Arbelaez v. State

• Decision Date: 13 July 2000
• Docket Number: No. SC89375.,SC89375.
• Parties: Guillermo Octavio ARBELAEZ, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

775 So.2d 909

Guillermo Octavio ARBELAEZ, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC89375.

Supreme Court of Florida.

July 13, 2000.

Rehearings Denied October 19, , 2001.

Todd G. Scher, Litigation Director, Office of the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel—Southern Region, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for Appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and David M. Schultz, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, Florida, for Appellee.

PER CURIAM.

Guillermo Octavio Arbelaez, a prisoner under sentence of death, appeals the trial court's order summarily denying him relief on his motion to vacate judgment of conviction and sentence pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons stated below, we remand this matter to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing on the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel during the penalty phase proceedings.

Arbelaez was convicted of first-degree murder and kidnaping in the death of the five-year-old son of his former girlfriend. The child died after being thrown off a bridge into the water seventy feet below. The cause of death was asphyxia resulting from both strangulation and drowning. The jury recommended a sentence of death by a vote of eleven to one. The court found three aggravating factors (the murder was cold, calculated, and premeditated (CCP); the murder was heinous, atrocious, or cruel (HAC); and the murder was committed during a kidnapping), one statutory mitigating factor (Arbelaez had no significant prior criminal history), and one nonstatutory mitigating factor (Arbelaez exhibited remorse). The trial court followed the jury's recommendation and sentenced Arbelaez to death. On appeal, this Court affirmed both the convictions and the death sentence. See Arbelaez v. State, 626 So.2d 169 (Fla.1993)

.

After the United States Supreme Court denied Arbelaez's petition for a writ of certiorari, he filed a motion for postconviction relief with the trial court in August 1995, raising a number of claims and requesting leave to amend his motion. He also filed public records requests with the State Attorney's Office, the Attorney General's Office, and the City of Miami Police Department. The trial court reserved ruling on Arbelaez's request to amend his motion until the public record documents were produced and reviewed by Arbelaez's attorney. In July 1996, Arbelaez filed an amended motion for postconviction relief, raising twenty-three claims, with numerous subclaims. He also filed a request for further leave to amend his motion. The trial court denied this request, stating that Arbelaez "has had ample time and opportunity to investigate the issues and has not demonstrated any grounds for any further amendments." The court also noted that Arbelaez took no action to obtain the public records he desired and did not schedule for hearing his Motion to Vacate Judgment and Sentence nor his Motion to Compel Production of Public Records until ordered by the court to do so. The court further noted that even after the records were produced and Arbelaez amended his postconviction motion, he raised no claims based upon the newly-obtained documents.

In a thirty-five page order, the trial court summarily denied all relief requested. Arbelaez appeals the denial to this Court and raises the following thirteen issues: (1) the trial court erred in summarily denying Arbelaez's 3.850 motion; (2) the court erred in denying of Arbelaez's motion to disqualify Judge Leslie Rothenberg; (3) the trial court erred in ordering that the files of Arbelaez's trial counsel be disclosed to the State; (4) the police department failed to provide all of the public records requested and the trial court erred in refusing to disclose various records of the state attorney's and attorney general's offices after an in-camera inspection; (5) the police officers exerted psychological coercion to lure Arbelaez back to the United States so that a confession could be obtained; (6) trial counsel was ineffective in permitting Juror Kelley to serve as an alternate juror when he had already struck this juror peremptorily; (7) the record on appeal was unreliable and counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the issue on appeal; (8) the prejudicial effect of gruesome photographs introduced into evidence outweighed their probative value; (9) trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to various constitutional errors; (10) the one-year time limit imposed by Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851 for filing a motion for postconviction relief in a capital case is unconstitutional; (11) the death penalty is unconstitutional; (12) the death penalty is not appropriate under the circumstances of this case; and (13) trial counsel was prohibited from interviewing jurors to discover information that could warrant a new trial.

While we find no merit to most of claim one, we conclude that the trial court erred by failing to conduct an evidentiary hearing as to Arbelaez's claim that trial counsel was ineffective during the penalty phase of his trial for failing to present expert testimony as to his epilepsy and other mental health mitigation and for failing to introduce evidence of his family history of abuse. This case is very similar to Ragsdale v. State, 720 So.2d 203 (Fla. 1998), in which this Court found that an evidentiary hearing was required on claims of ineffective assistance during the penalty phase. Arbelaez's postconviction motion included almost the same evidence of mitigation presented by Ragsdale. As in Ragsdale, Arbelaez contends that testimony was available to show that his life was marked by abuse and deprivation, that he suffered from a lifetime of drug abuse, and that he suffered from mental illness and epilepsy and tried repeatedly to commit suicide; yet no witnesses were called by trial counsel to present this testimony. Arbelaez further contends that trial counsel never had him examined by a competent mental health expert for purposes of presenting mitigation. He asserts that he has now been examined by mental health experts who have found that he suffers from organic brain damage and epilepsy; is mentally retarded; and has an IQ of 67.

In finding that an evidentiary hearing was not warranted on this issue, the trial court concluded that the issue was without merit because the record reflected that two mental health experts examined Arbelaez: Dr. Raul Lopez and Dr. A.M. Castiello. According to Arbelaez, however, Dr. Castiello was appointed solely for the purpose of determining his competency to stand trial and Dr. Lopez had treated him for epilepsy two years prior to the crime and could not provide any updated information on his condition. Most importantly, Arbelaez contends that no expert was appointed to evaluate him for the purposes of presenting mitigation.

Based upon similar claims, this Court concluded that the defendant in Ragsdale had stated sufficient allegations of mitigation to warrant an evidentiary hearing in order to determine whether counsel was ineffective in failing to properly investigate and present evidence in mitigation. See Ragsdale, 720 So.2d at 208

. We find that a similar conclusion is warranted in this case as to the claims of ineffective assistance of counsel during the penalty phase.

Claim one also asserts that an evidentiary hearing was warranted as to Arbelaez's claim that trial counsel provided ineffective assistance during the guilt phase of his trial. Specifically, Arbelaez claims that counsel failed to: (1) present adequate evidence or expert testimony as to Arbelaez's epilepsy; (2) investigate and develop evidence that Arbelaez's low intelligence, epilepsy, and cultural differences prevented him from voluntarily waiving his Miranda¹ rights; and (3) voir dire the prospective jurors on the issue of mental illness negating the specific intent required for a finding of first-degree murder. We conclude that summary denial was appropriate as to each of these subclaims. See Roberts v. State, 568 So.2d 1255, 1259 (Fla. 1990)

(stating that claim of ineffective assistance of counsel will warrant an evidentiary hearing only where the defendant alleges "specific facts which are not conclusively rebutted by the record and which demonstrate a deficiency in performance that prejudiced the defendant").

On the epilepsy claim, the record shows that counsel presented evidence of Arbelaez's epileptic seizures through Arbelaez's own testimony and the testimony of two of his friends. The record further shows that counsel both investigated epilepsy as a defense to negate specific intent and argued its relevance to the trial court. Moreover, even if counsel had presented additional evidence of epilepsy, there is no reasonable probability that it would have changed the outcome of the guilt phase as Arbelaez never alleged that he had a seizure on the day of the crime. He maintained that the child accidentally fell from the bridge while Arbelaez was attending to car trouble. Thus, the record conclusively rebuts this claim.

We further agree with the trial court that Arbelaez was not entitled to an evidentiary hearing on his claim that trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance as to the Miranda waiver issue. In summarily denying relief, the trial court noted the following: defense counsel did file a motion to suppress Arbelaez's statements and litigated the issue at a hearing; the claim of low intelligence was not supported by the record in that Arbelaez's conversations and statements to the police and his testimony at trial demonstrated that he had no difficulty assimilating information and that he clearly understood the rights he was waiving; and Arbelaez did not articulate why he was incapable of voluntarily waiving Miranda because he was from Colombia.² We note, moreover, that we previously determined that Arbelaez "voluntarily waived his constitutional rights." Arbelaez, 626 So.2d at...