Cardona v. Dixon

Docket NumberCASE NO. 21-23494-CIV-ALTMAN
Decision Date27 June 2023
Citation681 F.Supp.3d 1280
PartiesAna M. CARDONA, Petitioner, v. Ricky D. DIXON, Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections, Respondent.
CourtU.S. District Court — Southern District of Florida

Ana M. Cardona, Ocala, FL, Pro Se.

Richard L. Polin, Attorney General Office Department of Legal Affairs, Miami, FL, for Respondent.

ORDER

ROY K. ALTMAN, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

After three decades of trials, appeals, and collateral litigation in Florida's state courts, our Petitioner, Ana Cardona, has filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, attacking the constitutionality of the life sentence she's serving for murdering (and abusing) her three-year-old son. See Petition [ECF No. 1]. After careful review, we DISMISS Ground One of the Petition as procedurally defaulted and DENY the remaining grounds on their merits.

THE FACTS

On November 2, 1990, the Miami Beach Police Department found "the battered body of an unidentified child . . . in the bushes of a Miami Beach residence." Cardona v. State (Cardona I), 641 So. 2d 361, 361 (Fla. 1994), cert denied, 513 U.S. 1160, 115 S.Ct. 1122, 130 L.Ed.2d 1085 (1995). The boy was initially identified in the media as "Baby Lollipops"—a reference to the clothing he was wearing when he was discovered. See Cardona v. State (Cardona III), 185 So. 3d 514, 517 (Fla. 2016) ("His t-shirt bearing a lollipop design would inspire the Miami Beach Police Department to dub the investigation to uncover the identity of the boy and the person responsible for the boy's death as the 'Baby Lollipops' case."). Once law enforcement determined that "Baby Lollipops" was L.F., the three-year-old son of Ana Cardona, Cardona was "arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse and first-degree murder." Cardona I, 641 So. 2d at 362; see also Indictment [ECF No. 16-3] at 91-92.

According to the evidence presented at her first trial, Cardona had been living with L.F.'s father, "a well-off drug dealer named Fidel Figueroa," until Fidel was murdered one month before L.F. was born. Cardona I, 641 So. 2d at 362. Cardona exhausted Fidel's substantial estate in a matter of months and, for a brief stint, "[L.F.] and his sister were [ ] turned over to the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services." Ibid. According to the Department's medical records, "when [L.F.] was eleven months old, he was healthy and weighed about twenty pounds." Ibid. After the children were returned to Cardona, she became "romantically involved" with another woman—her codefendant, Olivia Gonzalez-Mendoza ("Gonzalez"). Ibid. As the Florida Supreme Court explained, L.F.'s life took a sharp turn for the worse once Cardona and Gonzalez began living together:

Cardona and her children lived with Gonzalez-Mendoza in a series of cheap hotels. Gonzalez-Mendoza's various jobs and shoplifting were the women's only sources of income. During an eighteen-month period that began after the children were returned to her, Cardona beat, choked, starved, confined, emotionally abused and systematically tortured [L.F.]. The child spent much of the time tied to a bed, left in a bathtub with the hot or cold water running, or locked in a closet. To avoid changing [L.F.]'s diaper for as long as possible, Cardona would wrap duct tape around the child's diaper to hold in the excrement. Cardona blamed [L.F.] for her descent "from riches to rags," and referred to him as "bad birth."
Gonzalez-Mendoza was aware of the abuse and began to participate in the abuse because it pleased Cardona. According to Gonzalez-Mendoza, on the last day of October 1990, Cardona severely beat [L.F.] with a baseball bat. After splitting the child's head open, Cardona locked the little boy in the closet where he had been confined for the last two months. The next day, Gonzalez-Mendoza opened the closet door and attempted to quiet [L.F.] by frightening him with the bat. When [L.F.] began to scream at the sight of his mother, Cardona grabbed the bat from Gonzalez-Mendoza. Gonzalez-Mendoza then left the room. When she returned, Cardona told her that Cardona believed she had killed [L.F.]. After dressing the child, the two women took [L.F.] to a Miami Beach residence and abandoned him in some bushes, where he was later found.

Ibid.

The State also relied on the testimony of the medical examiner, who testified that "[L.F.] did not die from one particular injury; rather, he died from months of child abuse and neglect." Ibid. The medical examiner explained that L.F. "was emaciated," that he "weigh[ed] only eighteen pounds," that he had "numerous and extensive physical injuries," and that most of those injuries, some of which were "up to a year old," "would have caused prolonged excruciating pain." Ibid. Although the medical examiner identified the trauma L.F. received from the baseball bat as the "fatal blow," he also concluded that "[L.F.] was already dying from his other injuries at the time the final blow was inflicted." Id. at 363.

A Florida jury found Cardona guilty of both counts and "recommended death by a vote of eight to four." Ibid.; see also First Trial Verdict [ECF No. 16-3] at 184-86. The trial court agreed with the jury's recommendation, finding that "the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel" and that Cardona's mitigation evidence didn't outweigh the "overwhelming and enormous weight" of the aggravating circumstances. Cardona I, 641 So. 2d at 363. The Florida Supreme Court2 unanimously affirmed Cardona's conviction, having determined that "the death penalty is warranted[.]" Id. at 366.

After her conviction was affirmed, Cardona sought postconviction relief in state court pursuant to Rules 3.850 and 3.851 of the Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure. In her operative "Amended Motion to Vacate Judgments of Conviction and Sentence," Cardona advanced thirteen grounds for relief, only one of which is relevant here: Cardona's allegation that the State "withheld evidence that was material and exculpatory in nature and/or presented false and/or misleading evidence," in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). Amended Motion to Vacate [ECF No. 16-6] at 58. In that claim, Cardona alleged that the State had purposely withheld the contents of a "written proffer made by Gonzalez to the State," which (she claimed) contained material and exculpatory information. Id. at 61. According to Cardona, Gonzalez told the prosecutors that Cardona was "in a crazed state of hysteria and perhaps under the influence of drugs" when she killed [L.F.], and that Cardona had "attempted to revive the baby" after he'd been knocked unconscious. Id. at 61-62. Cardona also claimed that Gonzalez's statements during that proffer differed substantially from her later trial testimony and that, as a result, these inconsistent earlier statements could have "provided fertile impeachment of [Gonzalez's] trial testimony." Id. at 63.

The state postconviction court denied Cardona's Brady claim, finding that "[t]here was no reasonable probability that any omitted evidence would have changed the conclusion of [the] jury," even if the proffered testimony "would have assisted defense counsel in impeaching Olivia Gonzalez-Mendoza[.]" Order Denying Amended Motion to Vacate [ECF No. 16-6] at 220. Cardona appealed this denial to the Florida Supreme Court, which reversed the lower court and remanded the case for a new trial. See Cardona v. State (Cardona II), 826 So. 2d 968, 982 (Fla. 2002). In the Florida Supreme Court's view, Cardona's lawyers should have been permitted to use these prior inconsistent statements to impeach Gonzalez about her "description of the events of the day before [L.F.] died," "the description of the events on the day [L.F.] died," "the details of the abuse described," and "the date when Gonzalez last abused [L.F.]." Id. at 974. According to the Florida Supreme Court, the prior statements "could reasonably have been taken to put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the verdict." Ibid. (quoting Way v. State, 760 So. 2d 903, 913 (Fla. 2000)).

Cardona's retrial began in 2010. This time, to avoid the Brady problems the Florida Supreme Court had been concerned with, "the State did not introduce the testimony of Gonzalez but instead relied primarily on circumstantial evidence to establish Cardona's guilt." Cardona III, 185 So. 3d at 517. As before, the State introduced compelling medical evidence, which showed that L.F. had been the victim of systemic and extreme child abuse—and that he had died from years of neglect. See id. at 518 ("In the opinion of the medical examiner, the cause of death was 'child abuse syndrome,' resulting from the cumulative effect of all of [L.F.]'s injuries, even though the injuries to the corpus callosum hastened his death."). Having heard all the evidence, this second jury likewise found Cardona guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse and again recommended a sentence of death. As in the first trial, the state trial court agreed and sentenced Cardona to death. See Second Trial Verdict and Judgment [ECF No. 16-12] at 1-7.

Cardona appealed her second conviction and sentence to the Florida Supreme Court, which again "vacate[d] Cardona's convictions and death sentence and remand[ed] for a new trial." Cardona III, 185 So. 3d at 527. This time, the Florida Supreme Court found that Cardona's right to a fair trial had been violated by the State's "inflammatory" and "egregious" closing argument. See id. at 520 ("Closing argument 'must not be used to inflame the minds and passions of the jurors so that their verdict reflects an emotional response to the crime or the defendant.' " (quoting Bertolotti v. State, 476 So. 2d 130, 134 (Fla. 1985))). In the high court's view, the State's repeated use of the phrase "justice for [L.F.]"—together with the prosecutor's admonition that a guilty verdict was the "only verdict" that would provide justice to L.F.—had ...

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