Wyatt v. State

71 So. 3d 86, 2011 WL 2652195
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedJuly 8, 2011
DocketSC08-655, SC09-556
StatusPublished
Cited by52 cases

This text of 71 So. 3d 86 (Wyatt 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
Wyatt v. State, 71 So. 3d 86, 2011 WL 2652195 (Fla. 2011).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

Thomas Anthony Wyatt, a prisoner under sentence of death, appeals the denial of his amended.and supplemental motions for postconviction relief filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. Through his postconviction motions, Wyatt challenges his first-degree murder convictions and sentences of death for the commission of a May 1988 triple homicide occurring at a Vero Beach, Florida, Domino’s Pizza restaurant. Wyatt also petitions this Court for writ of habeas corpus. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), (9), Fla. Const. Wyatt raises numerous claims before this Court but focuses primarily on two of those claims: the State presented expert testimony on comparative bullet lead analysis (CBLA), which evidence has now established is no longer a reliable science, and newly discovered evidence shows that a critical State witness testified untruthfully at trial. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the postconviction court’s denial of relief and deny Wyatt’s petition for writ of habeas corpus.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On May 13,1988, Wyatt and his codefen-dant, Michael Lovette, escaped from a North Carolina prison road gang and fled to Florida, engaging in a spree of crimes along the way, including the murders of three Domino’s Pizza employees in Vero *92 Beach and the murder of Cathy Nydegger near Tampa, which occurred just days apart. In a joint indictment, the State of Florida charged Wyatt and Lovette with the following crimes: four counts of first-degree premeditated murder, one count of sexual battery, three counts of kidnapping, two counts of robbery with a firearm, three counts of grand theft, one count of arson, and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Prior to trial, the court severed the three Domino’s murder counts from the Nydegger murder count and also severed the firearm possession count from the other charges. 1 Wyatt and Lovette were tried separately. 2

The evidence presented at Wyatt’s trial on the Domino’s murder counts revealed the following. On May 16, 1988, Wyatt and Lovette stole a 1983 Cadillac Seville with a red-burgundy body and white canvas top in Jacksonville, Florida, and then drove down the east coast of Florida to the Vero Beach/Yeehaw Junction area near State Road 60. At sometime between 11:00 and 11:45 p.m. on May 17, both men entered a Vero Beach Domino’s Pizza restaurant armed with handguns. While Lo-vette held William Edwards, the store manager, at gunpoint in the office until the time lock on the store’s safe opened, Wyatt took Frances Edwards, who was William Edwards’ wife, and Matthew Bornoosh, a deliveryman, to the restroom in the back of the restaurant. Wyatt forced Bornoosh to remove his Domino’s shirt, and Lovette put it on.

During the course of the robbery, Wyatt raped Frances Edwards. After the safe opened, the men retrieved money from inside the safe, and Wyatt shot all three victims to death: William Edwards was shot in the head and chest; Frances Edwards was shot in the head; and Matthew Bornoosh was shot in the left ear and head. Thereafter, Wyatt and Lovette fled the scene in the stolen Cadillac, heading west along State Road 60 toward Clear-water. On their way, the men burned the Cadillac and hitched a ride with a truck driver, who later identified Wyatt as one of the hitchhikers. Matthew Bornoosh’s shirt was recovered on the side of State Road 60 between where the burnt Cadillac was found and where the Domino’s was located. Handwriting found on several May 18 motel registration cards recovered from various motels located in Brandon and Clearwater, Florida, matched samples taken from both Wyatt and Lovette.

At some point, the men then decided to go them separate ways. After spending several weeks on the west coast of Florida, Wyatt stole another vehicle and returned to South Carolina. On July 7, 1988, when a police officer stopped a stolen truck in which Wyatt was a passenger, Wyatt ran but was eventually caught and arrested.

*93 In January 1991, the jury found Wyatt guilty as charged. Throughout trial, Wyatt instructed his counsel that he did not want any witnesses called in mitigation. However, on the eve of the penalty-phase proceeding, Wyatt changed course and requested that counsel put on the testimony of his mother and sister. At the time of this request, Wyatt’s mother suffered from a mental disorder and was unable to testify. Her condition was worsening, and there was no prognosis as to when, or if, she would ever be able to testify. Wyatt’s sister had pregnancy complications and could not travel to testify for five months. As a result, Wyatt’s counsel moved for a continuance of the penalty phase based on each witness’s unavailability, which the trial court denied. Following this denial, Wyatt entered a written waiver of five statutory mitigating circumstances, 3 which the court found to be freely and voluntarily given. After a brief penalty phase, the jury unanimously recommended death as to each of the three Domino’s murders.

The trial court followed the jury’s recommendation and found that the evidence established the following seven aggrava-tors: (1) the murders were committed while Wyatt was under a sentence of imprisonment; (2) Wyatt was previously convicted of a violent felony; (3) Wyatt was engaged in the commission of felonies when the murders were committed; (4) the murders were committed for the purpose of avoiding arrest; (5) the murders were committed for pecuniary gain; (6) the murders were especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel (HAC); and (7) the murders were cold, calculated, and premeditated (CCP). The trial court did not assign a specific weight to these aggravators and found that no mitigating circumstances had been established.

On direct appeal, 4 this Court affirmed Wyatt’s convictions and death sentences. Wyatt v. State, 641 So.2d 1336, 1341 (Fla.1994). However, the Court struck the CCP aggravator as not supported by the *94 evidence, but concluded that eliminating this aggravating circumstance was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in light of the six remaining aggravating circumstances and the lack of mitigation. Id. This Court also found that “the record [was] clear that Wyatt effectively waived presentation of mitigating evidence” and that “the trial court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to suspend the penalty proceedings indefinitely.” Id. at 1340.

Wyatt’s postconviction proceedings spanned several years in light of complex public-records litigation. When Wyatt filed his final amended motion, he raised a total of twenty-seven claims, some of which included multiple subclaims. 5 Following *95 two separate Huff 6

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Bluebook (online)
71 So. 3d 86, 2011 WL 2652195, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wyatt-v-state-fla-2011.