Kocaker v. State
| Citation | 311 So.3d 814 |
| Decision Date | 23 January 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. SC18-878,No. SC17-1975,SC17-1975,SC18-878 |
| Parties | Genghis Nicholas KOCAKER, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. Genghis Nicholas Kocaker, Petitioner, v. Mark S. Inch, etc., Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Eric Pinkard, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, and Julissa R. Fontán, Chelsea R. Shirley, and Kara Ottervanger, Assistant Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, Middle Region, Temple Terrace, Florida, for Appellant/Petitioner
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, and Christina Z. Pacheco, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, Florida, for Appellee/Respondent
Genghis Nicholas Kocaker appeals an order of the circuit court dismissing in part, denying in part, and granting in part his initial motion to vacate his conviction of first-degree murder and sentence of death, filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851. Kocaker also petitions this Court for a writ of habeas corpus. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), (9) Fla. Const. As explained below, we affirm the circuit court's postconviction order and deny Kocaker's habeas petition.
We previously affirmed Kocaker's first-degree murder conviction and death sentence on direct appeal. Kocaker v. State , 119 So. 3d 1214, 1233 (Fla. 2013).1 The evidence at trial showed that Kocaker killed Eric Stanton, a cab driver, by slashing his throat and stabbing him, tying him up in the trunk of Stanton's cab, and then setting the interior of the cab on fire. Stanton died from carbon monoxide poisoning
, but the stab wound was a contributing factor and alone would have killed him. Stanton was breathing during the fire.
On the night of the murder, Stanton picked up Kocaker for a ride and then went out of service twenty-eight minutes later. The next morning, Kocaker called 911, reported that "there's a dead guy in a cab," and left the scene before law enforcement arrived. Our opinion in Kocaker's direct appeal characterized the prosecution's case as consisting of "entirely circumstantial evidence." Id. at 1225. That evidence included: Kocaker's acknowledgement that he had been in Stanton's cab near the time of the murder; Kocaker's false statements about the circumstances surrounding his 911 call, his purported discovery of Stanton's dead body, and his whereabouts on the night of the murder; Kocaker's possession of new-found money soon after the time he had been in Stanton's cab; the presence of items in the cab—a gas can and a shirt soaked in Stanton's blood—that belonged to Kocaker; testimony of witnesses who saw Kocaker wearing a blood-stained T-shirt on the night of the murder; and incriminating statements that Kocaker made to another inmate, among them that Kocaker had "burned somebody" and that he wished he could kill his sister, "too." We will discuss additional facts (including Kocaker's actions between the time of the murder and his call to 911) as necessary in our consideration of Kocaker's claims in this appeal.
Kocaker timely filed his initial motion for postconviction relief, and together with that motion sought a determination of competency. The circuit court appointed experts to examine Kocaker, held an evidentiary hearing, and on March 28, 2016, entered an order finding Kocaker incompetent to proceed. The order committed Kocaker to the care of the Department of Children and Families, which administered competency restoration treatment at the South Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center (SFETC). On June 9, 2016, the SFETC informed the court that Kocaker was competent to proceed. The court again appointed experts, held an evidentiary hearing, and this time found Kocaker competent.
Kocaker included ten claims in his rule 3.851 motion to vacate his conviction and sentence.2 One of those claims asserted Kocaker's entitlement to relief under this Court's decision in Hurst v. State , 202 So. 3d 40 (Fla. 2016), because the jury's recommendation of death in Kocaker's case was nonunanimous (11 to 1). The state conceded that claim, which caused Kocaker's remaining penalty phase claims to become moot. The circuit court vacated Kocaker's death sentence but summarily denied or dismissed Kocaker's remaining claims (either for mootness or on the merits).
Kocaker's principal claim on appeal is that the circuit court erred in finding him competent to proceed in postconviction. We disagree.
In Carter v. State , 706 So. 2d 873, 875 (Fla. 1997), this Court recognized a defendant's limited, due process-based right to a competency determination "when there are reasonable grounds to believe that a capital defendant is incompetent to proceed in postconviction proceedings in which factual matters are at issue, the development or resolution of which require the defendant's input." The burden is on the defendant to identify specific factual issues that require the defendant to competently consult with counsel. Id. We emphasized in Carter that our recognition of this limited right did not absolve collateral counsel of the responsibility to identify and to timely present claims "raising purely legal issues that are of record and claims that do not otherwise require the defendant's input." Id. at 876. Those claims must proceed even if a petitioner is incompetent.
Competency determinations in capital postconviction proceedings are governed by Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851(g), which codifies the limited right that we announced in Carter . The substantive standard for competence to proceed is "whether the defendant has sufficient present ability to consult with counsel with a reasonable degree of rational understanding and whether the defendant has a rational as well as factual understanding of the pending collateral proceedings." Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.851(g)(8)(A). We review a circuit court's competency determination for abuse of discretion, which means that we will not disturb the court's conclusion "unless no reasonable person would take the view adopted by the trial court." Huggins v. State , 161 So. 3d 335, 345 (Fla. 2014) (quoting Scott v. State , 717 So. 2d 908, 911 (Fla. 1998) ).
Consistent with this highly deferential standard of review, we have held that it is the circuit court's responsibility to resolve factual disputes between experts over whether a defendant is competent to proceed. Id. We look to the record for evidentiary support for the circuit court's determination. And where the court's resolution of an evidentiary conflict is supported by competent, substantial evidence, we will not find an abuse of discretion. Id.
Here the circuit court heard about Kocaker's competency from seven expert witnesses: the medical director of and a neuropsychologist from the SFETC; three court-appointed experts; and two defense experts. The SFETC experts opined that Kocaker was competent to proceed, specifically concluding that he did not have a mental illness requiring treatment, that he did not have brain damage or a neurocognitive disorder interfering with his competence, and that Kocaker's neurocognitive testing as a whole placed him in the low-average range. Similarly, one of the court-appointed experts, neuropsychologist Dr. Michael Gamache, also opined that Kocaker was competent. Dr. Gamache testified that he saw no credible evidence that Kocaker suffered from a cognitive disorder
. The remaining experts opined that Kocaker was incompetent to proceed. They variously testified that Kocaker suffered from a neurocognitive impairment, from schizophrenia, from brain disease, and from dementia.
The circuit court found the testimony of the SFETC experts and Dr. Gamache more persuasive. The court found it particularly important that the SFETC experts' opinions were informed by their review of daily observations of Kocaker over the several weeks that he was in treatment at the SFETC. The court also emphasized the results of Kocaker's testing, which showed that he had adequate recall. Finally, the circuit court personally viewed video recordings of each court-appointed expert's evaluation of Kocaker. That exercise led the court to observe that, "despite maintaining details about his personal life that conflict with the record, [Kocaker] remembers a remarkable amount of information about his version of the night of the offense and what occurred at trial."
Kocaker's challenge to the circuit court's competency determination essentially invites us to reweigh the evidence and to ourselves resolve conflicting expert testimony. But that is not our role. Instead, our task here is simply to determine whether any reasonable person could have reached the same conclusion as the circuit court. The court's order finding Kocaker competent easily satisfies that bar. Ample record evidence supports the circuit court's findings, and we see no abuse of discretion.
"An evidentiary hearing must be held on an initial 3.851 motion whenever the movant makes a facially sufficient claim that requires factual determination." Barnes v. State , 124 So. 3d 904, 911 (Fla. 2013). However, summary denial of claims raised in an initial postconviction motion is permissible if the record conclusively demonstrates that the defendant is not entitled to relief. Id. When we review the circuit court's summary denial of an initial rule 3.851 motion, we accept the movant's factual allegations as true and affirm the ruling "only if the filings show that the movant has failed to state a facially sufficient claim, there is no issue of material fact to be determined, the claim should have been brought on direct appeal, or the claim is positively refuted by the record." Id. The summary denial of a rule 3.851 motion presents a pure question of law that we review de novo.
Kocaker murdered Eric Stanton late on a Tuesday night. The prior Sunday, Kocaker had met a crack cocaine dealer named Antoine Powell. Powell sold Kocaker crack and introduced...
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...reweigh the evidence and to ourselves resolve [the] conflicting expert testimony," as it "is not our role" to do so. Kocaker v. State , 311 So. 3d 814, 821 (Fla. 2020).B. The capacity of Bargo to appreciate the criminality of his conduct, or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the......
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