Supreme Court of Florida

Conviction and sentence of death of defendant for first degree murder and other crimes is affirmed where: 1) even though admission of witness' hearsay statement violated the Confrontation Clause, any error in admitting the statement was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt; 2) defendant's claim that his statement at the rooming house and at the police station should have been suppressed is rejected as is his claim that the police did not have probable cause to detain or arrest him; 3) admission of recorded conversations of defendant in jail was not error; 4) given the strength of the evidence against defendant and the gravity of the aggravators, it cannot be said that the jury would not have recommended a death sentence or that the trial court would not have imposed a death sentence if the prosecutor had not made the improper victim impact comparison; 5) defendant's challenges to Florida's capital sentencing scheme are without merit; 6) evidence is sufficient to support the convictions; and 7) death sentence in this case is proportional.

Appellate Information

• Decided 12/10/2009
• Published 12/10/2009

Judges

• PER CURIAM.

Court

• Supreme Court of Florida

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Gary Lee Caldwell, Assistant Public Defender, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, West Palm Beach, FL, for Appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• Bill McCollum, Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, and Leslie T. Campbell, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, FL, for Appellee.