Smith v. State

• Decision Date: 09 March 2006
• Docket Number: No. SC03-454.,No. SC05-100.,SC03-454.,SC05-100.
• Citation: 931 So.2d 790
• Parties: Derrick Tyrone SMITH, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. Derrick Tyrone Smith, Petitioner, v. James R. McDonough, etc., Respondent.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 790

931 So.2d 790

Derrick Tyrone SMITH, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

Derrick Tyrone Smith, Petitioner, v. James R. McDonough, etc., Respondent.

No. SC03-454.

No. SC05-100.

Supreme Court of Florida.

March 9, 2006.

Rehearing Denied June 8, 2006.

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Martin J. McClain of McClain and McDermott, P.A., Wilton Manors, FL, for Appellant/Petitioner.

Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, and Katherine V. Blanco, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, FL, for Appellee/Respondent.

PER CURIAM.

Derrick Smith, a prisoner sentenced to death, appeals orders of the circuit court denying his motion for postconviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850 and petitions the Court for a writ of habeas corpus. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), (9), Fla. Const. As explained below, we affirm the circuit court's denial of relief and deny Smith's petition.

I. HISTORY OF THE CASE

In November 1983, Smith was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death for the March 1983 murder of cab driver Jeffrey Songer. In brief, Smith and his codefendant Derrick Johnson called a cab with the intent to rob the driver. After the driver took them to the provided address and stopped the cab, all three exited the vehicle. When Songer tried to flee, Smith fatally shot him.

In Smith v. State, 492 So.2d 1063, 1067 (Fla.1986), we reversed Smith's conviction and sentence of death, remanding the case for a new trial. Upon retrial in May 1990, a jury again convicted him of capital murder, and the court sentenced him to death. On direct appeal, we affirmed. Smith v. State, 641 So.2d 1319 (Fla.1994), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1163, 115 S.Ct. 1129, 130 L.Ed.2d 1091 (1995).¹

Subsequently, Smith filed in circuit court an amended motion for postconviction relief pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850, in which he raised numerous claims.² After a Huff³ hearing, the circuit court issued an order denying claims on which an evidentiary hearing was not ordered. After the evidentiary hearing, the court denied all remaining claims.

Smith appeals. He also has filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus. We first address the issues raised on appeal and then the claims urged in the habeas petition.

II. THE ISSUES ON APPEAL

Smith raises five claims in this appeal: (A) that the State withheld material and exculpatory evidence and knowingly presented false or misleading evidence; (B) that the circuit court erred in limiting the scope of the postconviction evidentiary hearing; (C) that trial counsel provided ineffective assistance during the guilt phase of trial; (D) that newly discovered evidence proves Smith's innocence; and (E) that trial counsel provided ineffective assistance during the penalty phase of trial. Several of these issues contain subclaims. We discuss each issue in turn below and affirm the circuit court's denial of relief as to all of them.

A. The Brady and Giglio Claims

Smith contends that the State violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963) (holding that the state's failure to provide defendant with favorable, material evidence violates due process), and Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 92 S.Ct. 763, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972) (holding that a defendant's due process right is violated when the State knowingly allows false, material testimony to be presented at trial). We will address each alleged violation in turn.

1. Failure to Disclose

Smith alleges the State violated Brady by failing to disclose favorable information contained in State documents related to the murder investigation. "There are three components of a true Brady violation: The evidence at issue must be favorable to the accused, either because it is exculpatory, or because it is impeaching; that evidence must have been suppressed by the State, either willfully or inadvertently; and prejudice must have ensued." Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 281-82, 119 S.Ct. 1936, 144 L.Ed.2d 286 (1999).

To establish prejudice, the defendant must demonstrate that the suppressed evidence is material. The test for materiality is whether there exists a reasonable probability that the jury verdict would have been different had the suppressed information been used at trial. Id. at 289, 296, 119 S.Ct. 1936. In other words, the question is whether "the favorable evidence could reasonably be taken to put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the verdict." Id. at 290, 119 S.Ct. 1936 (quoting Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 435, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (1995)).

In this case, the circuit court was correct to deny relief on Smith's Brady claims. As we explain below, even those documents that meet the first two prongs of Strickler are not material; thus, the State's failure to disclose them does not violate Brady.

a. Undisclosed Contact between Codefendant Johnson and Witness Jones

Smith argues that the circuit court erred in determining that a document showing that Melvin Jones, an eyewitness to the murder, and Derrick Johnson, Smith's codefendant, met in jail was not material under Strickler. Smith claims the document demonstrates that Jones and Johnson collaborated before trial to implicate Smith as the shooter.

At retrial, Jones testified that as he walked home that evening, he witnessed the murder, and he identified Smith as the killer. Jones and his wife lived within a block of the murder scene, and both testified that within a short time after the murder, Jones arrived home and told her he had witnessed it. The previously undisclosed internal report shows that in September 1983, the prosecutor requested an investigation into whether Jones and Smith had any contact in jail.⁴ The prosecutor's handwritten note reflected that the two were "never together" and that Johnson first saw Jones on July 11 in a holding cell before a preliminary hearing. At that time, Jones showed Johnson a map of the crime scene and said that he or it would help Johnson at trial.

After an evidentiary hearing, the circuit court determined, and in fact the State conceded, that the first two prongs of the Strickler test were met. That is, the State failed to disclose this evidence that could have been used for impeachment. The court, however, determined that Smith failed to show that this evidence casts the trial in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the verdict. We agree.

At most, Johnson's statement acknowledging contact was of limited value to support a theory of collusion between Johnson and Jones. First, the evidence from the evidentiary hearing and trial demonstrated that Johnson and Jones did not know each other before the murder and did not discuss the facts of the case during their brief meeting. In fact, Johnson was so unnerved by the encounter with this stranger that he asked to be removed from the cell. Further, the State did not provide Jones with a deal in exchange for his testimony. In addition, at retrial, the defense challenged Jones's credibility in light of his felony convictions and his efforts to make a deal in exchange for his testimony.

Smith's theory of defense was that he was not in the cab that night and that Jones and Johnson were lying. The evidence at retrial, however, showed that on the day of the murder, Smith tried to sell a gun to Carolyn Mathis and later that evening told Regina Mathis that he was going to "hustle" some money because he had none. Before going out on the night of the murder, Smith showed a gun to his friend James Matthews, who in turn showed it to his live-in girlfriend, Priscilla Walker. Smith told Matthews he was going out to get some money that evening. Later that evening, Smith was at a nightclub, where Ernest Rouse saw him place a revolver under a turntable in the disc jockey booth and later retrieve it. Jones and Johnson saw the handgun and saw Smith fire the fatal shot.

After the murder, in the early morning hours, Smith returned to his friends' home and admitted to both Matthews and Walker that he had shot someone. To Walker, he said that he shot a cab driver who would not give him any money. He told Matthews he was scared and needed a place to stay. Within twelve hours after the murder, Smith robbed two Canadian tourists, using a handgun. Finally, Smith's uncle testified that his revolver was missing. The descriptions of the gun Smith had immediately preceding, during, and after the murder matched his uncle's gun, which was missing. In addition, a bullet from the victim was consistent with the bullets from Smith's uncle's ten-year-old box of bullets.

Finally, Smith made a call from a restaurant telephone, and his fingerprint was found on the phone. A request for a cab was made on that phone at 12:28 a.m. on March 21, 1983, and Smith and Johnson were seen entering the cab that arrived shortly thereafter. Accordingly, the undisclosed evidence of a brief jail contact does not meet the materiality prong of Brady.

b. Undisclosed Police Reports

Smith argues that the State violated Brady by failing to disclose information in police reports and other documents and that the failure to disclose them undermines confidence in the outcome of the trial. Smith first alleges error regarding the State's failure to disclose that Jones initially was listed as a suspect in the murder. The evidence showed that Jones was so listed shortly after the murder because he lived within a block of the crime scene and had outstanding warrants for his arrest. We find that the evidence is neither exculpatory nor impeaching. See Wright v. State, 857 So.2d 861, 870 (Fla.2003) (rejecting claim that "information contained in police files concerning other possible suspects and other criminal activity in the same neighborhood" was Brady material that had to be disclosed), cert. denied, 541 U.S. 961, 124 S.Ct. 1715, 158 L.Ed.2d 402 (2004); Carroll v. State, ...