Jefferson v. State

• Citation: 264 So.3d 1019
• Decision Date: 28 December 2018
• Docket Number: Case No. 2D18-3646
• Parties: Willie JEFFERSON, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

264 So.3d 1019

Willie JEFFERSON, Petitioner,

v.STATE of Florida, Respondent.

Case No. 2D18-3646

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

Opinion filed December 28, 2018

Rehearing Denied January 30, 2019

Bob Dillinger, Public Defender, and Russell B. Greene, Assistant Public Defender, Clearwater, for Petitioner.

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Helene S. Parnes, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Respondent.

BADALAMENTI, Judge.

Willie Jefferson petitions this court for a writ of prohibition seeking review of the trial court's order summarily denying his motion to dismiss asserting Stand Your Ground immunity from prosecution under sections 776.012(2) and 776.032(1), Florida Statutes (2017). Interpreting the recently amended section 776.032, the Stand Your Ground statute, the trial court held that petitioner's mere claim of entitlement to immunity in a motion to dismiss was insufficient to trigger the State's burden to overcome the claim by clear and convincing evidence. In so holding, the trial court reasoned that "the [S]tate was not required to present any evidence" at an evidentiary hearing to overcome petitioner's Stand Your Ground immunity claim until petitioner presented evidence sufficient to raise a prima facie claim. We hold that the procedure employed by the trial court to deny petitioner Stand Your Ground immunity from criminal prosecution departed from the essential requirements of the law. We thus grant the petition under our certiorari jurisdiction and quash the trial court's order. As will be explained, section 776.032(4) requires the trial court to first determine the facial sufficiency of a petitioner's motion to dismiss asserting a claim for Stand Your Ground immunity, and, if it finds the motion facially sufficient, to then conduct an evidentiary hearing where the State will have the burden to overcome the petitioner's claim by clear and convincing evidence.

Background

In a criminal information, the State charged that petitioner committed second-degree murder of his roommate on September 2, 2017. Petitioner filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.190(b), asserting Stand Your Ground immunity from prosecution because he acted in justifiable self-defense, as defined in section 776.012, in stabbing his roommate.¹

Specifically, the motion asserted that petitioner and his roommate "frequently had alcohol infused arguments" and that during these arguments his roommate regularly armed himself with a baseball bat and threatened to kill petitioner. Because of his roommate's behavior, petitioner kept a knife on his bedside table. As for the day of the events underpinning petitioner's second-degree murder charge, petitioner claimed that he awoke in his bedroom to discover his intoxicated roommate's hand in petitioner's pants pocket, where petitioner kept his money. This triggered a physical struggle between petitioner and his roommate. Petitioner claimed that his roommate was on top of him when they both reached for petitioner's knife. He further claimed that he feared for his life as they struggled over the knife. The struggle continued throughout the residence. While in the living room area, the roommate threatened to throw boiling hot tea at petitioner. The struggle made its way to the backyard, where the men lost their balance and fell to the ground. In the process of falling to the ground, petitioner gained control of the knife and stabbed his roommate, causing the roommate's death. He claimed that he went to the front of the house and flagged down several people to call law enforcement and medical personnel. Petitioner claimed that it was his "firm belief at the time, and remains so to this day, that if he had not killed [his roommate] on September 2, 2017, then [his roommate] would have killed him." The motion further asserted:

The [S]tate will not be able to present any witnesses to the altercation, as there are none. A video surveillance tape will be presented that shows the very end of the altercation as the two of them spill out of the back door of the house, but nothing in regards to the issue of self-defense is proven by the video. The only facts that the [S]tate will be able to prove are that [the roommate] is in fact dead and that [petitioner] is the one who killed him. Because the [S]tate is not able to meet their burden of clear and convincing evidence, [petitioner] is entitled to immunity from prosecution and therefore the information in this case should be dismissed.

The trial court heard argument on the procedure that should be employed pursuant to the newly amended section 776.032 at a Stand Your Ground evidentiary hearing. Petitioner's counsel argued that section 776.032(4) requires only that petitioner raise a prima facie claim of self-defense immunity. Because, petitioner's counsel argued, petitioner's motion raised a facially sufficient prima facie claim, the burden was on the State to overcome that claim by clear and convincing evidence.

The State responded that the filing of the motion to dismiss pursuant to section 776.032 put petitioner's credibility at issue. Accordingly, the State asserted, petitioner must testify under oath and be subject to cross-examination by the State at an evidentiary hearing. This prompted the trial court to ask petitioner's counsel the following question: "[I]f it's the defendant who makes the assertion, why isn't that a waiver of immunity in its cross-examination?" Petitioner's counsel explained that before section 776.032 was amended in 2017, the accused had the burden of proving his entitlement to Stand Your Ground immunity at a hearing on the motion to dismiss. This burden, petitioner's counsel explained, left many with a choice between a statutory right to immunity and a constitutional right against self-incrimination. According to petitioner's counsel, by amending section 776.032 in 2017 to place the burden on the State "to overcome" a criminal defendant's prima facie claim of immunity, the legislature eliminated a criminal defendant's evidentiary burden to prove his entitlement to Stand Your Ground immunity from criminal prosecution.

The trial court then set forth its interpretation of section 776.032(4) as follows:

Well, I'll tell you, the impression I got is that you raise your claim and the State gets to challenge the legal sufficiency of the claim. And if it's somebody other than your client who swears to what the facts are, that's good. But if your client is the one who does it, then I think it's a waiver of immunity to the extent that the claim is submitted and to the extent necessary to disprove the claim....

So in this case, if your client swears to the facts that it's -- to show a prima -- to make a prima facie claim, I think the State gets to question that ... I think it's a two-step process.

If the Court rules on it that it is a prima facie claim, then I think we go to the next stage [where] the State gets to come in and rebut [the claim].

Petitioner's counsel responded that petitioner would not testify at the hearing and that he would rely on the four corners of the motion unless the State was prepared to present witnesses. The trial court subsequently denied petitioner's motion to dismiss in a written order as follows:

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the [petitioner] is required to present evidence prior to the State at a hearing for immunity. The State carries no burden at a pre-trial hearing for immunity until the defense presents evidence subject to cross examination that establishes a prima facie claim. This evidence must be in the form of testimony or physical evidence and must be subject to cross examination by the [S]tate in order to establish that a claim for immunity is valid. A written motion on its face is legally insufficient to raise a prima facie claim for immunity. A written motion that is sworn to by the [petitioner], without live testimony in court subject to cross examination, is legally insufficient to raise a prima facie claim for immunity. The [petitioner] in this case, having presented no evidence or testimony at the hearing for immunity, did not establish a prima facie claim for immunity and the [S]tate was not required to present any evidence.

He subsequently filed a petition for writ of prohibition in our court.

Certiorari Jurisdiction

As an initial matter, prohibition is the appropriate remedy when the appellate court determines on the merits that the defendant is entitled to immunity under the Stand Your Ground law, the reason being that the lower court has no authority to proceed against an immunized defendant. See Little v. State, 111 So.3d 214, 216 n.1 (Fla. 2d DCA 2013) (explaining that "the supreme court has consistently held" that prohibition "is an appropriate vehicle to review orders denying motions to dismiss criminal prosecutions based on immunity"). Here, however, petitioner challenges the procedure the circuit court employed in denying his motion to dismiss, the upshot of which was that the court denied the motion without requiring the State to put on evidence. Consequently, we cannot discern whether petitioner is entitled to immunity on the merits, and therefore prohibition is not the proper vehicle to review the alleged error.

Rather, the trial court's ruling in this case is more properly the subject of a proceeding in certiorari. Although orders denying motions to dismiss based on grounds other than immunity do not normally invoke our certiorari jurisdiction, petitioner complains that the ruling at issue has deprived him of a proper hearing on his claim to immunity from prosecution pursuant to section 776.032(4). Accordingly, we consider his petition under our certiorari jurisdiction. See Fla. R. App. P. 9.040(c) ("If a party seeks an improper remedy, the cause shall be treated as if the proper remedy had been sought; provided that it shall not be the responsibility of the court to seek the proper remedy."); Horn v. State, 17 So.3d 836,...