Bottoson v. Moore

Decision Date08 July 2002
Docket NumberNo. SC02-1455.,SC02-1455.
Citation824 So.2d 115
PartiesLinroy BOTTOSON v. Michael MOORE.
CourtFlorida Supreme Court

ORDER GRANTING STAY OF EXECUTION AND SETTING ORAL ARGUMENT

The Court, to afford an opportunity for appropriate consideration of the multiple issues in this matter generated by recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, grants a temporary stay of execution until further order of this Court.

The Court will hear oral argument at 9:00 a.m., Wednesday, August 21, 2002. A maximum of twenty minutes to the side is allowed.

Petitioner's brief on the merits shall be filed on or before Thursday, July 18, 2002; respondent's brief on the merits shall be filed on or before Monday, July 29, 2002; and petitioner's reply brief on the merits shall be filed on or before Monday, August 5, 2002. Please file an original and seven copies of all briefs.

Per this Court's Administrative Order In Re: Mandatory Submission of Briefs on Computer Diskette dated February 5, 1999, counsel are directed to include a copy of all briefs on a DOS formatted 1-½ inch diskette in Word Perfect 5.1 (or higher) format. PLEASE LABEL ENVELOPE TO AVOID ERASURE.

ANSTEAD, C.J., and SHAW, HARDING, PARIENTE, LEWIS and QUINCE, JJ., concur.

HARDING, J., concurs with an opinion, in which QUINCE, J., concurs.

PARIENTE, J., concurs with an opinion.

WELLS, J., dissents with an opinion.

HARDING, J., concurring.

I find Justice Wells' dissenting opinion to be very persuasive as to why this Court should decline to stay this execution or consider the impact of Ring v. Arizona, ___ U.S. ___, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002). In my view, the court that issued the Ring decision is in the best position to interpret its impact on Florida's capital sentencing scheme. The fact that the Supreme Court denied certiorari in this case on this precise issue nearly four days after it issued its opinion in Ring seemingly sends a clear message that Ring is not applicable to this case.

Nevertheless, because it did not specifically state to the contrary, I cannot dismiss the possibility that the Supreme Court intended for this Court to consider the impact of Ring in Florida. Given the gravity of the issue and the potential impact on our state's judicial system, I think this Court must proceed with caution. Therefore I concur with the majority's decision to temporarily stay the execution. Pursuant to this Court's briefing schedule, the parties will be given adequate time to present the issues and this Court will be afforded adequate time to reach a conclusion.

QUINCE, J., concurs.

PARIENTE, J., concurring.

I write separately to explain why I concur in the majority's decision to stay the execution in this case.1 In my view, it is incumbent upon this Court to evaluate the effect on Florida's capital sentencing scheme of the landmark case of Ring v. Arizona,___ U.S. ___, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002), decided by the United States Supreme Court on June 24, 2002. Ring has raised questions concerning the Supreme Court's longstanding precedent in death penalty cases. Indeed, under the United Supreme Court Rules, the Ring decision is not yet final.2 Moreover, precisely because the United States Supreme Court did not explicitly approve Florida's sentencing scheme in Ring or in any other case after Ring was decided, the Ring decision creates uncertainty as to its effect —more so because we now know that a majority of the United States Supreme Court is seriously concerned about the implications for the Sixth Amendment trial by jury when a judge and not a jury makes the factual determinations that are prerequisites for an increased penalty.3 In the context of a capital case, the stakes are the ultimate because the increased penalty is death.

In particular, Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, expressed his concern that the Sixth Amendment has been undermined by the growing practice of allowing judges to increase punishment beyond what is authorized by a jury, which has caused him

to believe that our people's traditional belief in the right of trial by jury is in perilous decline. That decline is bound to be confirmed, and indeed accelerated, by the repeated spectacle of a man's going to his death because a judge found that an aggravating factor existed. We cannot preserve our veneration for the protection of the jury in criminal cases if we render ourselves callous to the need for that protection by regularly imposing the death penalty without it.

Ring, at 2445 (Scalia, J., concurring). While I would not want to unnecessarily delay an execution that is constitutionally permissible, in good conscience I cannot agree to allow a person to be put to death before the parties are given the opportunity to brief the issues, before this Court has the opportunity for oral argument to fully explore the issues, and before this Court is given the opportunity to deliberately and reflectively analyze the serious constitutional questions raised by Ring and to issue an opinion. Simply put, only seven days have passed between the date that the new execution date was set and Bottoson's scheduled execution.4 This short time frame5 does not provide sufficient time for meaningful review by this Court of Ring's application to Florida's death penalty scheme. The existence of pending death warrants should not compel us to consider and decide these significant issues —whose effects for the administration of justice are both complex and far-reaching —in just a few days.

It is important to note that in rejecting recent challenges to Florida's death penalty scheme, this Court relied on the fact that "[n]o court has extended Apprendi to capital sentencing schemes, and the plain language of Apprendi indicates that the case is not intended to apply to capital schemes." Mills v. Moore, 786 So.2d 532, 537 (Fla.2001). Indeed, we unanimously rejected Bottoson's claim that Apprendi applied to Florida's death penalty statute. See Bottoson v. State, 813 So.2d 31, 36 (Fla.2002)

. However, in the United States Supreme Court's opinion in Ring, the Court clearly and unequivocally held that Apprendi did apply to capital cases, thus proving our opinion in Mills wrong. In other words, we were mistaken as a matter of law in our previous opinion in Bottoson in holding that Apprendi did not apply to capital proceedings. In Ring, the United States Supreme Court specifically held:

The right to trial by jury guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment would be senselessly diminished if it encompassed the factfinding necessary to increase a defendant's sentence by two years but not the factfinding necessary to put him death. We hold that the Sixth Amendment applies to both.

Ring, at 2443.

In Mills, we rejected the argument that because the maximum penalty is death, a jury finding was not necessary. 786 So.2d at 537. Based upon the U.S. Supreme Court's statements in Ring, we now know that we were wrong. The Supreme Court rejected the argument that the death penalty was merely a "maximum penalty" under a sentencing scheme, stating that the relative question is "one not of form, but of effect" and that if the State makes a punishment dependent on a finding of fact, then that fact "must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt." Ring, at 2439. Therefore, based on Ring, it is the jury and not the judge that must find the aggravating factors necessary for the imposition of the death penalty because the aggravating factors operate as "the functional equivalent of an element of a greater offense." Ring, at 2443.

I understand that the United States Supreme Court has terminated the stay in Bottoson's case and denied the petition for certiorari. However, I cannot accept the dissent's view that "[t]he termination of the stays of execution by the Supreme Court can only mean that Ring does not apply to the Florida capital sentencing statute." Dissenting op. at 124. That is what we thought after Apprendi when in case after case, the United States Supreme Court denied petitions for certiorari in cases that had stated that Apprendi did not apply to capital sentencing. See Mills, 786 So.2d at 537

("The Supreme Court's denial of certiorari indicates that the Court meant what it said when it held that Apprendi was not intended to affect capital sentencing schemes."). Clearly, we were wrong in Mills that the multiple instances where the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari after Apprendi meant that the Supreme Court did not intend Apprendi to apply to capital sentencing.

As this Court has recognized, "[t]he denial of a writ of certiorari imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case, as the bar has been told many times." State v. White, 470 So.2d 1377, 1379 (Fla.1985) (quoting United States v. Carver, 260 U.S. 482, 490, 43 S.Ct. 181, 67 L.Ed. 361 (1923)). Indeed, the United States Supreme Court has stated in a long line of pronouncements:

What is the significance of this Court's denial of certiorari? That question is asked again and again.... Almost 30 years ago Mr. Justice Frankfurter provided us with an answer to that question that should be read again and again.
"This Court now declines to review the decision of the Maryland Court of Appeals. The sole significance of such denial of a petition for writ of certiorari need not be elucidated to those versed in the Court's procedures. It simply means that fewer than four members of the Court deemed it desirable to review a decision of the lower court as a matter `of sound judicial discretion.' Rule 38, paragraph 5. A variety of considerations underlie denials of the writ, and as to the same petition different reasons may lead different Justices to the same result. This is especially true of petitions for review on writ of certiorari to a State court.... Pertinent considerations of judicial policy here come into play. A case may raise an important question but the record may be cloudy. It may be desirable to have different aspects of an issue
...

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8 cases
  • Johnson v. State
    • United States
    • Florida Supreme Court
    • 28 Abril 2005
    ...applicable to the Florida capital punishment statute. My view continues to be as stated in my opinions in Bottoson v. Moore, 824 So.2d 115, 122-27 (Fla.2002) (Wells, J., dissenting), and Bottoson v. Moore, 833 So.2d 693, 696-99 (Fla.2002) (Wells, J., concurring I also do not believe that Jo......
  • State v. Steele
    • United States
    • Florida Supreme Court
    • 12 Octubre 2005
    ...in criminal sentencing. In Bottoson v. Moore, 833 So.2d 693 (Fla.2002) (Wells, J., concurring), and Bottoson v. Moore, 824 So.2d 115, 122 (Fla. 2002) (Wells, J., dissenting), I have stated my opinion that this Court is bound by the present Florida capital sentencing statute, which was uphel......
  • Bottoson v. Moore
    • United States
    • Florida Supreme Court
    • 24 Octubre 2002
    ...any obstacle for this execution to occur. We are bound by their application of federal constitutional law. Bottoson v. Moore, 824 So.2d 115, 122 (Fla. 2002) (Wells, J., dissenting). The extensive cases which I set forth in my dissenting opinion continue to control this Court's decision in t......
  • Evans v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr.
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit
    • 18 Diciembre 2012
    ...this Court is bound by that precedent to the extent those cases govern the issues presented to us.”); Bottoson v. Moore, 824 So.2d 115, 124 (Fla.2002) (Wells, J., dissenting) (“The Supreme Court in Ring overruled neither Hildwin nor multiple decisions in which the Supreme Court rejected the......
  • Request a trial to view additional results
1 books & journal articles
  • Sentencing: taking Florida further into "Apprendi-land".
    • United States
    • Florida Bar Journal Vol. 77 No. 2, February 2003
    • 1 Febrero 2003
    ...of the stays in the Florida cases implied nothing regarding the application of Ring to Florida law. See generally Bottoson v. Moore, 824 So. 2d 115 (Fla. 2002) (Pariente, J., (7) FLA. STAT. [section] 921.141(2), (3) (2002). (8) Though Apprendi is unlikely to be declared retroactive, see sup......

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