Davis v. State

• Decision Date: 20 November 2003
• Docket Number: No. SC02-2472., No. SC02-1580
• Citation: 875 So.2d 359
• Parties: Eddie Wayne DAVIS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. Eddie Wayne Davis, Petitioner, v. James V. Crosby, Jr., etc., Respondent.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

875 So.2d 359

Eddie Wayne DAVIS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

Eddie Wayne Davis, Petitioner, v. James V. Crosby, Jr., etc., Respondent.

Nos. SC02-1580, SC02-2472.

Supreme Court of Florida.

November 20, 2003.

Rehearing Denied June 3, 2004.

Bill Jennings, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel—Middle Region, Richard E. Kiley, Assistant CCRC and James V. Viggiano, Jr., Assistant CCRC, Office of the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel—Middle Region, Tampa, FL, for Appellant/Petitioner.

Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, and Candance M. Sabella, Chief-Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, FL, for Appellee/Respondent.

PER CURIAM.

Eddie Wayne Davis was sentenced to death for the murder of an eleven-year-old child following a unanimous jury recommendation. This Court affirmed the conviction and death sentence. See Davis v. State, 698 So.2d 1182 (Fla.1997). Now in postconviction proceedings, Davis appeals a trial court order denying postconviction relief following an evidentiary hearing and further petitions this Court for a writ of habeas corpus alleging ineffective assistance of appellate counsel.¹ His claim for postconviction relief is based primarily on claims of ineffective assistance of counsel in the guilt and penalty phases. Specifically, Davis asserts that trial counsel was ineffective in: (1) failing to present the defense of voluntary intoxication in the guilt phase; (2) failing to argue to the jury as to the inherent unreliability of Davis's confessions; (3) failing to obtain an on-the-record waiver of Davis's right to testify in the penalty phase; and (4) failing to present a "qualified" expert on sexual abuse as mitigation evidence in the penalty phase. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the denial of Davis's postconviction motion and deny the petition for habeas corpus.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Davis was convicted of murdering eleven-year-old Kimberly Waters, whose body was found in a dumpster close to her home. See Davis, 698 So.2d at 1186-87. As we explained:

On March 5, police questioned Davis, a former boyfriend of Kimberly's mother, at the new residence where he and his girlfriend were moving. Davis denied having any knowledge of the incident and said that he had been drinking at a nearby bar on the night of the murder. Later that same day police again located Davis at a job site and brought him to the police station for further questioning, where he repeated his alibi. Davis also agreed to and did provide a blood sample.

While Davis was being questioned at the station, police obtained a pair of blood-stained boots from the trailer Davis and his girlfriend had just vacated. Subsequent DNA tests revealed that the blood on the boots was consistent with the victim's blood and that Davis's DNA matched scrapings taken from the victim's fingernails.

Id. at 1186. While in a holding cell, Davis gave one unrecorded confession and two recorded confessions to the police. In his final confession he stated that he originally went to the home of the victim's mother, Beverly Schultz, who was his girlfriend, to look for money to buy beer:

Because Schultz normally did not work on Thursday nights and because her car was gone, Davis believed that no one was home. Indeed, Schultz was not home at the time because she had agreed to work a double shift at the nursing rehabilitation center where she was employed. However, her daughters, Crystal and Kimberly, were at the house sleeping. When Davis turned on the lights in Beverly Schultz's bedroom, he saw Kimberly, who was sleeping in Schultz's bed. Kimberly woke up and saw him. He put his hand over her mouth and told her not to holler, telling her that he wanted to talk to her. Kimberly went with him into the living room. Davis put a rag in her mouth so she could not yell.

Davis related that they went outside and jumped a fence into the adjacent trailer park where Davis's old trailer was located. Davis said that while they were in the trailer, he tried to put his penis inside of Kimberly. When he did not succeed, he resorted to pushing two of his fingers into Kimberly's vagina. Afterwards, Davis took Kimberly to the nearby Moose Lodge. He struck her several times, then placed a piece of plastic over her mouth. She struggled and ripped the plastic with her fingers but Davis held it over her mouth and nose until she stopped moving. He put her in a dumpster and left.

... The jury found Davis guilty of first-degree murder, burglary with assault or battery, kidnapping a child under thirteen years of age, and sexual battery on a child under twelve years of age.

Id. at 1186-87. During the four-day penalty phase, Davis's trial counsel presented the testimony of fifteen witnesses in mitigation. These witnesses included Davis's father, stepmother, girlfriend, coworker and friend, maternal aunt, grandmother, paternal aunt, control release supervisor, and special group leader and youth counselor at HRS, as well as three mental health experts. Despite the extensive mitigating testimony, the jury unanimously recommended the death penalty. In imposing the death penalty, the trial court concluded in a detailed and comprehensive sentencing order that the aggravation outweighed the substantial mitigation. In aggravation, the trial court found that the murder was (1) committed by a person under sentence of imprisonment; (2) committed during the commission of a kidnapping and sexual battery; (3) committed for the purpose of avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest; and (4) especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel. As statutory mitigation, the court found that the murder was committed while the defendant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance and gave this factor great weight.²

On direct appeal, Davis raised ten issues.³ The Court determined that Davis's untaped confession while in his holding cell should have been suppressed. See id. at 1189. However, the Court found this error harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because shortly after confessing in his holding cell, Davis gave a taped statement in which he was fully apprised of his Miranda⁴ rights and voluntarily gave the same information contained in the untaped confession. See id. The Court rejected the other issues raised by Davis as without merit and affirmed Davis's conviction and death sentence. See id. at 1194.

Davis filed a motion for postconviction relief raising twelve claims.⁵ After a Huff⁶ hearing, the trial court granted an evidentiary hearing on a portion of Davis's claims.⁷ After the evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied relief in a comprehensive order. Davis now appeals the denial of his postconviction motion and also petitions this Court for a writ of habeas corpus.

I. INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL

A. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel—Guilt Phase

Ineffective assistance of counsel claims present a mixed question of law and fact subject to plenary review. See Stephens v. State, 748 So.2d 1028, 1033 (Fla. 1999). This requires an independent review of the trial court's legal conclusions, while giving deference to the trial court's factual findings. See id. In order for a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel to be considered meritorious, a defendant must establish two components under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). See Stephens, 748 So.2d at 1033. First, a defendant must establish conduct on the part of counsel that is outside the broad range of competent performance under prevailing professional standards. See Kennedy v. State, 547 So.2d 912, 913 (Fla.1989). Second, the deficiency in counsel's performance must be shown to have so affected the fairness and reliability of the proceedings that confidence in the outcome is undermined. See id.; see also Rutherford v. State, 727 So.2d 216, 219 (Fla.1998) ("[T]he benchmark for judging any claim of ineffectiveness must be whether counsel's conduct so undermined the proper functioning of the adversarial process that the trial cannot be relied on as having produced a just result.") (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 686, 104 S.Ct. 2052).

1. Voluntary Intoxication

Davis argues that his trial counsel was ineffective for "failing to present the defense of voluntary intoxication as a valid defense to first-degree murder." Although it is uncontested that there was abundant evidence presented during the guilt phase of trial by both the State and the defense that Davis was intoxicated at the time of the offense, Davis specifically argues that his trial counsel failed to either present actual evidence in the form of an expert opinion, or request a jury instruction that Davis lacked the specific intent required for a finding of guilt on the charge of first-degree murder due to his voluntary intoxication, or both.

This Court has stated that "[c]ounsel cannot be deemed ineffective merely because current counsel disagrees with trial counsel's strategic decisions. Moreover, strategic decisions do not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel if alternative courses have been considered and rejected and counsel's decision was reasonable under the norms of professional conduct." Occhicone v. State, 768 So.2d 1037, 1048 (Fla.2000) (citations omitted). "A fair assessment of attorney performance requires that every effort be made to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight, to reconstruct the circumstances of counsel's challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct from counsel's perspective at the time." Rolling v. State, 825 So.2d 293, 298 (Fla.2002) (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052).

At the evidentiary hearing, Davis presented the testimony of Dr. Michael Maher, an expert in forensic psychiatry, who testified that in his opinion Davis was sufficiently intoxicated at the time of the offense that his capacity to commit premeditated acts of murder was very substantially impaired. Austin Maslanik, Davis's lead counsel, testified that he did not...