Nettles v. State

409 So. 2d 85
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedJanuary 18, 1982
DocketUU-209
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 409 So. 2d 85 (Nettles v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Nettles v. State, 409 So. 2d 85 (Fla. Ct. App. 1982).

Opinion

409 So.2d 85 (1982)

Stephen Wayne NETTLES, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. UU-209.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

January 18, 1982.
Rehearing Denied February 23, 1982.

*86 Michael Allen, Public Defender, and Melanie Ann Hines, Asst. Public Defender, for appellant.

Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and Lawrence A. Kaden, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

Nettles appeals his conviction for first degree murder raising several issues, only two of which merit extensive discussion: 1) Whether a defendant is denied a fair trial when the jury is death-qualified,[1] and 2) whether appellant's incriminating statements should have been suppressed? We resolve both questions adversely to appellant, and affirm the judgment of conviction.

Nettles was indicted for first degree murder in the killing of Donald Attaway. The defense made numerous pre-trial motions to have the death penalty stricken as a possible penalty, all of which were denied. The prosecutor challenged and the judge excused for cause any juror who was adamantly opposed[2] to the death penalty. During his rebuttal to defense closing argument, the prosecutor announced the state would not seek the death penalty. Appellant was convicted for first degree murder and received a life sentence.

Appellant argues that by excluding all persons who would not impose the death penalty under any circumstances the state obtained a jury that was more likely to return a conviction of the crime charged, thereby denying defendant a fair and impartial jury drawn from a representative cross section of the populace. Appellant also urges that it was improper to exclude from the guilt or innocence phase of the trial those opposed to the death penalty who could fairly apply the law on the question of guilt.

We first address the question of standing. This issue was indirectly raised by the state by the filing of a notice of supplemental authority citing Herman v. State, 396 So.2d 222 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981), in which the court ruled that a defendant who does not receive the death penalty has no standing to challenge the exclusion of jurors opposed to the death penalty. Without determining whether the issue was properly raised, we respectfully disagree with the Fourth District. Assuming appellant's thesis concerning the lack of impartiality of the "death-qualified" jury to be correct, he would have suffered harm by virtue of the exclusion of all jurors adamantly opposed to the death penalty.

We next deal with the question of whether such a jury is sufficiently representative to meet constitutional requirements. A review of Florida and federal cases reveals that this question has been resolved adversely to appellant's position. In Riley v. State, 366 So.2d 19 (Fla. 1978), the appellant urged that he was entitled to have persons who were unalterably opposed to the death penalty on his jury for the determination of guilt or innocence and suggested that a second jury qualified pursuant to the Witherspoon[3]*87 standards could be impaneled for the sentencing phase. The Florida Supreme Court rejected this argument because it found "no compulsion in law or logic to so structure capital case trials." Accord Jackson v. State, 366 So.2d 752 (Fla. 1978); Gafford v. State, 387 So.2d 333 (Fla. 1980); Maggard v. State, 399 So.2d 973 (Fla. 1981). We find the decisions of the Florida Supreme Court in this area consistent with that of the U.S. Supreme Court in Witherspoon which concluded that a jury composed of only those who were not absolutely opposed to the death sentence was sufficiently representative on the issue of guilt. See Grigsby v. Mabry, 483 F. Supp. 1372 (E.D.Ark.), reversed and remanded on other grounds 637 F.2d 525.

The law is not so well-settled with regard to the impartiality of such a jury.[4] In Witherspoon, 391 U.S. at 520, note 18, 88 S.Ct. at 1776, the Supreme Court stated:

Even so, a defendant convicted by such a jury in some future case might still attempt to establish that the jury was less than neutral with respect to guilt.

Thus, the court left open the question of whether a jury which is death-qualified is more prone to convict of the crime charged than one on which adamantly opposed persons are seated. The Witherspoon court declined to resolve the question because the data produced by the petitioner were "too tentative and fragmentary to establish that jurors not opposed to the death penalty tend to favor the prosecution in the determination of guilt." 391 U.S. at 517, 88 S.Ct. at 1774. Subsequent to Witherspoon, several defendants have accepted the court's invitation to prove the point, and the courts which have addressed the issue are not in agreement.

In Spinkellink v. Wainwright, 578 F.2d 582 (5th Cir.1978), the Fifth Circuit appears to have rejected the argument outright on the basis that the state's interest in evenhanded application of its laws, and in providing an impartial jury, are too fundamental to risk a defendant-prone jury by allowing inclusion of those adamantly opposed to the death penalty, even at the guilt phase of the trial.[5] The Seventh Circuit,[6] and the Eighth Circuit,[7] have accepted in theory the proposition that a death-qualified jury could be more conviction prone and therefore not impartial. The Seventh Circuit, in the Townsend and Clark cases, found that the evidence still is not sufficient to establish a lack of impartiality. The Clark court noted that new studies (as well as those considered in Townsend) did show a pattern of correlation between a juror's attitude toward the death penalty and his attitude toward conviction, but the court nevertheless could not say that these new studies were sufficient to dispel the *88 "`fragmentary and tentative' nature of the data or significantly increase the empirical evidence on the question." 538 F.2d at 762. The Eighth Circuit, in Grigsby v. Mabry, supra, remanded to the Federal District Court for an evidentiary hearing on the question.

We are inclined, following the Fifth Circuit's reasoning in Spinkellink, to reject outright appellant's contention with respect to jury impartiality. However, we feel there is adequate basis for a decision affirming the lower court without rejecting appellant's impartiality argument as a matter of law. Here, appellant's "proof" consisted of a transcript of testimony given by a psychologist in another trial, which was accepted by the trial judge in lieu of live testimony. This witness gave her expert opinion, based upon her own psychological studies and experiments, as well as the studies, surveys and opinions of others that a death-qualified jury is more guilt-prone than a jury not so qualified. Although we do not question the expertise of the witness, at the same time we do not find the presentation on this issue overly persuasive, and we have no difficulty in accepting the trial judge's failure to be convinced by it. It is well settled that expert testimony is not binding on the trier of facts. South Venice Corp. v. Caspersen, 229 So.2d 652 (Fla. 2nd DCA 1969); Trolinger v. State, 300 So.2d 310 (Fla. 2nd DCA 1974); State v. Ward, 374 So.2d 1128 (Fla. 1st DCA 1979). The court has discretion to accept or reject the opinion of an expert even though it is uncontroverted.

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