Case Involving Forcing Victims to Lie on the Floor With Their Hands Bound Behind Their Backs During Robbery

In Rimmer v. State, 825 So. 2d 304, 329 (Fla. 2002), the Court found the record devoid of any evidence that the defendant engaged in some action to torture the victims or subject them to pain and prolonged suffering. Id. at 328. The Court concluded that the fact that the defendant forced his victims to lie on the floor with their hands bound behind their backs while he robbed the store they worked in was insufficient to show that the victims knew they would be killed or that they lay in fear of their impending deaths. Id. (citing Ferrell v. State, 686 So. 2d 1324, 1330 (Fla. 1996)) ("Speculation that the victim may have realized that the defendants intended more than a robbery when forcing the victim to drive to the field is insufficient to support this aggravating factor."). The court held in Rimmer that while the victims experienced fear, it was not the type of fear, pain, and prolonged suffering that sufficiently supports a heinous atrocious and cruel (HAC) finding. Id.