Buenoano v. State, 92522
| Decision Date | 26 March 1998 |
| Docket Number | No. 92522,92522 |
| Citation | 708 So.2d 941 |
| Parties | 23 Fla. L. Weekly S368 Judy A. BUENOANO, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Gregory C. Smith, Capital Collateral Counsel, and Sylvia W. Smith and Robert Friedman, Assistant Capital Collateral Counsel, Office of the Capital Collateral Counsel, Northern Region, Tallahassee, for Appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and Candance M. Sabella and Katherine V. Blanco, Assistant Attorneys General, Tampa, for Appellee.
Judy A. Buenoano, a prisoner under sentence of death and a third death warrant, appeals an order denying her motion for postconviction relief and her request for a stay of execution. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.
This is Buenoano's third round of postconviction motions in state court. See Buenoano v. State, 559 So.2d 1116 (Fla.1990) (); Buenoano v. State, 565 So.2d 309 (Fla.1990) (). Buenoano also has sought and ultimately was denied relief in federal court. See Buenoano v. Singletary, 74 F.3d 1078 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 520, 136 L.Ed.2d 408 (1996).
In order to put Buenoano's various claims in perspective, we find it necessary to summarize the evidence presented at trial and explain much of the procedural background leading up to the rule 3.850 motion at issue here.
Buenoano is facing execution for the first-degree murder of her husband, James Goodyear. According to testimony presented during the Orange County trial, Goodyear died in 1971, as a result of chronic arsenic poisoning. The cause of death was discovered in 1984, after Goodyear's body was exhumed. Two of Buenoano's acquaintances testified that Buenoano had discussed with them killing a person by arsenic poisoning. One of the those acquaintances and another witness testified that Buenoano admitted killing Goodyear.
Additionally, during the guilt phase of the trial the State introduced Williams 1 rule evidence regarding the death of Bobby Joe Morris and the poisoning of John Gentry. According to testimony at trial, Morris, with whom Buenoano lived after Goodyear's death, also died of acute arsenic poisoning. Gentry, with whom Buenoano lived after Morris's death, testified that he suspected Buenoano was trying to poison him with vitamin capsules, known as Vicon C, which Buenoano was giving him to combat a cold.
Gentry ultimately turned several of the capsules over to the police.
After Gentry testified in the guilt phase of the trial, a stipulation reached by the State and defense counsel was read to the jury. The stipulation traced the path of the Vicon C capsules from the police to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) crime laboratory in Washington, D.C., where the capsules were examined by Special Agent Roger Martz, a lab chemist. As to Martz's examination of the capsules, the jury was told that Martz determined the capsules were Vicon C capsules and that they contained paraformaldehyde, a Class III poison. After the stipulation was read to the jury, Dr. Thomas Hegert testified that the symptoms displayed by Gentry, as indicated in Gentry's medical records, could be consistent with being caused by paraformaldehyde. Buenoano later testified, during her case in chief, that she was familiar with paraformaldehyde and was aware that it would take a lot more than one capsule containing 1 1/2 grams of the substance to cause death. On cross-examination, when asked if she gave John Gentry paraformaldehyde, Buenoano responded, Evidence also was presented during the guilt phase of the trial that Buenoano either collected benefits from or was the beneficiary of various life insurance policies on the three men with whom she had lived.
Much of Buenoano's motion for postconviction relief centers around newly obtained evidence concerning Special Agent Roger Martz. Although Martz's stipulated conclusions were introduced in the Orange County trial where Buenoano was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, Martz did not testify before that jury. Martz testified in the prior Escambia County trial for the attempted first-degree murder of John Gentry by bombing. That testimony formed the basis for the stipulation of Martz's conclusions concerning the contents of the Vicon C capsules which was read to the Orange County jury during the guilt phase of the trial.
Evidence of Buenoano's Escambia County attempted murder conviction was not introduced during the guilt phase of the Orange County first-degree murder trial. Guilt phase evidence concerning Gentry was limited to Williams rule evidence about Buenoano's alleged attempts to poison him. Evidence of Buenoano's Escambia County attempted first-degree murder conviction, together with evidence of her Santa Rosa County conviction for the first-degree drowning murder of her son, was introduced during the sentencing phase to support the prior violent felony aggravator.
The jury found Buenoano guilty of first-degree murder and by a vote of ten to two recommended imposition of the death penalty. The trial court followed the jury's recommendation, finding no mitigating factors and four aggravating factors: (1) Buenoano had been convicted previously of a capital felony or a felony involving the use or threat of violence to the person; (2) the murder was committed for pecuniary gain; (3) the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel; and (4) the murder was committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner. This Court upheld Buenoano's conviction and sentence. See Buenoano v. State, 527 So.2d 194 (Fla.1988).
In January 1997, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel for the Northern Region (CCRC), on behalf of Buenoano, sent letters to a number of agencies requesting public records pursuant to chapter 119, Florida Statutes (1997). Three agencies, including the State Attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit, refused to provide the documents, maintaining that Buenoano had not complied with Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.852. Buenoano's petitions seeking to require the three agencies to comply with her requests were treated as motions to compel under rule 3.852 and transferred to the trial court that would hear her rule 3.850 motion. After the Governor signed a third death warrant setting execution for March 30, 1998, the trial court denied the motions to compel.
The State Attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit subsequently filed a "Request for In Camera Inspection and Judicial Determination of Prosecutorial Obligation." The trial court granted the motion, and the State Attorney submitted a set of documents that had not been disclosed to Buenoano. The documents had been sent to the State Attorney by the United States Department of Justice in December 1997, with a transmittal letter indicating that the documents should only be disclosed pursuant to a protective order and that the documents should be returned when they were no longer needed. The documents pertained to an investigation of the FBI Crime Laboratory conducted by the United States Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General. The investigation also looked into the practices of Special Agent Roger Martz, who testified in Buenoano's Escambia County trial for the attempted first-degree murder of John Gentry and whose conclusions concerning the contents of the capsules Buenoano had given Gentry were part of the stipulation read to the Orange County jury. The documents were forwarded to the State Attorney after the following series of events.
In April 1997, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued a report entitled "The FBI Laboratory: An Investigation into Laboratory Practices and Alleged Misconduct in Explosives-Related and Other Cases." The OIG initiated the investigation, which resulted in the report, based on allegations made by Supervisory Agent Frederic Whitehurst. Whitehurst was a Ph.D. scientist who began working in the FBI laboratory in 1986, after Martz's examination of the Vicon C capsules. Among other things, the report brought into question some of the practices of Special Agent Roger Martz. Martz was an examiner in the Chemistry-Toxicology Unit of the FBI lab from 1980 to 1989, and in 1989, became the chief of that unit. The allegations regarding Martz resulted in the OIG concluding that:
Roger Martz lacks the credibility and judgment that are essential for a unit chief, particularly one who should be substantively evaluating a range of forensic disciplines. We found Martz lacking in credibility because, in matters we have discussed above, he failed to perform adequate analyses to support his conclusions and he did not accurately or persuasively describe his work. We recommend that Martz not hold a supervisory position. The Laboratory should evaluate whether he should continue to serve as an examiner or whether he would better serve the FBI in a position outside the Laboratory. If Martz continues to work as an examiner we suggest that he be supervised by a scientist qualified to review his work substantively and that he be counseled on the importance of testifying directly, clearly and objectively, on the role of protocols in the Laboratory's forensics work, and on the need for adequate case documentation. Finally, we recommend that another qualified examiner review any analytical work by Martz that is to be used as a basis for further testimony.
Although the report made reference to specific cases, Buenoano's cases were not discussed anywhere in the report.
After learning of the investigation into the FBI crime lab, CCRC, on behalf of Buenoano, requested information from the task force which had investigated the lab. The task force, which...
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