Hamblen v. State

Citation527 So.2d 800,13 Fla. L. Weekly 361
Decision Date02 June 1988
Docket NumberNo. 68843,68843
Parties, 13 Fla. L. Weekly 361 James William HAMBLEN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
CourtFlorida Supreme Court

Steven L. Bolotin, Bartow, for appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen. and Norma J. Mungenast, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellee.

GRIMES, Justice.

Pursuant to article V, section 3(b)(1) of the Florida Constitution, we review the unusual case of James William Hamblen, a state prisoner who is condemned--and apparently willing and determined--to die for the murder of a woman whose store he wanted to rob. The case raises an issue never before considered by this court.

THE KILLING

On April 24, 1984, Duval County Sheriff's officers responded to a silent alarm at a Jacksonville boutique. When the officers arrived, they saw a tall, middle-aged man inside the store. At first they thought he was the proprietor or an employee, but when they could not get him to open the Hamblen was arrested, and a .38 caliber automatic pistol was taken from him. The arresting officers reported that Hamblen offered no resistance to arrest and that he was lucid and coherent. At police headquarters Hamblen gave a statement. He said he had driven to Florida from Texas (where, he alleged later, he had murdered an estranged lover). He needed money to park his rental car at the airport, and decided to steal the necessary funds. While driving around the Jacksonville area, one store, the Sensual Woman, caught his eye as a potential target. Finding Ms. Edwards alone in the store, Hamblen pulled his gun and told her he wanted money. She gave him a small amount of cash from her cash drawer. He then told her to go into a dressing room and disrobe. Hamblen told police he had no intention of sexually abusing Ms. Edwards; he only wanted to make it difficult for her to follow him as he made his escape.

                locked door, they became suspicious.  When he finally emerged, the officers told him that the alarm had summoned them.  The man, who later identified himself as James William Hamblen, responded that he was aware of this and stated that he had "just killed a woman inside."   In a dressing room, the officers found the partially clothed body of Ms. Laureen Jean Edwards.  She had been shot once in the back of her head.  Another shot apparently had struck the wall of the dressing room
                

According to Hamblen, his pistol fired accidentally in the dressing room as the woman disrobed. Ms. Edwards then told Hamblen she had more money in the back of the store. She said she would take him to it if he would accompany her. As they proceeded toward the rear, he saw her touch a button that he suspected (correctly) was for a silent alarm. Angered that "anybody could be so stupid over so little money," Hamblen ordered her back into the dressing room where he shot her once in the back of the head.

The physical evidence at the scene bore out Hamblen's story. The medical examiner reported that Ms. Edwards died from a single bullet wound from a .38 caliber weapon held at close range. He said that the gun barrel probably touched her head. She had not been sexually abused. Death was virtually instantaneous. Shell fragments and a spent bullet recovered at the scene were determined to have been fired by the gun taken from Hamblen.

THE CRIMINAL PROSECUTION

After a grand jury indicted Hamblen for first-degree murder, his public defender moved for psychiatric examinations. Both doctors reported that Hamblen was competent to stand trial and was legally sane at the time of the offense. Upon receiving news of the doctors' reports, Hamblen asked the court to revoke the appointment of the public defender and allow him to represent himself. He simultaneously announced his intention to plead guilty. The trial judge conducted a hearing according to the requirements of Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975), and Goode v. State, 365 So.2d 381 (Fla.1978), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 967, 99 S.Ct. 2419, 60 L.Ed.2d 1074 (1979), to determine Hamblen's fitness for self-representation. The evidence at this hearing showed that Hamblen had had two years of college education, that he understood courtroom procedure, and that he had represented himself while a state prisoner in Indiana. The judge determined that Hamblen met the criteria that enabled him to exercise his right of self-representation, but ordered two assistant public defenders to be in the courtroom as emergency backup counsel.

Hamblen pleaded guilty and waived his right to have a jury consider whether he should be executed. The state introduced evidence concerning the circumstances of the crime. The state also introduced evidence that Hamblen had been convicted of rape in Indiana in 1964. Hamblen asked his standby counsel to cross-examine only one witness, a police records custodian from Indiana. He accepted the state's version of the facts and even conceded one point as to his prior record that the state Mr. Chance might have a valid point if I were a young man with a whole lifetime ahead of me and with a whole pocketful of hopes and dreams.... But, as a matter of fact, I'm 55, almost 56 years old and I don't harbor any dreams that are going to be realized in this world, and I am not particularly given to reflection. Therefore, it seems to me that Mr. Chance's recommendation in this instance is inappropriate and [the prosecutor] Mr. Bledsoe's, on the other hand, is appropriate.

                was having some difficulty establishing. 1  He presented no evidence of mitigating factors and commented that the prosecutor "has correctly assessed my character, and certainly ... has established the aggravated nature of the crime.  Therefore, I feel his recommendation of the death penalty is appropriate."   Hamblen went on to note that the probation officer, one Chance, had recommended life imprisonment without hope of parole "so that I may reflect upon the senselessness of my crime."   Hamblen continued
                

After reviewing the record, including the psychological reports, the trial judge sentenced Hamblen to death. The judge found three aggravating factors--cold, calculated and premeditated manner, previous conviction of a felony involving violence against another person, and committed in the course of a robbery--and none in mitigation. Hamblen did not take an appeal from the sentence, but the public defender's office was appointed as appellate counsel. After his motion to withdraw was denied, 2 the public defender prosecuted this appeal.

THE ISSUES

Hamblen's appellate counsel raises two issues on appeal, one dealing with philosophical and policy questions, the other based on the particular facts of the case.

Issue 1--The trial court erred in allowing appellant to waive counsel in the penalty phase, where, as a result, there was never any adversary proceeding to determine whether death or life imprisonment was the appropriate penalty.

The first issue involves the friction between an individual's right to control his destiny and society's duty to see that executions do not become a vehicle by which a person could commit suicide. The main thrust of appellate counsel's argument is that the uniqueness of capital punishment demands that a defense to a death sentence be mounted, irrespective of the wishes of the defendant.

Acknowledging that cases in which a defendant would manipulate the system in order to commit suicide are rare, counsel argues that safeguards are necessary to prevent its possibility. He asserts that these safeguards were not present in Hamblen's case because once he fired his lawyer, there was no one to search his background for mitigating evidence and no one to argue mitigation to the court. Since those interests were not protected in the court below, we are urged to remand the case for a new sentencing hearing and direct the trial judge to appoint a lawyer to represent not Hamblen but the state's--or, more precisely, society's--interests in ensuring that the death penalty is imposed properly. Such counsel, similar to a guardian ad litem, would investigate the case and Hamblen's background in hopes of finding mitigating factors with which to persuade the court to spare his life. By allowing Hamblen to waive counsel for the penalty phase, the public defender argues that the trial judge committed reversible error.

In support of this position, counsel cites cases from California and New Jersey which did not involve defendants who were representing themselves but rather involved defendants who had ordered their In State v. Hightower, 214 N.J.Super. 43, 518 A.2d 482 (1986), the defendant had been convicted of felony murder. While he protested the finding of guilt, he ordered his attorney not to submit evidence during the penalty phase on the premise that he would rather be executed than spend thirty years in prison. The Superior Court, Appellate Division, reversed the trial judge's order that forced defense counsel to follow his client's orders. The court reasoned that without hearing the evidence allegedly in mitigation, the jury "could have difficulty discharging its statutory, and indeed moral duty." Id. at 45, 518 A.2d at 483.

                attorneys to present no evidence in mitigation.  Noting that an attorney is more than simply a "mouthpiece," the California Supreme Court in  People v. Deere, 41 Cal.3d 353, 222 Cal.Rptr. 13, 710 P.2d 925 (1985), ruled that a defense attorney rendered ineffective assistance of counsel when he acceded to his client's wishes that no mitigating evidence be presented to the judge before sentencing.  The court noted that the problem is not that a defendant wishes to die to atone for a crime he admits and regrets but that to allow the state to become his means of suicide "would make superfluous the constitutional requirement that every capital case be reviewed by the Supreme Court and that no judgment of death be executed unless it has been affirmed by this court."   Id. at 362, 222 Cal.Rptr. at
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