Douglas v. State
| Decision Date | 13 September 2012 |
| Docket Number | SC10–1725.,Nos. SC10–318,s. SC10–318 |
| Citation | 141 So.3d 107 |
| Parties | Luther DOUGLAS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. Luther Douglas, Petitioner, v. Kenneth S. Tucker, etc., Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Frank John Tassone, Jr. and Richard Adam Sichta, Jacksonville, FL, for Appellant/Petitioner.
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, and Meredith Charbula, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, for Appellee/Respondent.
Luther Douglas, who was twenty-five years old at the time of the crime, was convicted of the 1999 sexual battery and first-degree murder of eighteen-year-old Mary Ann Hobgood and sentenced to death. On direct appeal, we affirmed his convictions and sentences. See Douglas v. State, 878 So.2d 1246 (Fla.2004). Douglas now appeals the denial of his motion for postconviction relief filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851 and simultaneously petitions this Court for a writ of habeas corpus. We have jurisdiction. Seeart. V, § 3(b)(1), (9), Fla. Const.
The crux of Douglas's instant appeal is that trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance in failing to investigate and prepare for the penalty phase, and more specifically, in failing to secure and present to the jury mental health mitigation that existed at the time of trial. The postconviction court conducted an evidentiary hearing on this claim, during which Douglas's previously undiscovered school records and testimony from two mental health professionals were received into evidence. The court subsequently denied relief. After a thorough review of both the trial and postconviction records, we agree with Douglas that trial counsel's performance in preparation for the penalty phase was deficient. We nevertheless affirm the postconviction court's denial of relief because we conclude that Douglas did not demonstrate prejudice.
This Court summarized the pertinent facts underlying this crime on direct appeal as follows:
On the evening of December 25, 1999, Hobgood left her parents' house in Jacksonville, Florida, with her friend, Misty Jones. Douglas, who was Jones's boyfriend at the time and who had not previously met Hobgood, drove Jones to Hobgood's house and drove away with both women in his vehicle. The vehicle Douglas was driving that night was a red Ford Escort, which belonged to Jimela Dozier, the mother of one of Douglas's children. Jones later described the condition of the vehicle that night as dirty with trash inside and pollen and dirt on the exterior. After leaving Hobgood's, the three first stopped at a liquor store and bought a bottle of rum and soda, which Douglas and Hobgood drank. They then went to several bars in the Jacksonville area. Around midnight, Jones indicated that she was not feeling well and Douglas drove her home. Douglas then left Jones's house in the Escort with Hobgood.
Approximately two hours later, Douglas arrived at the apartment where he was living and asked a teenage occupant to go with him to “take care of some business.” When Douglas's request was refused he left the apartment.
Jones testified that Douglas called her in the early morning hours of December 26, first telling her that he had dropped Hobgood off at a bar and then stating that he had taken Hobgood home. When Jones saw Douglas that morning she noticed scratch marks on his neck that had not been there the previous evening. In Douglas's presence, Jones called Hobgood's home, and after speaking with Hobgood's mother, learned that Hobgood had not returned home. When Hobgood's sister called Jones sometime later that day, Jones told her that they had been out the night before with Timothy Hightower, Jones's ex-boyfriend. Jones testified that she lied to Hobgood's sister because Douglas was with her and she figured that something was wrong.
Jones then confronted Douglas regarding Hobgood's whereabouts. The two went for a drive in the red Escort, which Jones noticed was newly clean inside and out. During the drive, Douglas admitted to Jones that he had beaten Hobgood and thrown her out of the car, leaving her for dead. Jones recalled that when she asked Douglas if he beat Hobgood because “she didn't have sex with black boys,” Douglas just smiled. Douglas also told Jones that if she was questioned she should point the blame toward Hightower or she would end up like Hobgood. When police officers questioned Jones later that night she told them the same story she relayed to Hobgood's sister—that she and Hobgood had gone out with Hightower. Jones also gave a sworn statement to that effect. Jones subsequently recanted those statements when the officers questioned her again in January 2000 and told her that they knew she had lied.
On the afternoon of December 26, 1999, Hobgood's body was found along a set of railroad tracks. She was positioned on her back in a shrub line with her legs stretched out in front of her. Hobgood's body was nude from the waist down, except for her black socks. Her knit top and black bra were torn and pushed up to her shoulders, exposing her breasts. A few feet from Hobgood's body, the police found a tire lug wrench, a rubber car part and a blood soaked maroon jacket. The maroon jacket was later identified by Jones as the one worn by Douglas on December 25. A Jacksonville Sheriff's Office detective testified that the rubber car part looked identical to a part recovered from the red Ford Escort.
Associate medical examiner Dr. Matthew Areford, who went to the scene on December 26 and performed the autopsy on Hobgood on December 27, noted that Hobgood had suffered extensive injury, particularly to her head. Dr. Areford concluded that she died of blunt head trauma. Dr. Areford testified that while Hobgood was alive she received at least ten separate blows to her face, seven blows to the back of her head and seven to ten blows to her hands and arms. Her jaw and nose were broken, several of her teeth had been knocked out and her right shoulder was dislocated. Dr. Areford indicated that these injuries could have been inflicted by another person's fist or by a hard object such as the lug wrench found at the scene. Several of the wounds on Hobgood's arms and hands were consistent with defensive wounds.
Although Dr. Areford could not determine the sequence of the injuries inflicted on Hobgood while she was alive, he opined that it was unlikely that Hobgood was struck from behind, fell to the ground and was hit a number of times while unconscious. Dr. Areford explainedthat such a scenario was inconsistent with the defensive type injuries found on Hobgood's hands and forearm as well as with the fact that there were injuries to all sides of her head, which indicated that she was rolling from side to side.
The autopsy also disclosed extensive injuries to Hobgood's body, in addition to those described above, which were inflicted after her death. Dr. Areford testified that these injuries were consistent with her body having been run over by the undercarriage of a car.
During the autopsy, Dr. Areford collected a rape kit, which included a set of vaginal swabs. Further analysis of the rape kit was conducted by David George, a serology analyst employed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). George testified that the vaginal swabs tested positive for the presence of semen.
Subsequent DNA testing matched the semen collected from Hobgood to Douglas....
....
While in jail awaiting trial, Douglas talked to fellow inmate Thomas Brown about Hobgood's murder. During their first conversation about the murder, Douglas told Brown that he was charged with the murder of a girl and that he had run over her with a car because she would not move. However, in a later conversation Douglas stated that he ran over the girl because he had beaten her to death but wanted to make it look like a vehicular homicide. Douglas also told Brown that the State had a lot of evidence against him because he “took the pussy.” Brown testified that he understood Douglas's statement “took the pussy” to mean that Douglas raped the girl.
Douglas, 878 So.2d at 1250–53 (footnotes omitted). Based on this evidence, the jury found Douglas guilty, by special verdict, of first-degree felony murder and a separate count of sexual battery. Id. at 1253. The jury did not find Hobgood's murder to be premeditated. Id.
During the penalty phase, trial counsel presented the testimony of twelve lay witnesses to establish mitigation. These witnesses consisted solely of Douglas's family and friends; 1 no mental health professionals were called to testify on Douglas's behalf. After hearing the evidence, the jury recommended a sentence of death by a vote of eleven to one. Id. Trial counsel did not offer any additional mitigation evidence during a subsequent Spencer2 hearing.
In sentencing Douglas to death, the trial court found two aggravating circumstances, which were assigned great weight: (1) the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel (HAC); and (2) the murder was committed in the course of a sexual battery. Id. The trial court found one statutory mitigator—that Douglas had no significant history of prior criminal activity in that he did not have a prior felony conviction—but assigned “little weight” to this mitigating circumstance because Douglas had previously engaged in illegal drug activity that did not lead to arrests or convictions. Id. The trial court also considered thirty nonstatutory mitigators Douglas proposed and found that sixteen were proven,3 but rejected the remaining mitigating circumstances as either unproven or not mitigating in nature.4 Finding that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances, the trial court agreed with the jury's recommendation and imposed a sentence of death. The trial court also sentenced Douglas to life imprisonment for the separate sexual battery offense. Id. at 1254 & n. 9.
On direct appeal,5 this...
To continue reading
Request your trial