Martin v. State

• Decision Date: 06 May 2021
• Docket Number: No. SC18-896,SC18-896
• Citation: 322 So.3d 25
• Parties: David James MARTIN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

322 So.3d 25

David James MARTIN, Appellant,

v.STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC18-896

Supreme Court of Florida.

May 6, 2021

Rick A. Sichta of The Sichta Firm, LLC, Jacksonville, Florida, for Appellant

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Charmaine M. Millsaps, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, for Appellee

PER CURIAM.

David James Martin challenges the denial of his second and third amended motions to vacate judgment and sentence, filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. Among other things, we address the standard for evaluating postconviction claims of juror misconduct based on the juror's nondisclosure of information during voir dire.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In 2008, a grand jury indicted Martin on one count of first-degree murder and one count of armed robbery. Martin v. State , 107 So. 3d 281, 287 (Fla. 2012). Jury selection for Martin's trial began in November 2009. During voir dire, the prosecuting attorney asked the potential jurors about prior arrests, including prior arrests of the potential jurors’ close friends or family members. Many of the potential jurors revealed prior arrests and convictions, including DUI convictions, in response to the prosecutor's questions, but juror Smith—one of the potential jurors who eventually served at trial—remained silent throughout the voir dire questioning. The prosecuting attorney then asked if any of the potential jurors, or any of their close friends or family members, had been victims of violent crime. Again, juror Smith remained silent. As we explain later, in actuality juror Smith as a minor had been adjudicated delinquent for sexual battery in 1985; he had a 1992 DUI conviction; and, in 1977 or 1978 (when juror Smith was 10 years old), his grandmother murdered his grandfather.

At trial, evidence was presented showing that on the day of the murder, the victim, Jacey McWilliams, told her mother and a coworker that she was spending that evening with a friend named "David." Id. at 288. When Jacey's mother reported Jacey missing a few days later, the police began investigating. Id. at 287. Martin was arrested for shoplifting in Pinellas County, and officers confirmed that he had possession of Jacey's vehicle and had purchased food and tried to withdraw cash using Jacey's ATM card. Id. at 288-89.

In a recorded interview, officers questioned Martin about Jacey's whereabouts. Id. at 288. At first, Martin told the interrogating detectives that Jacey let him borrow her car, and that she was alive when he last saw her. Id. But Martin's story changed gradually over the course of the interview, and eventually he confessed to murdering Jacey. Id. He told the detectives that while he was out with Jacey on the night in question, he was also communicating via text with his girlfriend. Id. at 289. The girlfriend was upset about Martin being out with another woman. So, under pretense of getting a cigarette from Jacey's vehicle, Martin got a hammer, returned to Jacey, and bludgeoned her to death with it. Id. He said that he hid Jacey's body and then drove her car to St. Petersburg to see his girlfriend, who described him as "giddy" when he arrived. Id.

The State presented Martin's videotaped confession at trial, plus police testimony about the evidence of guilt law enforcement obtained during the investigation. One of the State's witnesses testified that the police tracked Martin's cell phone and learned that on the night of the murder, Martin's cell phone communicated with cell phone towers located near the crime scene.

Against the advice of counsel, Martin testified on his own behalf. Id. at 290. He told the jury that the confession he gave during the police interview was false. Id. Martin testified that another individual—a drug-dealing acquaintance named Michael Gregg—was with Martin and Jacey on the night in question, and that it was Gregg who killed Jacey while Martin watched in horror. Id. Martin claimed that he lied to police because Gregg threatened to harm Martin's loved ones if he told anyone what happened. Id.

The jury found Martin guilty of first-degree murder and armed robbery, id. at 291, and the trial court sentenced Martin to death and to thirty years in prison, respectively, id. at 292.¹ We affirmed Martin's convictions and sentences, id. at 325,² and his judgment became final in June 2013 when the United States Supreme Court denied review, see Martin v. Florida , 570 U.S. 908, 133 S.Ct. 2832, 186 L.Ed.2d 890 (2013).

In June 2014, Martin filed a motion for postconviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851.³ Later that year, he filed an amended motion, adding a claim that trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to ascertain that juror Smith concealed a DUI conviction during voir dire. In its answer to Martin's amended 3.851 motion, the State asserted that this ineffective assistance claim should be explored at an evidentiary hearing. In January 2017, Martin filed a second amended postconviction motion, adding a claim that his sentence was illegal under this Court's decision in Hurst v. State , 202 So. 3d 40 (Fla. 2016). The postconviction court granted Martin a new penalty phase hearing but summarily denied his guilt phase claims.

Martin filed a motion for rehearing, and the postconviction court withdrew its previous order and entered a new order, granting an evidentiary hearing on Martin's ineffective assistance of counsel claim relating to juror Smith's concealment of information. Then, postconviction discovery documents produced by the State showed that juror Smith had a juvenile delinquency adjudication for sexual battery—another fact Smith failed to disclose during voir dire. Based on this new information, the court granted Martin leave to interview juror Smith.

While deposing juror Smith, Martin's postconviction counsel asked Smith if he had omitted anything else during voir dire, and Smith admitted that when he was a child, his grandmother was convicted of murdering his grandfather. Based on the information obtained during the deposition, Martin filed a third amended rule 3.851 motion, incorporating the claims raised in his previous motion and adding a new ground for relief based on what Martin described as "newly discovered evidence." Specifically, Martin alleged that in addition to concealing a prior DUI conviction, juror Smith concealed a juvenile sexual battery adjudication and the fact that his grandfather had been murdered by Smith's grandmother. Martin argued that this newly discovered evidence of juror misconduct entitled him to postconviction relief.

At the evidentiary hearing on that claim, juror Smith testified that he had indeed failed to disclose his criminal history and grandfather's murder in response to relevant voir dire questions asked by the prosecuting attorney. He further disclosed (for the first time) that his uncle had also been implicated in the murder of Smith's grandfather. Juror Smith insisted, however, that he never deliberately lied and that he did not remember hearing the relevant voir dire questions when they were asked. He also said he was not sure if he ever spent a night in jail for his crimes (the relevant question on voir dire had been about arrests for crimes "where someone had to go to jail at least overnight"). He further testified that the matters he failed to disclose were not on his mind during Martin's trial, and he swore he decided the case on the evidence. Martin's trial counsel testified at the evidentiary hearing that he likely would have attempted a cause challenge or used a peremptory strike if he had known of juror Smith's dishonesty at the time of trial. Trial counsel's testimony at the evidentiary hearing was unclear as to whether he would have attempted to strike juror Smith based on the underlying facts themselves, separate from Smith's dishonesty.

After the evidentiary hearing, the postconviction court entered a new order, again granting Martin a new penalty phase hearing (based on Hurst error) and again denying all of Martin's guilt phase claims. The court denied Martin's claim that trial counsel had failed to adequately question juror Smith or file a motion for new trial based on Smith's failure to disclose his DUI conviction, ruling that this ineffective assistance claim failed for lack of actual bias on the face of the trial record, citing Carratelli v. State , 961 So. 2d 312, 324 (Fla. 2007). As to Martin's "newly discovered evidence" claim, the court applied the newly discovered evidence test articulated in Jones v. State , 709 So. 2d 512, 521 (Fla. 1998), and found that although Smith's juvenile adjudication and grandfather's murder could not have been discovered at the time of trial by the use of diligence, the evidence of Smith's juror misconduct was not of such a nature that it would probably produce an acquittal on retrial.

Martin now appeals the postconviction court's order, arguing that the court erred in denying his claim of newly discovered juror misconduct.⁴ Martin further argues that the court erred in summarily denying four of his guilt phase ineffective assistance of counsel claims,⁵ and that the cumulative effect of all errors requires a new trial. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.

ANALYSIS

I. Juror Smith's Concealment of Information During Voir Dire

It is well established that "the right to jury trial guarantees to the criminally accused a fair trial by a panel of impartial, ‘indifferent’ jurors. The failure to accord an accused a fair hearing violates even the minimal standards of due process." Irvin v. Dowd , 366 U.S. 717, 722, 81 S.Ct. 1639, 6 L.Ed.2d 751 (1961) (citing In re Oliver , 333 U.S. 257, 68 S.Ct. 499, 92 L.Ed. 682 (1948) ; Tumey v. Ohio , 273 U.S. 510, 47 S.Ct. 437, 71 L.Ed. 749 (1927) ). The right to an impartial jury trial is secured by the Sixth Amendment and by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Morgan v....