Glock v. Singletary

• Decision Date: 07 October 1994
• Docket Number: No. 91-3528,91-3528
• Parties: Robert Dewey GLOCK, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Harry K. SINGLETARY, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1014

36 F.3d 1014

Robert Dewey GLOCK, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Harry K. SINGLETARY, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 91-3528.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Oct. 7, 1994.

Martin J. McClain, Chief Asst. Capital Collateral, Representative, Gail E. Anderson, Office of Capital Collateral, Representative, Tallahassee, FL, for appellant.

Robert J. Landry, Asst. Atty. Gen., Dept. of Legal Affairs, Tampa, FL, for appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Before TJOFLAT, Chief Judge, KRAVITCH and HATCHETT, Circuit Judges.

TJOFLAT, Chief Judge:

Robert Dewey Glock II is a Florida prison inmate. In 1983, a jury convicted him, along with his codefendant Carl Puiatti, of one count each of first degree murder, kidnapping, and robbery. The jury recommended that both Glock and Puiatti receive the death penalty for the murder; the trial court accepted the jury's recommendations and sentenced the defendants accordingly. After failing to obtain relief through a direct appeal and state collateral attacks, Glock filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254 (1988), seeking the vacation of both his murder conviction and his death sentence.

The district court dismissed Glock's petition, concluding that, on its face, the petition failed to state a valid claim for relief, 752 F.Supp. 1027. Glock appeals. Finding no merit in Glock's attack on his murder conviction, we affirm the district court's refusal to disturb that conviction. Glock's death sentence must be set aside, however, because the trial court, at the conclusion of the sentencing phase of Glock's trial, failed to provide the jury with an adequate instruction regarding the "heinous, atrocious, or cruel" aggravating circumstance that was relied upon by the State as a ground for seeking the death penalty. We therefore direct the district court to issue the writ with respect to Glock's death sentence.

I.

A.

On the morning of August 16, 1983, Glock and Puiatti confronted a woman as she attempted to exit her vehicle at a shopping mall in Bradenton, Florida, forcing her back inside her car at gunpoint. As Puiatti drove from the mall, Glock took fifty dollars from the victim's purse. Glock and Puiatti then coerced the victim into cashing a $100 check at her bank.

With the proceeds of the check in hand, the pair drove the victim across South Florida, eventually arriving at an orange grove outside Dade County where they took the victim's wedding ring and abandoned her at the side of the road. After driving a short distance, however, the pair decided that the woman, if left alive, would be a potential witness against them and that she therefore should be killed. Glock and Puiatti returned to where they had left the victim, whereupon Puiatti shot her twice at close range and drove away. Upon glancing back and realizing that the victim had not fallen to the ground, Puiatti turned the car around. Glock then took the gun and fired a third shot into the victim and Puiatti drove away once more. When the woman still did not fall, Glock and Puiatti made a third pass at which point Glock fired the shot that felled her; she died shortly thereafter.

Four days later, Glock and Puiatti were still in possession of the victim's vehicle when they were stopped in New Jersey by a state trooper who noticed that the automobile's license plate was displayed improperly. Neither Puiatti nor Glock was able to present the trooper with a valid driver's license, so the trooper asked to see the car's registration. As Puiatti opened the glove box, the trooper noticed a handgun inside. The trooper then seized the firearm, and with permission from Puiatti and Glock, searched the vehicle, thereby finding a second handgun. The officer arrested both men for possession of two handguns without permits. The handgun taken from the glove box proved to be the weapon used in the Florida slaying.

On August 21, the day following their arrests, Glock and Puiatti made separate tape recorded statements to two Pasco County, Florida, detectives, ¹ in which each confessed to the Florida kidnapping, robbery, and killing. In his statement, Glock recounted the events described above, differing from that account in just two respects: Glock claimed that Puiatti had suggested initially that the two men kill the victim and that Puiatti had fired the final shot. Puiatti's statement, given later that day, was virtually identical to Glock's statement; not surprisingly, however, Puiatti claimed that the killing had been Glock's idea and that Glock had fired the last shot.

Three days later, on August 24, Glock and Puiatti gave the detectives a joint statement before a court reporter. Puiatti spoke first. As Glock listened silently, Puiatti told the detectives that "[Glock] said to me that he thought we should shoot her ... [a]nd after going back and forth a little bit, I agreed, and turned the car around." Puiatti then admitted to firing the first shot, at which point Glock interrupted and continued the narration. Glock reported, and Puiatti agreed, that Puiatti initially fired three shots and that at least two of those shots struck the victim, one in the right shoulder and one in the chest. Glock continued, stating that he also shot the victim twice--once on the second pass in the car and once on the third. Glock also confessed that the victim collapsed after he shot her on the third pass. ² At the conclusion of the joint statement, both men stated that they were in "full agreement with each other as to the [joint] statement ... [and] that the incident came down exactly that way."

B.

On October 12, 1983, the State of Florida charged Glock and Puiatti with one count each of first degree murder, kidnapping, and robbery. Before trial, each defendant moved for separate trials because the State intended to present both of their individual confessions to the jury. The trial court denied their requests for severance and, in March 1984, Glock and Puiatti went to trial.

At trial, the State introduced all three confessions into evidence as part of its case in chief. Glock and Puiatti each objected to the introduction of the other's individual statement. As each defendant's statement was received, the court instructed the jury to disregard it to the extent that it implicated the other defendant. With respect to the joint statement, no objection was made and no curative instruction was given. After the State rested its case, neither defendant took the stand to rebut the State's proof. The jury accepted the State's proof and convicted each defendant on all three counts.

The trial then proceeded to the penalty phase, ³ where the same jury was asked to make a recommendation as to whether Glock and Puiatti should be sentenced to life imprisonment or death. The State called no witnesses, relying instead upon the evidence adduced during the guilt phase of the trial. Glock, in his case, called a number of witnesses, including his sister and his stepmother, both of whom testified as to the difficult circumstances of Glock's childhood. Glock also presented a mental health expert who testified that Glock would not have committed the crimes but for the substantial domination exerted over him by Puiatti, ⁴ and that Glock, who did not have a criminal profile, was capable of rehabilitation and therefore was unlikely to commit any future crimes. Finally, Glock testified that he felt remorse over what he had done.

At the close of the evidence at the penalty phase, the trial judge instructed the jury to consider five statutory aggravating circumstances in reaching its recommendation concerning the defendants' respective sentences: whether the murder was committed: (1) while the defendant was engaged in the commission, the attempted commission, or the flight after the commission or attempted commission, of the crime of kidnapping, Fla.Stat.Ann. Sec. 921.141(5)(d) (West 1985 & Supp.1994); (2) for the purpose of avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest, Fla.Stat.Ann. Sec. 921.141(5)(e); (3) for financial gain, Fla.Stat.Ann. Sec. 921.141(5)(f); (4) in a "cold, calculated, and premeditated [manner] without any pretense of moral or legal justification," Fla.Stat.Ann. Sec. 921.141(5)(i); or (5) in a manner that was "especially wicked, evil, atrocious or cruel," ⁵ Fla.Stat.Ann Sec. 921.141(5)(h) (hereinafter, the "atrociousness circumstance"). ⁶ The court also instructed the jury with respect to both statutory mitigating circumstances, see Fla.Stat.Ann. Sec. 921.141(6), and nonstatutory mitigating circumstances.

The jury recommended, by a vote of eleven to one, that both Glock and Puiatti receive the death penalty. Because Florida law does not require it to do so, the jury did not indicate the specific aggravating circumstances that formed the basis for its death penalty recommendation. ⁷ The trial judge adopted the sentencing recommendations of the jury and imposed the death penalty. As to both defendants, the trial judge specifically found three aggravating circumstances: that the murder was committed (1) for financial gain; (2) to avoid arrest; and (3) in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner. The judge rejected two aggravating circumstances--that the murder was heinous, atrocious, or cruel, and that the murder was committed in the course of a kidnapping--because the facts necessary to support them comprised the basis for the judge's finding of two other aggravating circumstances. ⁸ In Glock's case, the judge found a statutory mitigating circumstance in Glock's lack of a prior criminal history, and three nonstatutory mitigating circumstances in Glock's cooperation in the police investigation, his capacity for rehabilitation, and his good behavior while incarcerated. In the court's view, however, those mitigating circumstances did not outweigh the three aggravating circumstances...