Zachary Taylor Wood, Appellant v. State of Florida, Appellee

Summary

The court affirmed Wood’s first-degree murder, armed-burglary, and armed-robbery convictions because competent, substantial evidence supported them. It struck the cold, calculated, and premeditated and avoid-arrest aggravators, held that the trial court improperly rejected uncontroverted drug-abuse mitigation, and concluded that death was disproportionate based on the remaining aggravation, mitigation, and Wood’s lesser relative culpability. The court therefore vacated the death sentence and remanded for imposition of life imprisonment without parole. Justice Polston, dissenting, would have upheld the aggravators and affirmed the sentence.