Card v. State

Summary

The Supreme Court of Florida affirmed James Armando Card's death sentence following resentencing for a first-degree murder, robbery, and kidnapping conviction. The court rejected claims concerning judicial recusal, prosecutorial closing argument, aggravating circumstances, and mitigating evidence. It held that any error in failing to consider certain nonstatutory mitigating circumstances was harmless.

Holdings

1. Card waived his objection to the successor-judge recusal standard by failing to raise the objection when the judge ruled on the motion or when the order was entered before trial; the court therefore denied relief.
2. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying mistrials based on the prosecutor's improper comments concerning life imprisonment, victim-impact evidence, and the conscience-of-the-community argument because the comments did not vitiate the penalty-phase hearing.
3. The unobjected-to closing-argument comments did not constitute fundamental error, and the cumulative effect of the prosecutor's comments did not deprive Card of a fair penalty-phase hearing.
4. The trial court properly found and weighed the cold, calculated, and premeditated aggravating circumstance and properly denied Card's requested special jury instruction.
5. Competent substantial evidence supported the instruction on and finding of the heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravating circumstance.
6. Competent substantial evidence supported the finding that Card committed the murder to eliminate the only witness and thereby avoid arrest.
7. The trial court properly applied both the pecuniary-gain and avoid-arrest aggravators, and competent substantial evidence supported the pecuniary-gain finding.
8. Although the trial court erred by failing to expressly find and weigh Card's family support and lack of a history of violent crimes as nonstatutory mitigation, the error was harmless because the additional mitigation could not reasonably have resulted in a lesser sentence.
9. The challenged victim-impact testimony did not require relief: one witness's improper testimony was unpreserved and not fundamental error because it occurred outside the jury's presence, while the other challenged testimony was not improper.
10. The death sentence was proportionate and appropriate under the totality of the circumstances.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the resentencing judge improperly denied Card's motion for recusal.
2. Whether improper and inflammatory prosecutorial closing arguments required a mistrial or a new penalty-phase hearing.
3. Whether the trial court properly instructed the jury on and found the cold, calculated, and premeditated, heinous, atrocious, or cruel, avoiding-arrest, pecuniary-gain, and felony-murder aggravating circumstances.
4. Whether the trial court failed to consider and weigh relevant mitigating evidence.
5. Whether victim-impact testimony rendered the resentencing fundamentally unfair.
6. Whether Apprendi required a unanimous jury verdict for imposition of the death penalty.
7. Whether standard advisory-jury instructions violated Caldwell v. Mississippi.
8. Whether the trial court improperly excluded evidence concerning the effect of Card's execution on his family.
9. Whether the aggravating circumstances were unconstitutionally overbroad or vague.
10. Whether the trial court improperly excluded evidence that Card received life sentences for robbery and kidnapping.
11. Whether the death sentence was disproportionate.

Disposition

affirmed