Arbelaez v. Fla. Dep't of Corr.

• Decision Date: 12 October 2016
• Docket Number: No. 14-14647,14-14647
• Citation: Arbelaez v. Fla. Dep't of Corr., No. 14-14647 (11th Cir. Oct 12, 2016)
• Parties: GUILLERMO O. ARBELAEZ, Petitioner - Appellant, v. FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Respondent - Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

GUILLERMO O. ARBELAEZ, Petitioner - Appellant, v. FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Respondent - Appellee.

No. 14-14647

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

October 12, 2016

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

D.C. Docket No. 1:12-cv-23304-FAM

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida

Before HULL, MARCUS and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

In this capital case, Guillermo Arbelaez appeals the district court's denial of his federal habeas petition. Arbelaez was sentenced to death in Florida for the murder of his former girlfriend's five year old son, which he carried out to exact revenge against her after an argument. Following an unsuccessful direct appeal and collateral proceedings in the Florida state courts, Arbelaez filed a federal habeas petition in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, which the district court denied. Arbelaez appeals the rejection of his petition on two grounds. First, he contends that his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective in investigating and presenting to the jury a case in mitigation of the death penalty. Second, he contends the Florida courts' determination that he was not intellectually disabled (and therefore ineligible for the death penalty) constituted an unreasonable application of clearly established law and was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts presented at an evidentiary hearing.

After a thorough review of the briefing and the record, and with the benefit of oral argument, we affirm the denial of Arbelaez's petition.¹ With regard to the ineffective assistance claim, we conclude that Arbelaez has failed to demonstrate that his counsel's performance prejudiced his penalty phase proceedings. As regards his intellectual disability claim, we conclude he has failed to demonstrate that the Florida Supreme Court unreasonably applied the law or made unreasonabledeterminations of fact when it concluded that he lacked concurrent deficits in adaptive behavior.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Arbelaez was convicted in Florida of kidnapping and first degree murder. A jury voted 11 to 1 to recommend a death sentence, and the trial court accepted the recommendation. Below we recount the events that led to Arbelaez's conviction and sentence, as well as evidence adduced at his state postconviction proceedings.

A. Facts Elicited at Trial

Shortly after Arbelaez met Graciela Alfara, the victim Julio Rivas's mother, he moved in with her and her family (five year old Julio, two teenaged daughters, and a nineteen year old cousin), and the two became intimate. See Arbelaez v. State ("Arbelaez I"), 626 So. 2d 169, 170 (Fla. 1993). The relationship ended soon after it began, however, when Alfara accused Arbelaez of touching one of her daughters inappropriately. Id. Shortly after the breakup, Arbelaez saw Alfara kiss another man. Id. When he confronted her, Alfara told Arbelaez that she did not love him and he should move out. Id.

The next morning, while Alfara was still asleep, Arbelaez took Julio from the home. Id. at 171. Arbelaez drove to a restaurant for coffee. Id. Leaving Julio in the car, Arbelaez went inside, where he spoke to his friend Juan Londrian abouthis fight with Alfara. Id. Londrian testified at trial that Arbelaez told him "that he was going to do something that would assure 'that bitch is going to remember me for the rest of her life.'" Id. Arbelaez left the restaurant and, after driving around with Julio in the car for a couple of hours, attempted to call Alfara. Id. When Alfara refused to speak with him, he "drove to the crest of the Powell Bridge on the Rickenbacker Causeway and stopped, exited his car, and lifted the hood, pretending that his car had broken down." Id. There, he threw Julio off the bridge into the water 70 feet below. Id.

According to evidence introduced at trial, Julio was beaten and strangled before he was thrown off the bridge. Id. at 173-74. A medical examiner testified that the cause of death was asphyxia resulting from both strangulation and drowning and that the boy's body "had a large bruise on the right leg" and "numerous bracket-shaped and rectangular-shaped bruises on the left side" of the body. Id. at 174. "The child's face and forehead also had numerous linear abrasions consistent with it being knocked or pressed into something." Id. The jury saw photographs of Julio's body which depicted his injuries. When police located Arbelaez's car, they observed damage to the dashboard "consistent with something coming into contact with the panel." Id. at 171.

The jury heard that Arbelaez confessed to the crime five times. Immediately after the murder, Arbelaez confessed to a friend, Pedro Salazar. He told Salazar"that he 'shook' the child and 'squeezed the boy's neck.'" Id. He also told Salazar that he threw Julio off the bridge because he wanted revenge against Alfara. Id. Arbelaez fled to Colombia, and while there he spoke with Federal Bureau of Investigation Detective Rubin Munoz. Id. at 172. Arbelaez gave his second confession to Munoz, telling the detective that he had killed Julio and explaining: "'As a Latin you would understand the best way to get to a woman is through her children.'" Id.

When Arbelaez returned voluntarily to the United States two months after the murder, Homicide Detective Eddy Martinez arrested him at the airport. Id. at 173. While in custody, Arbelaez confessed three more times to Julio's murder. In his third confession, "Arbelaez stated that on the day of the murder he had stopped [on the bridge], raised the hood in order to pretend that he was stranded, and then threw the child off the bridge." Id. The fourth confession, which was audiotaped, was similar in content. The fifth, also similar in content, was videotaped. In each taped interview, "Arbelaez indicated that he killed the child as a plan of revenge against [Alfara]." Id.

Despite these confessions, Arbelaez testified on his own behalf at trial, where he denied committing the murder. Although he admitted taking Julio from Alfara's house, he said that he had car trouble on the bridge, forgot about Julio when he went to look under his hood, heard a scream, and then saw Julio floatingin the water below. Id. at 174. Arbelaez testified that he tore his car's dashboard apart because he was "disgusted with it all." Id. When confronted with his prior confessions, Arbelaez claimed that Salazar, Munoz, and Martinez were lying. Id.

The jury found Arbelaez guilty of kidnapping and first degree murder. Id.

B. Sentencing Proceedings

At the sentencing phase, the State called no witnesses to testify. Defense counsel presented six witnesses in mitigation. Detective Martinez testified that, to his knowledge, Arbelaez had no significant criminal history and returned voluntarily to the United States after he had fled to Colombia. Id. Four other witnesses—Londrian, Pedro Salazar, Adelfa Salazar, and Marta Salazar—testified about their relationship with Arbelaez. Each testified that Arbelaez was an honest, hard-working individual who never took narcotics or drank excessively. Id. A sixth witness, neurologist Dr. Raul Lopez, testified that he treated Arbelaez for "chronic epileptic seizures" a few years before the murder. Id. at 174-75.

The jury recommended a death sentence by a vote of 11 to 1. Id. at 175. The trial judge found three aggravating circumstances: the homicide was (1) committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner without any pretense of moral or legal justification ("CCP"); (2) especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel ("HAC"); and (3) committed while Arbelaez was engaged in a kidnapping. Fla. Stat. § 921.141(5)(d), (h), (i) (1989). The judge found one statutory mitigatingcircumstance: Arbelaez had no significant history of prior criminal history. Id. § 921.141(6)(a). And the judge found one nonstatutory mitigating circumstance: Arbelaez demonstrated remorse. After weighing these factors, the judge adopted the jury's recommendation and imposed a death sentence.

C. Direct Appeal and State Postconviction Proceedings

The Florida Supreme Court affirmed Arbelaez's convictions and sentence on direct appeal. Arbelaez I, 626 So. 2d 169, cert. denied, 114 S. Ct. 2123 (1994). Arbelaez then initiated state postconviction proceedings. His first proceeding concerned his claim that counsel rendered ineffective assistance in failing to investigate and present an adequate case in mitigation of the death penalty. After the Supreme Court held in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of intellectually disabled persons, Arbelaez initiated another state proceeding alleging that he was intellectually disabled.

1. Ineffective Assistance Postconviction Motion

The trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing² on Arbelaez's ineffective assistance claim at which postconviction counsel elicited testimony from severalwitnesses, including trial counsel Reemberto Diaz,³ clinical and forensic psychologist Dr. Merry Haber, neuropsychologist and behavioral epileptologist Dr. Ruth Latterner, and two of Arbelaez's sisters.

Arbelaez's sisters testified about Arbelaez's troubled childhood in Colombia. Both testified that Arbelaez suffered severe physical abuse at the hands of their father and, to a lesser extent, their mother, brother, and at least one teacher. They recounted that their family was poor and the children often went hungry. Arbelaez's sisters further testified that Arbelaez was a slow learner at school, endured epileptic episodes without medical treatment, experienced depression (and abused marijuana to cope), attempted suicide several times, and spent time in a mental hospital.

Postconviction counsel's experts testified about Arbelaez's mental health and intellectual functioning. Dr. Haber testified that, when she screened Arbelaez prior to trial at counsel's behest, she believed Arbelaez to be of borderline intelligence. She suspected that, based...