Henyard v. State
| Decision Date | 10 September 2008 |
| Docket Number | No. SC08-222.,No. SC08-1653,No. SC08-1544.,SC08-222.,SC08-1544.,SC08-1653 |
| Parties | Richard HENYARD, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. Richard Henyard, Appellant, v. State of Florida, Appellee. Richard Henyard, Petitioner, v. Walter A. McNeil, etc., Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Bill Jennings, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, Mark S. Gruber, Maria Perinetti, and Daphney Branham, Assistant CCR Counsel, Middle Region, Tampa, Florida, for Appellant.
Bill McCollum, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, and Stephen D. Ake, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, Florida, for Appellee.
This case is before the Court on appeal from orders denying motions to vacate sentences of death under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851 and on the petition of Henyard invoking the Court's authority to issue all writs necessary to complete the exercise of its jurisdiction. Because the order concerns postconviction relief from a sentence of death, this Court has jurisdiction of the appeal under article V, section 3(b)(1), Florida Constitution. Additionally, we have jurisdiction over the petition under article V, section 3(b)(7), Florida Constitution. We affirm the trial court's orders and deny Henyard's petition for all writs relief.
The facts of this case are set out in detail in our previous opinion. See Henyard v. State, 689 So.2d 239 (Fla.1996). In that opinion we noted that the trial record established that Richard Henyard (Henyard), at the age of eighteen, took a gun that belonged to a family friend and told others he was going to steal a car, kill the owner, and put the victim in the trunk so he could go see his father in South Florida. Henyard convinced a younger, fourteen-year-old friend, Alfonza Smalls, to help him rob someone. On January 30, 1993, Henyard and Smalls waited outside of a Winn-Dixie store in Eustis, Florida, when their victims, Mrs. Dorothy Lewis and her daughters, Jasmine, age three, and Jamilya, age seven, who were shopping at the Winn-Dixie, returned to their car. As the three left the store and returned to their car, Smalls approached Lewis with a gun and ordered her and her daughters into the back of the car. Henyard drove the car out of town.
Henyard stopped the car at a deserted location where the two boys raped Lewis on the trunk of the car while her daughters remained in the back seat. Afterward, Henyard shot Lewis four times, wounding her in the leg, neck, mouth, and the middle of the forehead between her eyes. Henyard and Smalls rolled Lewis's unconscious body off to the side of the road and got back in the car. Jamilya and Jasmine were then driven to a separate location and taken from the car into a grassy area where they were each shot in the head and killed. Lewis survived and was able to make it to a nearby house where the police were called.
At trial, Richard Henyard, Jr. was convicted of three counts of armed kidnapping, one count of sexual battery with the use of a firearm, one count of attempted first-degree murder, one count of robbery with a firearm, and two counts of first-degree murder. After the penalty phase hearing, the jury recommended the death sentence for each of the murder counts by a vote of twelve to zero. The court found four aggravating factors, [n.1] three statutory mitigating factors, [n.2] and six nonstatutory mitigating factors. [n.3] The court found that the mitigating circumstances did not outweigh the aggravating circumstances and sentenced Henyard to death.
[N.1.] The trial court found the following aggravating factors: (1) the defendant had been convicted of a prior violent felony; (2) the murder was committed in the course of a felony; (3) the murder was committed for pecuniary gain; and (4) the murder was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel.
[N.2.] The trial court found the following statutory mitigating factors: (1) Henyard's age of eighteen at the time of the crime; (2) evidence that Henyard was acting under an extreme emotional disturbance; and (3) Henyard's capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was impaired.
[N.3.] The trial court found the following nonstatutory mitigating circumstances: (1) the defendant functions at the emotional level of a thirteen-year-old and is of low intelligence; (2) the defendant had an impoverished upbringing; (3) the defendant was born into a dysfunctional family; (4) the defendant can adjust to prison life; (5) the defendant could have received eight consecutive life sentences with a minimum mandatory of fifty years; and (6) Henyard's codefendant, Smalls, could not receive the death penalty as a matter of law.
This Court rejected all eleven [n.4] of Henyard's claims on direct appeal and affirmed his conviction and sentence.
[N.4.] The eleven claims were: (1) the trial court abused its discretion in failing to grant Henyard's motions for a change of venue; (2) the trial court erred when it (a) granted the State's challenge for cause of one prospective juror (who stated he could not, under any circumstances, recommend a death sentence for Henyard because of his youth), and (b) refused to excuse three prospective jurors Henyard challenged for cause; (3) the trial court erred in denying Henyard's motions to suppress his statement to the police because the interrogating officers failed to honor Henyard's request to cease questioning in violation of his right to remain silent under article I, section 9 of the Florida Constitution; (4) the trial court abused its discretion in admitting DNA evidence which was not supported by a proper predicate of reliability; (5) the trial court erred by (a) allowing the State, during voir dire, to tell prospective jurors that if the evidence of aggravators outweighed the evidence of mitigators then the jury's sentence recommendation must be for death as a matter of law, and (b) suggesting during closing argument that Henyard never admitted to raping Lewis when, in fact, he did confess to raping her in his third confession to police on the day after the murders; (6) the trial court erred in allowing a police officer to testify as to hearsay statements Lewis made to him when he came to her aid after the offense; (7) the trial court erred by giving the standard jury instructions on premeditated murder and reasonable doubt, and by failing to give the jury a special verdict form on the theory of guilt; (8) the trial court erred during the penalty phase by (a) instructing the jury on the avoid arrest aggravator, (b) expressly considering as an aggravator, and allowing the jury to hear, evidence of Henyard's prior juvenile adjudication for robbery with a weapon, and (c) allowing Lewis and Leroy Parker to testify at the penalty phase because their testimony did not tend to prove any statutory aggravating circumstance; (9) the trial court abused its discretion in denying Henyard's specially requested penalty-phase jury instruction on the heinous, atrocious or cruel aggravating circumstance, which instructed on "tortuous [sic] intent," and further erred by giving the standard heinous, atrocious or cruel instruction, which is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad; (10) the trial court erred by relying upon two aggravating circumstances-pecuniary gain and heinous, atrocious or cruel-as support for Henyard's death sentences because they were not proven beyond a reasonable doubt; and (11) the death penalty is not proportionally warranted in this case.
Henyard v. State, 883 So.2d 753, 756-57 (Fla.2004). Smalls escaped the risk of the death penalty because of his young age. 689 So.2d at 254. After we affirmed his convictions, Henyard then filed a postconviction motion raising nine claims.1 The trial court denied relief and Henyard appealed to this Court. We affirmed the trial court's denial and denied Henyard's petition for habeas corpus. 883 So.2d at 766. The federal courts have also denied his claims. See Henyard v. Crosby, No. 504CV6210C10GRJ, 2005 WL 1862694, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45525 (M.D.Fla. Aug.2, 2005), aff'd sub nom. Henyard v. McDonough, 459 F.3d 1217 (11th Cir. 2006); cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 1818, 167 L.Ed.2d 328 (2007).
On July 9, 2008, Governor Charlie Crist signed a death warrant, setting Henyard's execution for 6 p.m., September 23, 2008. Prior to the signing of the death warrant, on October 18, 2007, Henyard had filed a motion to vacate sentence in the trial court. Henyard's motion raised four claims: (1) newly discovered evidence proves Florida's method of lethal injection violates the Eighth Amendment, (2) section 27.702, Florida Statutes is unconstitutional, (3) section 945.10, Florida Statutes is unconstitutional, (4) Florida's death penalty scheme is unreliable and violates the Eighth Amendment based on a September 17, 2006, report of the American Bar Association. On January 8, 2008, the trial court issued on order summarily denying each of Henyard's claims. Additionally, during the pendency of the appeal from that order, Henyard filed a motion to relinquish jurisdiction. We denied Henyard's motion, but provided that Henyard could file a successive postconviction motion to vacate with the circuit court. On August 4, 2008, Henyard filed a successive motion to vacate sentence and for stay of execution raising three claims: (1) newly discovered evidence renders Henyard's death sentence unconstitutionally reliable, (2) Henyard's cumulative mental and emotional deficits establish a constitutional bar to his execution, and (3) Henyard's mental illness at the time of the offense renders his death sentence and execution unconstitutional. On August 14, 2008, the circuit court issued an order summarily denying each of the claims without an evidentiary hearing. We now consider both appeals as well as a petition for all writs relief filed by Henyard in this Court.
We first address Henyard's claim that newly discovered evidence renders his death sentence unreliable. We agree with ...
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