Penna v. State

344 So.3d 420

Zachary Joseph PENNA, Appellant,

v.STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 4D20-345

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.

[December 22, 2021]

Certification of a question of great public importance granted March 9, 2022

Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Paul Edward Petillo, Assistant Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Heidi L. Bettendorf, Senior Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

Gerber, J.

The defendant appeals from his convictions for two counts of first-degree murder, one count of robbery with a weapon, and one count of false imprisonment with a weapon. Despite the horrible facts underlying these convictions, we are compelled to reverse these convictions and remand for a new trial due to a violation of the defendant's Miranda rights.

After the defendant had invoked his Miranda rights, but later made spontaneous statements regarding his crimes to a deputy guarding him at a hospital, the deputy failed to specifically give the defendant his Miranda rights again before asking him questions which were reasonably likely to elicit, and did elicit, incriminating responses which the state presented at trial in their entirety. Because those elicited incriminating responses proved and/or corroborated each of the crimes, and further undermined the defendant's insanity defense, the trial court erred in denying certain portions of the defendant's pre-trial motion to suppress his incriminating responses. This error was not harmless. Thus, we must reverse and remand for a new trial.

We present this opinion in six sections:

1. The crimes and their aftermath;

2. The conversations at issue;

3. The defendant's pre-trial motion to suppress;

4. The defendant's insanity evidence and the jury's verdict;

5. The parties' arguments on appeal; and

6. Our analysis.

1. The Crimes and Their Aftermath

The crimes occurred on November 20, 2015. The defendant stabbed two men to death at the men's home in Palm Beach County. The defendant then stole the men's SUV, and drove to a nearby neighborhood where, at knife point, he robbed an elderly woman of her shirt and purse while she walked down the street. The defendant then drove to a co-worker's house in another neighborhood where, at knife point, he forced the co-worker into the SUV and attempted to flee in the SUV.

When the defendant stopped at a fast-food restaurant, the co-worker was able to escape from the SUV. The defendant resumed driving north on I-95. When he reached Brevard County, he stopped the SUV, and tried to take another man's car. When the man resisted, the defendant stabbed the man (who survived), and fled into the woods. When a police dog was sent into the woods after the defendant, he stabbed the dog (which survived). The defendant later charged out of the woods towards the police while still holding the knife. The police shot the defendant four times, but he survived and was taken to a hospital for treatment.

At the hospital the next day, while the defendant remained in custody, the lead Palm Beach County detective read Miranda warnings to the defendant and attempted to question him. However, the defendant requested a lawyer. The lead detective left the room. Despite the defendant having requested a lawyer, a second detective entered the defendant's room and attempted to question him. The defendant again requested a lawyer. The detectives then ceased their attempts to question the defendant. (The second detective's improper attempt to question the defendant is not the Miranda violation at issue in this appeal.)

Nearly four weeks later on December 17, 2015, while the defendant remained in custody at a Brevard County hospital, one of the deputies guarding the defendant called the local police to ask whether the defendant had been read his Miranda warnings and whether they wanted him to obtain statements from the defendant. The local police (who apparently were investigating the Brevard County crimes) said they did not need any assistance, but the Palm Beach County detectives might.

The deputy then called the Palm Beach County detectives. One of the Palm Beach County detectives (not the lead detective) told the deputy that the defendant had refused to speak to them and that he had requested counsel.

Despite that notification, when the defendant initiated a conversation with the deputy later that day, and on other days in the weeks which followed, the deputy did not specifically give the defendant his Miranda rights again, even though the deputy directed questions to the defendant during those conversations. Some of the deputy's questions, from an objective standpoint, were not reasonably likely to have elicited incriminating responses from the defendant. However, other questions were reasonably likely to elicit, and did elicit, incriminating responses from the defendant.

The deputy's typed recordings of those conversations, which the state later disclosed to defense counsel in discovery, became the subject of the defendant's pre-trial motion to suppress. We will discuss each conversation in detail in the next section, before addressing each conversation's legality, or lack thereof, later in this opinion.

2. The Conversations at Issue December 17, 2015

The defendant spontaneously asked the deputy why he (the defendant) was in the hospital. The deputy replied, "You don't know why you are here?" The defendant shook his head, turned away, and closed his eyes.

About thirty minutes later, the defendant spontaneously stated, "I stabbed a couple of people." The deputy replied, "You stabbed a couple of people?" The defendant responded, "Yeah a couple of f*** and a damn dog."

December 19, 2015

The defendant spontaneously said he was in a bad mood. When the deputy asked the defendant why he was in a bad mood, the defendant responded, "Dude, I'm f*****. I feel like I just f***** my life up." The deputy asked the defendant, "Why do you think you f***** your life up?" The defendant responded, "Dude, I'm just f*****. I know what I did. I'm going to prison for my whole f****** life." The defendant then recited Bible scriptures and stated that his life in prison would be horrible. The defendant further stated several times he was upset about having to go to jail for life at such a young age. The defendant also admitted to having used marijuana, cocaine, and ecstasy, and stated, "Dude, I've tried it all."

December 20, 2015

The defendant and the deputy were engaged in a conversation about miscellaneous topics when the defendant spontaneously asked, "What do you think I will get?" The deputy asked the defendant what he meant. The defendant responded, "[W]hat do you think I will get for killing those two f***?"

The deputy asked the defendant "What do you mean, what do you think you're being punished for?" The defendant responded that the story was more complicated than the deputy thought. The defendant said he would let the deputy know the entire story of what happened.

The deputy told the defendant, "Hey, I'm a law enforcement officer and you can say anything you want to me, but I'm going to write it down." The deputy also told the defendant that he (the deputy) would be typing what the defendant was saying on his laptop. However, the deputy did not specifically give the defendant his Miranda rights again. Instead, the deputy told the defendant, "I don't want you to tell me anything unless you want to talk to me." The deputy also said, "Well you know, I'm in uniform. I'm here. And if you want to have a conversation, we could talk. But ... as far as specific crimes ... I'm not going to ask you specific questions about specific crimes."

The defendant proceeded into a lengthy narrative about the crimes. He said that, on the day of the crimes, his car had a flat tire and he had to walk to his aunt's home where he was temporarily staying. He wanted a car, so he went to a nearby home where an SUV was parked and knocked loudly on the home's front door. A man opened the door and said, "What?" The defendant threatened the man with a folding knife and told the man to give him the keys to the SUV. When the man refused, the defendant lunged towards the man and stabbed him several times. The man fell backwards and yelled, "Get the gun!" to a second man inside the house.

While the defendant continued stabbing the first man, the second man approached with a baseball bat and struck the defendant in his upper right arm and wrist, causing a large gash to the defendant's wrist. The second man hit the defendant again with the baseball bat, this time in the head. The defendant turned towards the second man and chased him into the house. When the defendant caught up to the second man, the defendant began stabbing the second man until he believed the second man was possibly dead. The defendant said he stabbed both men "one hundred times." (The defendant had stabbed the first man fourteen times, and had stabbed the second man eighteen times.)

While covered in blood from the stabbing, the defendant decided to drink the two men's blood "just because." When the deputy asked the defendant what the blood tasted like, the defendant said, "silvery and like iron." The defendant then detailed how he took the men's SUV and drove around to locate vehicle tags to remove from other cars so he could switch them because he feared being caught by the police.

The defendant also said he needed a clean shirt. He approached an elderly woman walking down the street, and threatened her with the same knife which he had just used in the stabbings. He told her to remove her shirt and give him her shirt and purse.

The defendant then drove to a co-worker's house to trick the co-worker into getting into the SUV with him. When the defendant arrived at the house, he knocked on the door, told the co-worker he had just been jumped by several men, and needed to come inside to borrow a shirt. The co-worker opened the door and, once the defendant was inside, the...