He got life after leading cops on a rolling gun battle. A court overruled the sentence
An appeals court ordered a new trial for a man convicted of trying to murder two police officers during a high-speed rolling gun battle through the Upper Florida Keys in 2015.
Robert Schminky, 62, was convicted of two counts of first-degree attempted murder of a police officer in January 2018, and Monroe County Judge Luis Garcia sentenced him to two life terms in prison in March of that year.
The Jan. 21, 2015, shootout left a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputy with a grazing bullet wound to the leg, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper with hearing loss and both officers with post-traumatic stress.
But a three-judge panel of the Third District Court of Appeal Wednesday reversed the sentence and ordered a new trial.
The reason? The Florida Supreme Court changed the jury instructions on that specific charge a month after Schminky was convicted but before he was sentenced, mandating that jurors must consider whether the defendant knew the person he or she tried to kill was a law enforcement officer.
“The standard instruction for attempted first-degree murder of a law enforcement officer did not exist at the time of trial, and as such, was not read to the jury,” the judges wrote. “Instead, the jury was instructed on regular attempted first-degree murder, which excludes the element of knowing that the victims were law enforcement officers.”
State Attorney Dennis Ward said Thursday that his office will retry Schminky.
“Absolutely. There is no doubt in my mind,” he said
Schminky is also serving time for aggravated assault, aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and fleeing and eluding police under aggravated circumstances, charges which have been affirmed.
Schminky’s defense was never to dispute the version of events presented by prosecutors, much of which was caught on police dash-cam video. His attorneys argued, rather, that he was temporarily insane that night and did not know right from wrong because he was withdrawing from the prescription anti-anxiety medication Paxil.
The night of mayhem began with Schminky beating his wife so severely with a shotgun outside of their Buttonwood Drive home in Key Largo that he broke her arm and several ribs, and snapped the weapon’s stock off from the force of the blows.
Honour Schminky, who went from a cooperating witness for the prosecution to testifying in her husband’s defense, called 911 from the couple’s landline before the attack because he threatened her with violence after she asked him about a missed medical appointment.
Robert Schminky pulled the telephone cord out of the wall, and Honour called the police on her cellphone, prompting her husband to begin beating her with the shotgun.
Audio of the grisly attack was played during the trial, on which jurors heard Honour begging for help and pleading with Robert to stop hurting her. The audio also clearly recorded each thud of the shotgun hitting her body.
Two deputies arrived, and Robert Schminky calmly walked past one of them on the street, fired two blasts from his shotgun into the ground and drove off in his Lexus SUV.
Another deputy and an FHP trooper gave chase from his neighborhood, off mile marker 100, through multiple subdivisions, and finally to County Road 905, which runs parallel to the 18 Mile Stretch of U.S. 1 that leads in and out of the Keys.
Heading north on 905, Schminky opened fire on sheriff’s officer Sgt. Sydney Whitehouse, who was driving south and returned fire through his driver-side window. Schminky turned his car around and headed south. In doing so, he sideswiped FHP Cpl. Christine Gracey’s patrol car.
Whitehouse and Gracey, who were both awarded their respective departments’ Medal of Valor for their actions that night, caught up with Schminky in the parking lot of a Circle K gas station located between the entrances of both the 18 Mile Stretch and County Road 905 at mile marker 106.
Gracey tried to use her car’s push bar to T-bone Schminky’s Lexus into the woods to disable it, but he accelerated toward her cruiser, and she could see he was holding a pistol. As both cars became stuck together, Schminky fired several shots into Gracey’s cruiser, which narrowly missed her.
She continues to have hearing issues because of the loud sound of the bullets whistling and bouncing through her car, according to her testimony at trial.
She did not shoot back because she said she did not want to strike the several deputies who now surrounded both cars. When she managed to dislodge her car from Schminky’s, Gracey fired back once through her windshield, but missed her target.
Whitehouse got out of his car and began shooting at Schminky, who was also squeezing off rounds at the police. A bullet ricocheted and hit Whitehouse in the leg, and Schminky drove off again, this time south on U.S. 1.
He drove his Lexus into St. Justin Martyr Catholic Church at mile marker 105.5, where a deputy was posted. The deputy, Nestor Argote, said at the trial that he saw Schminky run toward him holding a handgun. Argote fired 10 shots at Schminky, but missed.
He and another deputy chased him and caught up with him in a field behind the church. Schminky had ditched his gun during the chase. Argote tried cuffing Schminky, but he fought back. He finally stopped after the other deputy, Sgt. Barney Sajdak, hit him with the butt of his rifle.
Although jurors were not asked to consider whether Schminky knew he was shooting at cops that night, they did hear that he was at least aware of that fact after he was arrested.
During the trial, a registered nurse who works intake at the Key West jail testified that Schminky told her, “I was shooting at cops through a windshield, so that can’t be good.”
During the sentencing hearing, Honour Schminky and several of his friends testified that Robert Schminky was a peaceful man, and his actions that night were completely out of character.
A psychiatrist testified on his behalf that Schminky was prescribed Paxil for anxiety and depression in October 2015. Schminky said the drug made him more anxious, so he stopped taking it around December.
The psychiatrist said that he started taking it again before abruptly stopping about three days before the rampage. The doctor said Paxil is among a number of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor drugs that can cause bizarre side effects if someone quits using them all at once rather than tapering off.
He referred to the condition as “Paxil discontinuation syndrome.”
This story was originally published April 29, 2020 at 7:36 PM.
