Escobar v. State

699 So. 2d 988, 1997 WL 377595
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedJuly 10, 1997
Docket77736
StatusPublished
Cited by61 cases

This text of 699 So. 2d 988 (Escobar 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
Escobar v. State, 699 So. 2d 988, 1997 WL 377595 (Fla. 1997).

Opinion

699 So.2d 988 (1997)

Douglas Martin ESCOBAR, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 77736.

Supreme Court of Florida.

July 10, 1997.
Rehearing Denied October 2, 1997.

*990 Ronald S. Lowy, Special Assistant Public Defender, of the Law Offices of Ronald S. Lowy, Miami Beach, for appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General and Fariba N. Komeily, Assistant Attorney General, Miami, for Appellee.

PER CURIAM.

Douglas Escobar appeals his conviction for first-degree murder and sentence of death. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. We find reversible error in the trial court's granting of the State's motion for *991 rejoinder of codefendants. Accordingly, we reverse the convictions and sentences for first-degree murder and for possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. We remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion to begin within 180 days of the filing of this opinion.

Appellant and his brother, Dennis Escobar, were convicted of first-degree premeditated murder, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and grand theft of an automobile. Through a combination of the brothers' confessions, testimony from Dennis Escobar's wife, testimony from a friend, and physical evidence, the following facts were presented to the jury. During a day-long drinking binge on March 30, 1988, the Escobar brothers were traveling in a gray Mazda they had stolen a few days earlier from a Miami car dealer. Douglas was driving and Dennis was a passenger when the brothers saw a police car following them. Douglas tried to evade the officer by pulling into a residential yard. The police car stopped behind them. Douglas said to Dennis, "If he gets out, shoot him." The officer, Victor Estefan, exited his car with his gun drawn and shouted for the brothers to exit their car. As Estefan approached, Dennis got out, fired three or four shots at Estefan with a .357 magnum handgun, and returned to the Mazda. Douglas backed the Mazda into Estefan's patrol car before driving off. The brothers had the Mazda washed to eliminate fingerprints, abandoned the car, and threw the gun into a canal. Police recovered the stolen car and found physical evidence indicating that the car had hit Estefan's patrol car. A fingerprint from Douglas was found on the stolen Mazda.

There were no eyewitnesses or suspects the night of the shooting. Just before he died of gunshot wounds, Estefan described his assailant as a white male passenger in a gray Mazda, which Estefan had stopped because it was traveling without lights. A month later, Miami police received information from California police implicating the Escobar brothers in the Estefan shooting. Two Miami police detectives traveled to California to meet with Dennis and Douglas Escobar, who were in custody in a California medical facility where they were recovering from wounds received in a shoot-out with California Highway Patrol officers.[1] The Escobars individually confessed to participating in the murder of Estefan in Miami.

Prior to trial, appellant and his codefendant each filed motions for severance of their trials. Originally, the trial court allowed separate trials. However, the court subsequently granted the State's motion for rejoinder based upon a 1990 amendment to the Florida Evidence Code.[2] The court then denied motions for severance during both the guilt and penalty-phase proceedings. The brothers were tried jointly. Neither defendant testified during the guilt or penalty phases of the joint trial. The jury found appellant guilty of all charges and, by a vote of eleven to one, recommended the death penalty. The trial court followed the recommendation, finding two aggravating factors: (1) previous conviction of a violent felony;[3] and (2) the victim was a law enforcement officer engaged in the lawful performance of official duties.[4] The court found one nonstatutory mitigating factor: appellant came from a broken home. The trial court sentenced appellant to death.

Appellant raises seventeen issues in this direct appeal.[5] In reversing appellant's convictions *992 and sentence, we need address only issue seven, in which appellant argues that the trial court erred in granting the State's motion for rejoinder of his trial with that of his codefendant and the admitting into evidence of incriminating portions of the codefendant's out-of-court statement. However, for purposes of the new trial, we address issues one, three, four, and five. We find issues two, six, and eight through seventeen to be moot in light of our decisions on these other issues.

As to our reason for reversal, we agree with appellant's contention that the trial court erred by granting the State's motion for rejoinder of the two defendants by denying appellant's repeated motions to have his trial severed from that of his codefendant and then by admitting into evidence at the joint trial the codefendant's statement, which incriminated appellant. Appellant argues specifically that the trial court's failure to grant a severance violated his federal constitutional right to confront his codefendant, who did not testify at their joint trial, as to those portions of the codefendant's confession admitted at trial that incriminated appellant in the shooting death of Estefan. Our agreement with this contention compels us to reverse appellant's conviction and sentence and to remand for a new trial.

In Franqui v. State, 699 So.2d 1312 (Fla. 1997), we extensively reviewed the use of interlocking confessions of codefendants in joint trials. For the reasons stated in our opinion in Franqui, we reject the State's contention that the 1990 amendment to the Florida Evidence Code was a proper basis upon which to admit appellant's codefendant's confession incriminating appellant in this joint trial, and we determine that the admission of those portions of Dennis Escobar's statement was error.

As we further decided in Franqui, this error is subject to a harmless error review. This case differs from Franqui in that there was no charge of felony murder here. The jury was instructed only as to premeditated first-degree murder. Within Dennis Escobar's statement that the trial court allowed into evidence is information which incriminated appellant, including Dennis's assertion that appellant told Dennis to shoot Estefan. The State extensively used Dennis's statement against appellant in support of the State's argument that appellant was guilty of premeditated murder. From our review of the record, we cannot find the error to be harmless in this case.

For the new trial, the trial court is to again consider whether appellant and Dennis Escobar can be tried jointly. The trial court is to apply in this decision Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.152(b)(2)[6] if the State *993 intends to offer Dennis Escobar's statement against appellant in a joint trial. In the new trial, whether it is a joint trial or a separate trial for appellant, only those statements in the confession of Dennis Escobar which are admissible in compliance with our opinion in Franqui are to be admitted in the new trial.

We now move to appellant's issue number one. We reject appellant's claim that the trial court erred in failing to suppress appellant's confession because it was involuntary. The trial court held an evidentiary hearing and then denied appellant's motion to suppress statements that appellant made to law-enforcement officers on April 30, 1988, May 3, 1988, and May 28, 1988.[7]

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Bluebook (online)
699 So. 2d 988, 1997 WL 377595, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/escobar-v-state-fla-1997.