Kelley v. Secretary for Dept. of Corrections
| Decision Date | 23 July 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. 03-10513.,03-10513. |
| Citation | 377 F.3d 1317 |
| Parties | William H. KELLEY, Petitioner-Appellee, v. SECRETARY FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Secretary Florida Department of Corrections, Respondent-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
James Charles Lohman, Austin, TX, for Petitioner-Appellee.
Carol M. Dittmar, Tampa, FL, for Respondent-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Before TJOFLAT, ANDERSON and WILSON, Circuit Judges.
The petitioner, William H. Kelley, is a Florida prisoner on death row, having been convicted of first degree murder. The district court granted a writ of habeas corpus setting aside his conviction and sentence.1 We reverse.
This case — from the time of the murder to the present — has spanned nearly thirty-eight years. Understandably, its history is quite complicated. For the readers' convenience, therefore, we preface the opinion with the following table of contents:
I. Factual Background
II. Federal Procedural History
III. Federal Evidentiary Hearing
IV. Rulings on Habeas Claims
a. The Massachusetts Immunity Order and the Joe Mitchell Report
b. Transcript of John Sweet's First Trial
c. Roma Trulock Report
d. Fingerprint Report
V. Conclusion
This sordid tale begins with an illicit love affair between John Sweet, a real estate broker with shadowy ties to Boston's criminal underworld, and Irene Maxcy who was married to Charles von Maxcy ("Maxcy"), a wealthy citrus grower. It culminates in Maxcy's assassination at the hands of two hit men. The investigation and legal proceedings following the murder have spanned almost four decades and have involved some of the best known lawyers in the country.
The district court described the circumstances leading up to and surrounding Maxcy's murder as follows:
Irene Maxcy and John Sweet were lovers, and they planned to kill Irene's husband, Charles von Maxcy, a wealthy citrus grover [sic] and rancher from Sebring, Florida. Sweet and Irene talked for months about the murder, after which they planned to live together on Maxcy's large estate. Sweet contacted an acquaintance, William Bennett of Boston, Massachusetts. Arrangements were made, and a price was set: $5000 up front, and $15,000 after the murder. On October 1, 1966, Sweet went to Daytona, Florida to meet Andrew von Etter. Von Etter was to do the killing, along with a partner. The next day von Etter called Sweet to tell him the partner, "William Kelley", had arrived. On October 3rd, Sweet drove von Etter and "Kelley" to the estate. The alleged killers showed Sweet the weapons they would use, knives and a revolver, which they kept in a satchel. Sweet drove back to Sebring. Charles von Maxcy was murdered that day. A couple weeks later, Sweet went to Boston to pay the $15,000 balance due for the murder.
Unfortunately, the murder did not signal the beginning of a blissful life on the estate for Irene Maxcy and John Sweet. Sweet wanted more money, purportedly to pay off the murder balance, and he began to harass and threaten Irene and her five-year-old daughter daily. Terrified, Irene Maxcy went to the authorities. In exchange for immunity, she implicated Sweet in the murder-for-hire scheme.
Kelley v. Sec'y for the Dep't of Corr., 222 F.Supp.2d 1357, 1358 (S.D.Fla.2002) (). Before Irene Maxcy came forward, a comprehensive investigation was underway. Special Agent Roma Trulock of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement ("FDLE") headed that investigation and interviewed potential eye witnesses. In particular he spoke with Kaye Carter, who met Kelley and Von Etter around the time of the murder at the Daytona Inn Motel, where the prosecution says the hit men lodged before they drove to Sebring to kill Maxcy.
Sweet was tried in the Circuit Court of Polk County, Florida. As the district court explained,
Sweet was arrested in 1967, charged with first degree murder. It became known in the course of the investigation for Sweet's trial that the "triggermen" in the murder were named von Etter and "Kelley". These men were not charged at this time, however, as prosecutors felt they had insufficient evidence against them.
Irene Maxcy was the star witness for the prosecution in Sweet's first trial. Her testimony was erratic and difficult as she denied, even under the protection of immunity, that she wanted to kill her husband. She testified it was entirely Sweet's idea. She claimed to have witnessed many of the phone calls Sweet had made in arranging the murder, and she related many of the details about which Sweet had kept her informed, including the murder itself. She further testified that she gave Sweet more than $35,000 to help pay for the murder, and that Sweet had wanted another $75,000. Sweet, testifying on his own behalf, denied any involvement in the crime.
Id. at 1358-59. Sweet also launched a vitriolic character assault on Irene Maxcy, accusing her of partaking in a host of deviant sex acts. The trial ended in a hung jury.
In 1970, Sweet was tried a second time. Irene Maxcy testified against him again, and, again, Sweet denied any involvement in the murder. This time, however, Sweet was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Unfortunately, the second trial proceedings were tainted by an evidentiary irregularity. Sweet's defense team repeated their earlier attacks on the credibility of both Irene Maxcy and another important witness against Sweet: Roma Trulock, the primary investigator for Maxcy's murder. Sweet v. State, 235 So.2d 40, 41 (Fla.2d Dist.Ct.App.1970). Defense counsel believed that Irene Maxcy and Trulock were engaged in a romantic relationship and, therefore, that Trulock had an interest in seeing Sweet incarcerated. To determine whether Irene Maxcy and Trulock would admit to the affair, the court permitted defense counsel to examine them outside the presence of the jury. Trulock denied the allegation vehemently, but Irene Maxcy did not. Irene Maxcy testified, among other things, that she and Trulock had engaged in sexual intercourse and that Trulock had expressed a desire to get Sweet convicted so that she and Trulock could take a trip to "the Islands." Id. at 41-42. The court excluded such testimony, sustaining the State's objection. Following his conviction, Sweet challenged the court's ruling on appeal. Id. at 40-41. In a two-to-one decision, the district court of appeal reversed Sweet's conviction and awarded a new trial. Id. at 42. In the court's view, Id.
After this ruling, Sweet's defense, citing Florida's speedy trial rules, filed a motion to discharge Sweet from prosecution. The state conceded that it could not proceed against Sweet again because key witnesses had become unavailable. On November 16, 1971, the circuit judge who had presided over Sweet's case found that he had "no course other than to grant the motion." Commending the efforts of the prosecution, the judge — in his own words — "reluctantly" ordered that Sweet "stand[s] discharged from further prosecution...."
In April of 1976, the state attorney petitioned the circuit court to enter an order authorizing the clerk of the court to destroy certain physical evidence held for Sweet's prosecution. The court granted that petition, and several articles of evidence, including a bullet, a bloody bed sheet, and a shred from the victim's shirt, were destroyed.
Sweet had gotten away with murder, but his role in the prosecutor's pursuit of the matter had not ended. As the district court observed, after his conviction was reversed,
John Sweet wasted little time in matriculating back into the underworld. By 1981, Sweet was facing charges in Massachusetts of prostitution, narcotics distribution, arson, bribery, counterfeiting, loan sharking, and hijacking, among other things. With authorities closing in on him, Sweet went to them first. His plan was to win immunity in exchange for information he had on the murder of Charles von Maxcy. William Kelley was the target, as Sweet implicated him as one of the murderers. The Massachusetts authorities brought Sweet to Florida where Sweet gave authorities there his confession. The next day Sweet was awarded immunity in Massachusetts.
Kelley v. Sec'y for the Dep't of Corr., No. 92-14246 at 4 (S.D.Fla. Aug. 31, 2000) (). On December 16, 1981, a Highlands County grand jury indicted the petitioner, William H. Kelley, for first degree murder.
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