Dufour v. State
Decision Date | 14 April 2005 |
Docket Number | No. SC04-232., No. SC03-1326 |
Citation | 905 So.2d 42 |
Parties | Donald W. DUFOUR, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. Donald W. Dufour, Petitioner, v. James V. Crosby, Jr., Respondent. |
Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Bill Jennings, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel — Middle, Marie-Louise Samuels Parmer, Assistant CCRC-M, Tampa, FL, for Appellant/Petitioner.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL and Scott A. Browne, and Kimberly Nolen Hopkins, Assistant Attorneys General, Tampa, FL, for Appellee/Respondent.
Donald W. Dufour appeals an order of the circuit court denying his motion for postconviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850 and petitions the Court for a writ of habeas corpus. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), (9), Fla. Const. For the reasons stated herein, we affirm the circuit court's denial of Dufour's rule 3.850 motion and deny his habeas petition.
Donald Dufour was convicted of the first-degree murder of Zack Miller. See Dufour v. State, 495 So.2d 154, 156 (Fla. 1986). The jury unanimously recommended the death penalty. See id. at 157. Following that recommendation, the trial court imposed a sentence of death for the first-degree murder charge. See id. On direct appeal, the Court affirmed Dufour's conviction and sentence. See id. at 156. There, the Court detailed the facts surrounding the murder:
In sentencing Dufour to death, the trial judge found four aggravating circumstances — that Dufour was previously convicted of another capital felony; the murder was committed while Dufour was engaged in the commission of armed robbery; the murder was committed for the purpose of avoiding or preventing lawful arrest; and the murder was committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner without any pretense of moral or legal justification. The trial judge found no mitigation. On direct appeal, this Court upheld Dufour's conviction and sentence. See id. at 156.
On direct appeal, Dufour asserted sixteen issues. See id. at 157-64. Although this Court denied fifteen of the claims, we held that the trial court erroneously found that the murder had been committed for the purpose of avoiding a lawful arrest, section 921.141(5)(e), Florida Statutes (1981), because the evidence failed to establish the requisite proof of an intent to avoid arrest or detection through the killing. See id. at 163. Despite the trial court's erroneous finding that the murder was committed for the purpose of avoiding a lawful arrest, the sentence of death was upheld in light of the three remaining aggravating factors and the complete lack of mitigation. See id.
Dufour timely filed his amended motion for postconviction relief. A hearing was held pursuant to Huff v. State, 622 So.2d 982 (Fla.1993), after which the lower court ordered an evidentiary hearing on the following claims: (1) ineffective assistance of pretrial and guilt phase counsel; (2) due process violations arising from the court-appointed psychiatrist's failure to conduct appropriate tests for organic brain damage and mental illness; and (3) evidence of the State's bad faith in failing to preserve evidence. The trial court determined that Dufour was not entitled to an evidentiary hearing on his remaining claims.
The evidentiary hearing was held on November 18, 2002, through November 21, 2002. Dufour presented the testimony of his brother, George Dufour; Raymond Dvorak, Dufour's trial counsel; Dr. Jonathan Lipman, a mental health expert; Dr. Sherry Burg-Carter, a forensic psychologist; and Dr. Robert Berland, a mental health expert. The State presented Dr. Sidney Merin, a mental health expert; Assistant State Attorneys, Dorothy Sedgwick and Frank Tamen; Diane Payne, lead detective in Dufour's case; William Vose, general counsel for the Orange County Sheriff's Office; and Paul Cohen, another of Dufour's trial counsel.
On May 30, 2003, the trial court issued an order denying Dufour's claims. In his appeal of the trial court's decision, Dufour presents ten claims.1 Dufour's appeal is accompanied by a petition for writ of habeas corpus in which Dufour advances four claims for relief.2
Following the United States Supreme Court's decision in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), this Court has held that for ineffective assistance of counsel claims to be successful, two requirements must be satisfied:
First, the claimant must identify particular acts or omissions of the lawyer that are shown to be outside the broad range of reasonably competent performance under prevailing professional standards. Second, the clear, substantial deficiency shown must further be demonstrated to have so affected the proceeding that confidence in the outcome is undermined.
Maxwell v. Wainwright, 490 So.2d 927, 932 (Fla.1986). Ineffective assistance of counsel claims present a mixed question of law and fact and therefore are subject to plenary review based on the Strickland test. See Stephens v. State, 748 So.2d 1028, 1032 (Fla.1999)
. Under this standard, the Court conducts an independent review of the trial court's legal conclusions while giving deference to the trial court's factual findings. See id.
104 S.Ct. 2052. It is under this legal framework that Dufour's claims will be addressed.
Dufour asserts that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate and present a voluntary intoxication defense, and that if counsel had done so, it could have been demonstrated that Dufour lacked the requisite specific intent to commit premeditated murder. "A fair assessment of attorney performance requires that every effort be made to eliminate the distorting effects...
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