Howell v. State

• Citation: 877 So.2d 697
• Decision Date: 06 May 2004
• Docket Number: No. SC03-103.,SC03-103.
• Parties: Paul Augustus HOWELL, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Florida

877 So.2d 697

Paul Augustus HOWELL, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC03-103.

Supreme Court of Florida.

May 6, 2004.

Rehearing Denied June 25, 2004.

Clyde M. Taylor, Jr., and Baya Harrison, III, Associate Counsel, Tallahassee, FL, for Appellant.

Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, and Charmaine M. Millsaps, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, for Appellee.

PER CURIAM.

Howell appeals the denial of his motion for postconviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. Howell asserts that trial counsel was ineffective in declining to present evidence, in support of a defense of intervening cause in the guilt phase and as nonstatutory mitigation in the penalty phase, that the victim in this case, a Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) trooper, violated agency policy in conducting a search of the package containing the bomb that caused the trooper's death. Howell also asserts that his sentence is unconstitutional in light of recent United States Supreme Court decisions. For the reasons that follow, we reject both contentions and affirm the denial of the motion for postconviction relief.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Most of the pertinent facts from trial are contained in this Court's opinion in the direct appeal:

In January of 1992, Howell constructed a bomb for the specific purpose of killing Tammie Bailey at her home in Marianna, Florida. Bailey, Howell, and Howell's brother, Patrick, were part of a drug ring involving a number of other individuals in which drugs were obtained in Fort Lauderdale and then sold in Marianna, Florida. Howell intended to eliminate Bailey as a witness because she had knowledge that could link Howell and his brother to a prior murder. The bomb was placed inside a microwave oven and then the oven was gift-wrapped. Howell paid Lester Watson to drive and deliver the microwave to Bailey. Although he knew that Howell had often made pipe bombs, Watson testified that he thought the microwave contained drugs. Howell rented a car for Watson to use for the trip. Watson was accompanied on the trip by Curtis Williams.

While traveling on I-10 toward Marianna, Watson was stopped by Trooper Jimmy Fulford for speeding. Fulford ran a registration check on the car and a license check on Watson, who gave the trooper a false name and birth date because he did not have a valid driver's license. The radio dispatcher contacted the car rental company and was informed that Howell had rented the car. The dispatcher contacted Howell at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to determine whether the rental car had been stolen from him. Howell told the dispatcher that he had loaned the car to Watson but did not know that Watson would be traveling so far with the vehicle. Howell was informed by the dispatcher that Watson was going to be taken to the Jefferson County Jail. Howell did not give any warning to the dispatcher regarding the bomb.

Deputies Harrell and Blount of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department arrived at the scene and Watson gave them permission to search the vehicle. Trooper Fulford and the deputies observed the gift-wrapped microwave in the trunk of the car. Watson was arrested for speeding and driving without a valid driver's license and was transported, along with Williams, to the jail by Deputy Blount. Deputy Harrell also proceeded to the jail, leaving Trooper Fulford alone with the rental car. Shortly thereafter, a massive explosion took place at the scene. Testimony presented at Howell's trial by the State's explosives expert indicated that Trooper Fulford had been holding the microwave in his hands when the bomb went off. Trooper Fulford died instantly due to the massive trauma caused by the explosion.

Howell v. State, 707 So.2d 674, 676 (Fla.1998).

Attorney Frank Sheffield was appointed to represent Howell both in the state prosecution for the murder of Trooper Fulford and in a related federal drug conspiracy prosecution. The federal case was tried first. Sheffield withdrew from the federal case after jury selection because his wife received a phone call threatening Sheffield if Howell "goes down." Id. at 678. Sheffield remained counsel in the state murder prosecution, and the case went to trial nine months after the threat was made. Id. at 678-79. Because an impartial jury could not be impaneled in Jefferson County, where Trooper Fulford was killed, the trial was transferred to Escambia County. The jury found Howell guilty of first-degree murder and of making, possessing, placing, or discharging a bomb. In a special verdict, the jury also found that Howell committed both premeditated and felony murder.¹ In the penalty phase, the jury recommended death by a vote of ten to two. The trial court concluded that the aggravating circumstances far outweighed the mitigating circumstances and imposed death for the murder. See id. at 676-77.²

On direct appeal, this Court affirmed Howell's convictions and death sentence. See id. at 679. The Court rejected Howell's guilt-phase claim that the trial court erred in refusing to appoint different counsel or a second attorney. The Court also rejected Howell's challenge to the aggravators of knowingly creating a great risk to many persons, commission of the murder to prevent arrest, CCP, and that the victim was a law enforcement officer engaged in official duties. See id. at 680-82. Addressing the claim that Howell did not knowingly kill a law enforcement officer, this Court stated:

[Howell] had knowledge that Lester Watson had been arrested and that law enforcement officers had custody of the car. At the time the dispatcher called Howell to ask whether the rental car had been stolen, Howell chose not to warn the officers of the lethal bomb in the trunk. Based on this knowledge, Howell knew or could have reasonably foreseen that law enforcement personnel would search the vehicle and its contents and thereby detonate the bomb. We find that this aggravator was properly found by the trial court.

Id. at 682. Finally, this Court held that the death penalty was not disproportionate. See id. at 682-83.

Howell's initial postconviction counsel filed a "shell" motion for postconviction relief, and successor counsel filed an amended motion. Many of the claims initially raised were abandoned below, and only two issues are presented in this appeal: (1) whether trial counsel was ineffective in both the guilt and penalty phases in failing to assert that the trooper's violation of FHP procedures in opening the package containing the bomb constituted an intervening cause, and (2) whether Florida's death penalty is unconstitutional under Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002), and Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000).

The trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing on the first of these claims. Attorney William Pfeiffer testified that he represented Howell in his federal drug conspiracy trial. Pfeiffer assumed representation in the federal case after jury selection and three days before trial when Sheffield, who had previously been appointed counsel, withdrew. Based on a policy statement in an FHP manual that officers were not permitted to search closed and wrapped containers, Pfeiffer moved in the federal trial to suppress the physical evidence concerning the explosion that killed Fulford. The motion was denied on grounds that Howell lacked standing to contest the search because the vehicle that he rented was not in his possession.

Sheffield testified that he withdrew from the federal case because of the threat communicated to his wife just before trial. Sheffield testified that he remained Howell's counsel on the state murder case, which was tried nine months after the threat, because tensions had subsided and because he was both more experienced than Pfeiffer in murder cases and more familiar with this particular case. In the murder trial, Sheffield originally considered an insanity defense, but it did not "materialize." He also considered and rejected raising any guilt- or penalty-phase issue that would have blamed Fulford for his own death. The theory of defense used at trial was that Howell did not make the bomb, based on an assertion that several of the witnesses who identified him as the bombmaker were not credible because they made deals with the State for lesser sentences. Sheffield also attempted to shift the blame to Watson, who was "the most guilty because he knew exactly what was in the package, and he was the one that was standing looking Trooper Fulford in the eye, and he didn't say anything."

Sheffield said he rejected an "intervening cause" argument in both the guilt and penalty phases despite his belief that Fulford violated FHP policy in opening the package. Among the considerations that influenced counsel's decision was the fact that although Howell was contacted by the FHP dispatcher during the stop of Watson and was told that the car rented in his name would be impounded, Howell did not give any warning about the bomb in the microwave oven. Sheffield also stated that it was his understanding that the package would be searched at some point, either on the side of the road or at an impound lot. Moreover, although the trial was moved from Jefferson County, where passions ran high, the case was tried in Escambia County, where in Sheffield's experience the jurors tended to be "very law-and-order, very pro-prosecution oriented." Sheffield stated that after discussion with Howell, he did argue to the jury that there was no intent to kill an officer.

In light of these considerations, Sheffield maintained that any argument that Fulford was responsible for his own death was "no defense" or, at best, a legal argument that would have resulted in a unanimous death recommendation rather than the ten-to-two death recommendation actually rendered. Accordingly, trial counsel did not...