Quinones v. State

• Decision Date: 06 September 2000
• Docket Number: No. 3D00-491.,3D00-491.
• Citation: 766 So.2d 1165
• Parties: Armando QUIÑONES, Petitioner, v. The STATE of Florida, Respondent.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

766 So.2d 1165

Armando QUIÑONES, Petitioner, v. The STATE of Florida, Respondent.

No. 3D00-491.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

September 6, 2000.

Jeffrey P. Raffle, Coral Gables, for petitioner.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General and Paulette R. Taylor, Assistant Attorney General, for respondent.

Before COPE, GREEN and SORONDO, JJ.

SORONDO, J.

This case is before us on a Petition for Writ of Prohibition filed by Armando Quiñones, defendant, after the declaration of a mistrial on the motion of the state in the midst of trial and over defendant's objection. Defendant challenges the trial court's finding of a manifest necessity for the mistrial and now seeks to prohibit retrial on double jeopardy grounds. For the reasons which follow we deny the petition.

The facts of the underlying case are irrelevant to our consideration, we mention only that the defendant was charged by information with aggravated battery for the very serious slashing of the alleged victim with a knife. The defendant claimed that he acted in self-defense.

After several days of trial, the state moved for a mistrial arguing two grounds. First, defense counsel had repeatedly violated the court's pre-trial order in limine forbidding the defense from telling the jury that the alleged victim was incarcerated and otherwise unavailable.¹ Second, defense counsel had produced a knife during his case-in-chief which defendant testified was the knife he used to stab the alleged victim in self-defense. The judge granted the state's motion finding that defense counsel, Alex Michaels', misconduct during trial was so egregious that neither the state nor the defendant could receive a fair trial. Specifically the judge said:

The Court will come to order. Mr. [Prosecutor], you [sic] motion for mistrial based on manifest necessity is hereby granted on the following grounds: The Court finds that at this point it is impossible for either the defendant or the State in this case to receive a fair trial. This Court, and God knows, has labored and labored in this case to try to avoid the type of the result that has happened here.

* * *

I feel that the conduct of the defense attorney in the case has become such that it has made a mockery of this system and made a mockery of this Court.

* * *

Mr. Michaels has consistently disobeyed the rulings of this Court, in which he had asked questions after objections being sustained, causing this jury at this point to be unable to render a just verdict either for the State or for the defense. Specifically, items of directing comments, after warnings by the Court on numerous occasions, personal comments to the agents of the State, who I find acted in this case with the utmost ethical behaviors, both [prosecutors].

Ms. [Prosecutor] was called by a demeaning name during the course of the trial. Mr. [Prosecutor] has been called stupid and incompetent.

This Court has found discovery violations that have occurred, has found those discovery violations to be willful, intentional and prejudicial to the State.

Based on all these grounds, the motion is, granted.

(Emphasis added). The record before us contains ample evidence to support the trial judge's factual conclusions, and to support his finding of a manifest necessity for the declaration of a mistrial over the defendant's objection.²

During the course of what should have been a simple case, defense counsel achieved unprecedented levels of attorney misconduct. Indeed, it is arguable that his intent was not to try the case at all but, rather, to sabotage it. Counsel's misconduct is best addressed as presented by the state in its motion for mistrial: first, repeated disobedience of the trial court's orders, and second, the suppression of physical evidence. His misbehavior unquestionably had a significant impact on the jury.

Defense counsel's disregard for the court's orders was not only unethical but contumacious. During the course of the trial, defense counsel directly and repeatedly ignored the court's ruling that no mention was to be made of the fact that the victim was incarcerated and otherwise unavailable. He also repeatedly ignored evidentiary rulings, repeating comments to which objections had been sustained. In opening statement alone the state objected six times, each time the objection was sustained —each time the ruling was ignored. On numerous occasions counsel made speaking objections which contained improper and prejudicial editorials on the evidence being presented, and his personal, unsubstantiated, suspicions concerning the prosecutors' intent in presenting it. Many of these were made in the presence of the jury. This type of misconduct was not the exception to counsel's behavior, it was the rule.

Along the same line, on more than one occasion, the judge warned counsel to lower the volume of his voice while arguing matters at side bar. Counsel again refused to obey a direct order from the court. At one point, the bailiff, who was seated at the rear of the courtroom by the entrance, felt compelled to approach the bench and warn the judge that he could hear defense counsel's side bar argument from the back of the room. On another occasion, the bailiff alerted the court and counsel that he had been approached by jurors who told him that they could hear the arguments being made in the courtroom when they were in the jury room. We are convinced by the record that defense counsel was purposely raising his voice so as to communicate otherwise impermissible matters to the jury.

Although not at the center of our analysis on the issue presented, counsel's shameful disrespect for the trial court did not end at ignoring evidentiary rulings. He continuously argued with the court well after the court had heard argument and ruled. On more than one occasion counsel went so far as to tell the judge that his rulings were "wrong" and "unfair," gratuitous comments which did not advance legal arguments and could only have been intended to embarrass the court. At one point, counsel told the court that the trial was a "mockery" and "not a real trial." On another occasion he referred to the state's witnesses as "clowns" and moved to dismiss the case as "a joke." Additionally, many arguments were laced with sarcasm clearly intended to mock the trial judge's rulings and instructions.

During trial, although defense counsel was repeatedly ordered not to interrupt the prosecutors while they were addressing the court, he repeatedly interrupted them as well as the judge himself. He was told by the court that he was being disrespectful to the prosecutors and was told to stop that behavior, he ignored this order as well. At one point, the judge reprimanded him for referring to one of the prosecutors as "this lady," and told him to address her by name. Counsel refused, saying that he could not "bring [him]self' to do so.

As the trial court observed, defense counsel was grossly disrespectful to opposing counsel. He repeatedly interrupted their arguments, on one occasion by laughing at them as they were trying to argue their position to the court.³ During the course of the trial he falsely accused the prosecutors of misconduct, called them "liars," "incompetents," accused them of "sleaziness," and, at one point, actually told them to "shut up" as they were arguing their position to the court. Additionally, there were numerous sarcastic remarks directed at them.⁴

The state's second argument in support of their motion for mistrial was defense counsel's suppression of critical evidence. Apparently determined to violate as many ethical rules as possible, during the direct examination of his client, defense counsel reached into his pocket and produced a knife which his client identified as the knife he used to defend himself when he was attacked by the alleged victim. The state immediately objected, arguing that counsel had chosen to participate in discovery and accordingly had an obligation to provide such evidence before trial. The state further argued prejudice because the charge of aggravated battery was predicated on a knife attack which resulted in the savage slashing of the alleged victim.⁵ The knife defense counsel now claimed was the weapon involved, was a pocket knife with a one inch blade, hardly the weapon one would expect to cause so much damage.

LEGAL ANALYSIS

In Thomason v. State, 620 So.2d 1234, 1237 (Fla.1993), the Florida Supreme Court articulated the following general principles:

Because the right not to be subjected to double jeopardy is so important and because it is frustrated when a trial ends before a verdict is reached, the State bears a heavy burden in justifying a mistrial over the objection of a defendant.... Doubt about whether the mistrial is appropriate is resolved "in favor of the liberty of the citizen." ... The State must demonstrate "manifest necessity" for the mistrial, a requirement that has been part of this country's jurisprudence since 1824.... The manifest necessity standard must be applied on a case-by-case basis and cannot be applied mechanically.

(Emphasis added) (Citations omitted). In Thomason, the trial court declared a mistrial sua sponte, over the objections of the defendant and the state, believing that defense counsel was too ill to proceed with the trial. The Supreme Court concluded that the judge had failed to consider available alternatives, in that case the possibility of granting a brief continuance or proceeding with the trial and monitoring the performance of defense counsel among others, and consequently retrial was barred. See id. at 1239-40.

Defendant relies on Thomason and argues that the trial judge in the present case failed to consider alternatives to the declaration of a mistrial. We disagree. In reaching our decision we have looked at the trial transcript in its entirety and not just the single page of the transcript where the ruling appears. The trial judge had previously availed himself of...