Demps v. State

395 So. 2d 501
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedJanuary 8, 1981
Docket54249
StatusPublished
Cited by44 cases

This text of 395 So. 2d 501 (Demps 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
Demps v. State, 395 So. 2d 501 (Fla. 1981).

Opinion

395 So.2d 501 (1981)

Bennie DEMPS, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 54249.

Supreme Court of Florida.

January 8, 1981.
Rehearing Denied April 15, 1981.

*503 John L. Carroll, Montgomery, Ala. and Julius Williams, Orlando, for appellant.

Jim Smith, Atty. Gen. and Miguel A. Olivella, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

This case is properly before us[1] on direct appeal from the Circuit Court for the Eighth Judicial Circuit. Appellant Demps was convicted and sentenced to death for the slaying of Alfred Sturgis.[2] For the following reasons we affirm the conviction and sentence.

On September 6, 1976, personnel at the Florida State Prison discovered inmate Alfred Sturgis in a cell, bleeding profusely from stab wounds. He was rushed first to the hospital at Union Correctional Institute, then to the state prison at Lake Butler. Due to inadequate facilities at both institutions, Sturgis was taken to Shands Teaching Hospital in Gainesville, where he died soon after arrival.

A grand jury indicted inmates Bennie Demps, James Jackson and Harry Mungin for the murder of Alfred Sturgis. In the course of preliminary depositions, defense counsel learned that while en route to the hospital, Sturgis told correctional officer A.V. Rhoden that appellant, Jackson and Mungin had committed the knifing. Rhoden later reduced the statement to writing and included it in a report filed with R.K. Griffis, a Department of Corrections investigator. After defense requests to produce the written document, the state informed the court that Mr. Griffis had misplaced Rhoden's statement. In a pretrial hearing the court refused to dismiss the indictment based on the state's failure to produce Rhoden's report.

At trial Mr. Rhoden explained to the jury what Sturgis had told him in the ambulance:

Q [Mr. Elwell] All right. What happened after that?
A He [Sturgis] reached up and took my hand and ...
Q Were you standing up, Mr. Rhoden?
A Yes, sir.
Q And would you indicate how he reached up and took your hand?
A He just reached his hand up, picked his arm up, it was laying down on the stretcher, and he just picked it up and taken my hand.
Q And did you note anything about his appearance in addition to what you just testified to?
A He was chalky looking.
Q All right.
A His eyes was rolling back and forth in his head.
Q And other than grabbing your hand, did he do anything else?
A Yes, sir. He told me, he said:
"Mr. Rhoden, you got to help me. I don't believe I'm going to make it."
And I said: "You got to, Sturgis."
He said: "I don't think I will."
I said, "You got to, you got to help me get the ones that done it."
And he said: "Well, you have to get them for me."
Q Did he say anything else?
A Yes, sir, he said:
"You have to get Mungin and Demps, they held me and Jackson stabbed me."
I asked him, "Which Jackson?"
And he said: "Toothless Jackson."
Q How long did this statement take, from the time that he grabbed your hand and said:
"Mr. Rhoden, I don't believe I'm going to make it."
until he finished; how long did that statement take?
*504 A Just a very short time.
Q Were there any interruptions by any person during the giving of that statement to you?
A No, sir.

Another witness for the prosecution, fellow inmate Larry Hathaway, testified that while walking past Harry Mungin's cell on the afternoon of the murder, Mungin told him to go downstairs and stay there, because Mungin "was fixing to get rid of a snitch." He followed Mungin's suggestion but returned a short while later, at which time he noticed a struggle going on in the cell in which Sturgis was later found. Mungin was standing in the door of the cell; inside, Hathaway could see appellant holding Sturgis down on the bed while Jackson struck him with downward thrusts. Upon seeing this, Hathaway quickly left the scene.

Defense counsel sought to impeach Hathaway's testimony by showing that Hathaway was a homosexual, on the premise that Hathaway implicated the codefendants in exchange for a transfer to the prison where his lover, Robert Ziegler, resided. The trial court held that Hathaway's homosexuality was inflammatory and irrelevant and limited questioning to whether Ziegler and Hathaway were "real good friends."

At the sentencing phase the jury recommended sentences of life imprisonment for Mungin and death for Jackson and appellant. The trial judge sentenced Mungin and Jackson to life, but sentenced appellant to death.

Appellant challenges his conviction on three grounds, two of which merit discussion.[3] He first contends that the state violated the rules of discovery and deprived him of a valuable tool for cross-examination by not producing A.V. Rhoden's written statement of his conversation with Sturgis en route to the hospital.

Concededly, Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.220(j)(1) authorizes a trial judge to impose a broad range of sanctions against a party for nonproduction of discoverable material.[4] But we disagree with appellant's conclusion that the state was in breach of a discovery rule in this case. In response to the trial court order compelling discovery of Rhoden's report, the state made an adequate and uncontroverted explanation that the statement had simply disappeared. In fact, the evidence suggests that the state attorney never had access to Rhoden's statement. Mr. Griffis testified that shortly after placing the report in his personal investigative file, he lost the file, which presumably to this day remains missing. Under these peculiar circumstances, the state should not be held accountable for the nonproduction of the misplaced document.

Nor can it be said that the loss of Rhoden's statement impinged upon appellant's right to a fair trial. While Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), and United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976), hold that in certain instances a criminal defendant may be deprived of a fair trial by prosecutorial suppression of evidence, the evidence must be material to guilt or innocence, and its omission must have caused prejudice to the accused. There is nothing in this record to indicate that Rhoden's written statement varied from his testimony at trial, or that its absence prejudiced his defense in any other way. See State v. Sobel, 363 So.2d 324 (Fla. 1978); Salvatore v. State, 366 So.2d 745 (1978).

*505 We are similarly unpersuaded that the court erred in forbidding reference to Larry Hathaway's homosexuality on cross-examination. A trial judge enjoys broad discretion in determining the permissible scope of cross-examination. Ho Yin Wong v. State, 359 So.2d 460 (Fla.3d DCA 1978); Baisden v. State,

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