Hall v. State
Decision Date | 12 April 2018 |
Docket Number | No. SC17–1355,SC17–1355 |
Citation | 246 So.3d 210 |
Parties | Enoch D. HALL, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
Court | Florida Supreme Court |
James Vincent Viggiano, Jr., Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, Ann Marie Mirialakis and Ali A. Shakoor, Assistant Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, Middle Region, Temple Terrace, Florida, for Appellant
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, and Doris Meacham, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, Florida, for Appellee
This case is before the Court on appeal from an order denying a Successive Motion to Vacate Death Sentence pursuant to Hurst v. State , 202 So.3d 40 (Fla. 2016), cert. denied , ––– U.S. ––––, 137 S.Ct. 2161, 198 L.Ed.2d 246 (2017), under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851. Because the order concerns postconviction relief from a sentence of death, we have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.
This Court has previously detailed the underlying facts of this case. Hall v. State (Hall I ), 107 So.3d 262, 267–71 (Fla. 2012). Relevant to the instant proceeding, Hall, an inmate at Tomoka Correctional Institution (TCI), was convicted and sentenced to death for the first-degree murder of Correctional Officer (CO) Donna Fitzgerald. Hall v. State (Hall II ), 212 So.3d 1001, 1009 (Fla. 2017). After a penalty phase, the jury returned a unanimous death sentence. Id. at 1012.1 Hall appealed, and this Court ultimately affirmed his conviction and sentence. See generally Hall I , 107 So.3d 262.2 On October 7, 2013, the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari, Hall v. Florida , 571 U.S. 878, 134 S.Ct. 203, 187 L.Ed.2d 137 (2013) ; thus Hall's case became final on that date.
This Court affirmed the denial of Hall's initial motion for postconviction relief and denied his petition for writ of habeas corpus. Hall II , 212 So.3d at 1036. During the pendency of his initial postconviction motion, Hall filed a Successive Motion to Vacate Death Sentence pursuant to Hurst , which was denied by the postconviction court. This appeal from the first successive motion for postconviction relief follows.
We affirm the postconviction court's denial of relief on this claim for the reasons discussed below. Most importantly, our opinion in Hall II , and our corresponding Hurst harmless error analysis denying relief within that opinion, already addressed the issues that Hall now attempts to present.
We conclude that this subclaim of Hall's successive postconviction motion fails on the merits. Notably, aside from Wood v. State , 209 So.3d 1217, 1234 (Fla. 2017), which is distinguished below, Hall presents no binding precedent that supports his assertion that the stricken CCP aggravator in his case is sufficient to receive Hurst relief. Moreover, as discussed below, our recent decisions in Middleton v. State , 220 So.3d 1152 (Fla. 2017), cert. denied , ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S.Ct. 829, 200 L.Ed.2d 326 (2018), and Cozzie v. State , 225 So.3d 717, 729 (Fla. 2017), cert. denied , ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S.Ct. 1131, 200 L.E.2d 729 (2018), support the contrary conclusion.
In Wood , we struck both the CCP and avoid arrest aggravating factors, which were two of the three aggravators found by the trial court and to which it assigned "great weight." Id. at 1233. In ultimately determining that the error in Wood was not harmless, we emphasized:
Id. at 1234 (alterations in original) (emphasis added) (quoting Hurst , 202 So.3d at 68 ). In determining that the error was harmful, we repeatedly emphasized that our conclusion was influenced by the fact that two of the three aggravators presented were stricken, leaving only one valid aggravating factor for the jury to properly consider. Thus the harmless error analysis in Wood was based on the Court's determination that the remaining sole valid aggravating factor was not sufficient to support the sentence of death.3
212 So.3d at 1035. It is also worth noting that this Court, in conducting its harmless error analysis in Hall II , did not include the invalidated CCP aggravator in its analysis. Id. Instead, we found that the Hurst error, as it related to Hall's case, was harmless, even without the stricken CCP aggravator. Id. Thus we conclude that Wood is distinguishable from Hall's case.
Two other cases recently decided by our Court, Middleton and Cozzie , also lend support to the postconviction court's denial of this subclaim of Hall's successive postconviction motion.
Middleton involved a unanimous jury recommendation of death, where this Court ultimately struck the avoid arrest and CCP aggravators. 220 So.3d at 1172. There, we explained:
"When this Court strikes an aggravating factor on appeal, ‘the harmless error test is applied to determine whether there is no reasonable possibility that the error affected the sentence.’ " Williams v. State , 967 So.2d 735, 765 (Fla. 2007) (quoting Jennings v. State , 782 So.2d 853, 863 n.9 (Fla. 2001) ); see also Diaz v. State , 860 So.2d 960, 968 (Fla. 2003) (). Despite striking the avoid arrest and CCP aggravators, two valid aggravators remain in this unanimous death-recommendation case. The two aggravators which remain are that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel (HAC) and that is was committed during the commission of a burglary and for pecuniary gain, which were each given "great weight" by the trial court.
Id. In finding that the error in Middleton was harmless, we noted that there was no statutory mitigation and that "the trial court expressly stated that any of the considered aggravating circumstances found in this case, standing alone, would be sufficient to outweigh the mitigation in total presented." Id.5 Thus because there was no reasonable possibility that the erroneous aggravators contributed to Middleton's sentence, we ultimately concluded that any errors there were harmless. Id.
Hall's case is similar to Middleton because significant aggravation remained, even without the stricken CCP aggravator, that "far outweighed the mitigation." Hall I , 107 So.3d at 271. Furthermore, three of the remaining aggravators present in Hall are without and beyond dispute. The fourth aggravator that remains, HAC, is one of the weightiest in Florida, see Jackson v. State , 18 So.3d 1016, 1035 (Fla. 2009), and was afforded "very great weight" by the trial court. Thus we conclude, as we have previously in Hall's initial postconviction case, that any error in Hall's case, like the errors in Middleton , was harmless. See Hall II , 212 So.3d at 1035–36 ( ).
Similarly, in Cozzie , we determined that "[e]ven if the avoid arrest aggravator were stricken ... the unanimous death recommendation would still remain, along with the aggravators of CCP, HAC, and in the course of a felony, which are among the weightiest aggravators in our capital sentencing scheme." 225 So.3d at 729. Furthermore, the remaining aggravators in Cozzie were afforded "great weight" by the trial court. Id.6 Thus we ultimately determined that "any possible error was harmless because there was not a reasonable possibility that [Cozzie] would have received a life sentence without the trial court finding of the [avoid arrest] aggravator." Id. (alterations in original) (quoting Aguirre–Jarquin v. State , 9 So.3d 593, 608 (Fla. 2009) ).
Hall has significant and weighty aggravation beyond the invalidated CCP aggravator. Further, the trial court in both Cozzie and here concluded that the aggravating circumstances "far outweigh[ed]" the mitigating circumstances. Id. at 725 ; see Hall I , 107 So.3d at 271. Thus we conclude that Cozzie is factually similar to Hall's case.
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