Thomas Griffin died on the porch of his Seminole County home as a result of a shotgun wound to his chest. One of his neighbors, appellant Walter Thomas Myers, was convicted of the malice murder of Mr. Griffin and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Appellant was sentenced to life imprisonment and a consecutive five-year sentence. He now appeals the judgment of conviction.1
1. The State presented evidence that, shortly before dawn on January 17, 1999, duck hunters heard a shotgun fired, a pause, and then three shots fired in quick succession from a gun different than the first. Later that day, a neighbor found Mr. Griffin’s body at his home. A shotgun blast had been fired into the victim’s screened-in porch from a position close to the porch, and the victim had fired three shots from his shotgun before he collapsed. Law enforcement officers investigating the homicide were called to appellant’s nearby house when a neighbor reported that appellant was bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound and needed medical attention. Appellant’s right-hand pinky finger had been shot off, and another finger was partially missing. In addition, appellant had shotgun-pellet injuries to his right thigh. When asked how he had sustained his injuries, appellant told the officers they knew because they had been “down there.” A shotgun with buckshot damage and a large amount of blood on it was removed from appellant’s home and was found to be jammed by an expended steel shell casing. The following day, after the hospitalized appellant was advised of his constitutional rights, he told the officers the victim had invited him to fish from the victim’s dock; appellant had approached the victim’s home in the pre-dawn hours with his shotgun and his fishing pole; the victim had shot him while appellant was on the screened-in porch; and appellant had fired back, striking the victim. A week later, appellant, having been released from the hospital and then jailed on the murder charge, was again advised of his rights and told investigators that the victim had fired three shots at him and that he had then shot the victim while straddling the threshold of the porch’s screen door.
