Floyd v. State

• Decision Date: 04 June 2009
• Docket Number: No. SC07-1894.,No. SC07-330.,SC07-330.,SC07-1894.
• Citation: 18 So.3d 432
• Parties: Maurice Lamar FLOYD, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. Maurice Lamar Floyd, Petitioner, v. Walter A. McNeil, etc., Respondent.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

18 So.3d 432

Maurice Lamar FLOYD, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

Maurice Lamar Floyd, Petitioner, v. Walter A. McNeil, etc., Respondent.

No. SC07-330.

No. SC07-1894.

Supreme Court of Florida.

June 4, 2009.

Rehearing Denied September 24, 2009.

Bill Jennings, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, and David R. Gemmer and Robert T. Strain, Assistant CCR Counsel, Middle Region, Tampa, FL, for Appellant/Petitioner.

Bill McCollum, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, and Barbara C. Davis and Kenneth S. Nunnelley, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, FL, for Appellee/Respondent.

PER CURIAM.

Maurice Lamar Floyd appeals an order of the circuit court that denied his motion to vacate a conviction of first-degree murder and sentence of death filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851. Floyd also petitions this Court for a writ of habeas corpus. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), (9), Fla. Const.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

A jury convicted Maurice Lamar Floyd of first-degree murder, armed burglary of a dwelling, and aggravated assault in connection with the death of his mother-in-law, Mary Goss. See Floyd v. State, 850 So.2d 383, 392 n. 15 (Fla.2002). The jury recommended the death penalty for the murder by a vote of eleven to one. See id. at 392. Following that recommendation, the trial court sentenced Floyd to death. See id. In the opinion that affirmed the imposition of the death penalty, this Court detailed the facts surrounding the murder:

Mary Goss, the victim in this case, was found dead at approximately 11:30 p.m. on July 13, 1998.... The cause of Ms. Goss's death was a single .357 caliber gunshot that entered the left side of her face and proceeded to sever her brain stem, killing her instantaneously. Two days later, on July 15, 1998, police found Floyd, Ms. Goss's son-in-law, hiding in the attic of a house in the Palatka area. Floyd was subsequently charged with the murder of Ms. Goss.

Testimony adduced at trial indicated that Floyd exhibited very controlling behavior toward his wife, Trelane, [n.2] who was Ms. Goss's daughter. On July 11, 1998 (extending into the early morning hours of July 12), Trelane had gone with some of her cousins to a supper club to celebrate her birthday. Floyd followed her to the club and spotted her consuming alcohol and dancing.... In the past[,] Floyd had expressed his disapproval of Trelane's alcohol consumption.

[N.2.] When she testified during trial, Trelane was no longer married to Floyd.

When Trelane returned home around 5 a.m. on the morning of July 12, Floyd informed her that he would not permit her to sleep, and he proceeded to increase the volume on the televisions and the radio in their apartment. He also threatened to kill Trelane or someone she loved as a reprisal for her drinking or if she ever attempted to run or hide from him. Shortly thereafter, Trelane felt a gun being placed beside her head as she was lying in bed. Floyd pulled the trigger three times, but the weapon did not fire....

On July 13, the day Ms. Goss was murdered, Trelane and Floyd had a heated argument on a Palatka street not far from their apartment. Trelane had stopped her car in the street to speak with a friend. Her three-year-old goddaughter was also in the vehicle. Floyd was in his car behind Trelane and he insisted that Trelane take her goddaughter home, calling Trelane a "whore." Fearful for the safety of both herself and her goddaughter, Trelane decided to seek protection in a sheriff's office. Floyd followed and proceeded to ram his car into the back of Trelane's vehicle.

... The tires on both cars squealed as they slid into the parking lot at the sheriff's office. Trelane exited her car and screamed for help. Hearing both the sounds of squealing tires and Trelane's plaintive cries, Deputy Dean Kelly responded from his desk inside the sheriff's office.... The deputy saw Floyd moving rapidly toward them as they spoke, and he held out his hand to prevent Floyd from accosting Trelane. He then advised Floyd that he was going to be placed into investigative custody until it could be determined exactly what had transpired.... Floyd extended his hands in the air and backed up, insisting that he had done nothing wrong and that he merely wanted to talk to his wife. After the deputy repeated his order for Floyd to submit to custody, Floyd fled the scene....

After giving a statement to sheriff's office personnel, Trelane called her mother, Ms. Goss.... Ms. Goss informed Trelane that Trelane's three children were at Ms. Goss's house. After hearing what had transpired earlier on the street and at the sheriff's office between Trelane and Floyd, Ms. Goss said of Floyd, "I won't let him get my grandchildren." Ms. Goss was also aware that the twenty-one-year-old Floyd was then on probation for previous violations of the law.

During the trial, several witnesses described the subsequent events that led to the death of Ms. Goss. J.J. Jones, the oldest of Trelane's three children, testified that on July 13, 1998, the day that Ms. Goss was killed, Floyd took him and his two younger siblings to the home of their grandmother, Ms. Goss. J.J. also stated that after he had fallen asleep that evening, Ms. Goss awakened him and instructed him to go to the home of her neighbor, Jeanette Figuero, and to call the police from there. . . . As J.J. was moving toward Jeanette Figuero's home, he noticed that Floyd was "squeezing [Ms. Goss] behind the door" at the front of Ms. Goss's home. Moments later he saw Ms. Goss running outside. J.J. stated that he also observed Floyd standing on Ms. Goss's front porch and firing a gun three times. J.J.'s two siblings, LaJade Evans and Alex Evans, were directly behind him, as Ms. Goss had awakened them also. J.J. testified that he never saw Floyd leave the victim's porch, and that the last thing he observed before pounding on Jeanette Figuero's door for help was his grandmother, Ms. Goss, lying on her back. J.J. eventually led the police to the spot where he thought his grandmother's body would be. As one of the officers directed a flashlight beam on the ground, the light revealed Ms. Goss's lifeless body. . . .

LaJade Evans, J.J. Jones' younger sister, testified that she followed J.J. to Ms. Figuero's home to seek help. LaJade saw Floyd on the victim's porch, shooting a gun at the victim. LaJade said Floyd fired two shots from the porch, and that she heard one more shot fired in the direction of the victim. She added that she saw Floyd running toward the victim's home but that he did not go inside the home again after having fired his weapon.

. . . .

. . . Tashoni Lamb testified that Floyd visited her apartment around midnight on July 13, and that he left after 6 a.m. on July 14. . . . Lamb stated that Floyd pulled a gun out of the pants he was wearing, placed it on a dresser in the apartment, and said, "I just shot Miss Mary, the grandmother." She related that Floyd's reason for shooting Ms. Goss was that "she had threatened to call the police on him." . . . She further testified that Floyd contacted her by phone later on July 14, a day before he was arrested. When the prosecutor asked at trial if anyone had ever asked her to provide an alibi for Floyd, she responded, "Maurice [Floyd] did." She also testified that during the phone conversation, Floyd asked, "Do you want to see me die?"

Id. at 387-89, 391 (footnotes omitted).

In sentencing Floyd to death for the murder of Ms. Goss, the trial court found the existence of four statutory aggravating circumstances¹ and no statutory mitigating circumstances. See id. at 392. The trial judge found four nonstatutory mitigating circumstances and assigned each little weight. See id. at 392-93.² The trial court also sentenced Floyd to thirty years' imprisonment for the armed burglary conviction and five years' imprisonment for the aggravated assault conviction. See id. at 393.

Floyd raised thirteen claims on direct appeal.³ This Court struck the conviction for armed burglary and the aggravating circumstance of murder committed during a felony. See id. at 402. Since we struck the armed burglary conviction, we also rejected application of the felony-murder theory of guilt to Floyd; however, we affirmed Floyd's first-degree murder conviction based on the theory of premeditated murder, and we upheld the sentence of death. See id. at 387, 402.⁴ The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari review in 2004. See Floyd v. Florida, 540 U.S. 1112, 124 S.Ct. 1040, 157 L.Ed.2d 902 (2004).

Floyd filed a postconviction motion pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure Rule 3.851. In the motion, he raised three claims for which an evidentiary hearing was sought,⁵ and two additional claims for which an evidentiary hearing was not required (certain claims contained multiple subparts).⁶ The circuit court entered an order that scheduled an evidentiary hearing on the three claims for which a hearing was sought. Floyd was then granted leave to amend his motion with one additional claim—that his constitutional rights were violated when he was shackled in front of the jury.

After an evidentiary hearing, the circuit court entered an order that denied postconviction relief on January 8, 2007, and the court subsequently amended the order on January 31, 2007.

II. APPEAL—RULE 3.851 MOTION

A. Ineffective Assistance—Competency of a Child Witness

Floyd first contends that trial counsel was ineffective for the failure to investigate and challenge the competency of a child witness. This claim is without merit.

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 met. First, the defendant must establish that counsel's performance was deficient. Second, the defendant must establish that counsel's deficient performance...