rodriguez. The penalty phase was conducted on July 8, 2004. Delgado sought to waive his right to present mitigation evidence. After a colloquy to determine if Delgado's waiver was knowing and voluntary, the trial court accepted the waiver. The jury recommended death for the first-degree murder of Tomas Rodriguez by a vote of nine to three and death for the first-degree murder of Violetta Rodriguez by a vote of nine to three. On September 30, 2004, a Spencer[4] hearing was held in which Delgado again was advised of his right to present mitigation evidence, but he declined to do so. Finally, at the sentencing hearing on October 18, 2004, the trial court again gave Delgado one last opportunity to put on mitigating evidence. Again, Delgado declined.

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948 So. 2d 681, 2006 WL 3313734, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/delgado-v-state-fla-2006.