Reed v. State

• Citation: 875 So.2d 415
• Decision Date: 15 April 2004
• Docket Number: No. SC03-558., No. SC02-2191
• Parties: Grover REED, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. Grover Reed, Petitioner, v. James V. Crosby, Jr., etc., Respondent.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Florida

875 So.2d 415

Grover REED, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

Grover Reed, Petitioner, v. James V. Crosby, Jr., etc., Respondent.

Nos. SC02-2191, SC03-558.

Supreme Court of Florida.

April 15, 2004.

Rehearing Denied June 3, 2004.

Christopher J. Anderson, Atlantic Beach, FL, for Appellant/Petitioner.

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

PER CURIAM.

Grover Reed appeals an order of the circuit court denying a motion for postconviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850 and petitions the Court for a writ of habeas corpus. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), (9), Fla. Const. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the circuit court's order and deny the petition.

BACKGROUND

On direct appeal, this Court summarized the underlying facts of Reed's crimes as follows:

In December of 1985 Reed, accompanied by his woman friend and two young children, arrived in Jacksonville homeless and destitute. Through Traveler's Aid they were given shelter in the home of the Reverend Ervin Oermann, a Lutheran minister. They stayed with Reverend Oermann and his wife, Betty, for just over a week but were asked to leave when Reverend Oermann discovered that Reed had drug paraphernalia. However, Reed continued to receive aid from the Oermanns in the form of money and transportation. Eventually the Oermanns began to feel they were being used and withdrew all support. Reed resented the discontinuance of aid and vowed to get even.

On February 27, 1986, Reverend Oermann returned home from a night class and found his wife, Betty, dead on the living room floor. An autopsy showed she had been strangled, raped, and stabbed repeatedly in the throat. Found in the house was a distinctive baseball cap. For some time this cap was the only lead police had, so they produced a television recreation of the crime and showed the cap. One viewer recognized the cap as being much like one Reed wore. Further investigation revealed that Reed was last seen wearing his cap on the day Mrs. Oermann was killed. Ultimately, he was arrested.

The most significant evidence of Reed's guilt may be summarized as follows:

(a) Witnesses said they had seen Reed wearing his baseball cap on the day of the murder before the probable time of death but not thereafter. They positively identified the cap as Reed's because of the presence of certain stains and mildew.

(b) Reed's fingerprints were found on checks that had been taken from the Oermann home and had been found in the yard.

(c) An expert witness gave testimony that hairs found on the body and in the baseball cap were consistent with Reed's hair.

(d) Another expert witness gave testimony that the semen found in the body could have been Reed's.

(e) Reed's cellmate, Nigel Hackshaw, gave testimony that Reed had admitted breaking into the Oermann house and killing Mrs. Oermann.

The jury found Reed guilty [of first-degree murder, sexual battery, and robbery]. Neither side presented additional evidence in the penalty phase. After hearing arguments by counsel, the jury recommended death by an eleven-to-one vote. The judge delayed sentencing in order that a presentence investigation could be completed. After receiving the PSI and after considering additional mitigating evidence presented by Reed, the trial judge sentenced him to death. The judge found six aggravating factors [n.] and nothing in mitigation.

[n.] They were: (1) The defendant was previously convicted of other felonies involving the use or threat of violence to the person. (2) The capital felony was committed while the defendant was engaged in the commission of sexual battery. (3) The capital felony was committed for the purpose of avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest. (4) The capital felony was committed for pecuniary gain. (5) The capital felony was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel. (6) The capital felony was committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner without any pretense of moral or legal justification.

Reed v. State, 560 So.2d 203, 204-05 (Fla. 1990). On direct appeal, this Court affirmed Reed's convictions and death sentence, striking two aggravating circumstances, cold, calculated, and premeditated (CCP) and prior violent felony convictions, but holding that the elimination of those aggravating circumstances would not have affected Reed's sentence because there remained four aggravating circumstances balanced against a total absence of mitigating circumstances. Id. at 207.

In 1992, Reed filed a Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850 motion for postconviction relief, which the circuit court summarily denied. On appeal, this Court remanded for the circuit court to hold an evidentiary hearing on Reed's ineffective assistance of counsel claims¹ and affirmed the denial of all other claims. See Reed v. State, 640 So.2d 1094 (Fla.1994). Thereafter, various administrative and practical matters appear to have delayed the proceedings. However, in 1996, Reed filed an amended motion, the State responded, and the circuit court eventually held a Huff² hearing in August 2001 and an evidentiary hearing on February 19-22, 2002. After the Huff hearing, the circuit court summarily denied four of Reed's ineffective assistance claims³ and denied all other claims after the evidentiary hearing.⁴ Reed now appeals the circuit court's denial of twelve of his postconviction claims and petitions this Court for a writ of habeas corpus.

RULE 3.850 APPEAL

Reed's first claim is that the circuit court erred in summarily denying his claim of ineffective assistance regarding his trial counsel's failure to object to peremptory strikes of several African-American jurors by the State. As this Court noted on direct appeal:

During the course of voir dire, the prosecutor used eight of his ten peremptory strikes to excuse blacks from the jury. After both sides had expended their peremptories, defense counsel moved for a mistrial pursuant to State v. Neil, 457 So.2d 481 (Fla.1984). At this point, Mr. Bateh, the prosecutor, asked to explain his reasons for striking the jurors. The court stated:

Anyway, I'm well aware if the court determines that there's a prima facie showing of exclusion of jurors on a racial basis that it requires the State to make some showing to the court as to why they excluded them for other than racial basis, which Mr. Bateh is volunteering to do without me making a finding is what I understand you're saying.

After listening to the prosecutor's explanation for striking the black jurors, the following discussion ensued:

THE COURT: All right. The state, of course, has submitted to a voluntary Neil inquiry, in essence, in this regard without the Court making an initial determination that it was necessary. The two observations— and I don't have the statistics in front of me, but—and I'm not basing this decision on statistics, but I think we're all aware that somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 percent of the population of the registration in Duval County is black. I'm not sure those are accurate, but I think it's in that neighborhood. The composition of this jury right now, the present composition of the 12 jurors, there's two, which makes 16 and two-thirds of the jury is black of the 12. There's no blacks as far as alternates are concerned. Might I assume the victim in the case is white?

MR. BATEH: That's correct, Your Honor.

MR. NICHOLS: Yes, sir.

THE COURT: The defendant is white. I don't question his standing to raise the question. There is a standing to raise the question, but taking the representations of Mr. Bateh, I find that the challenges exercised against the blacks are not based purely upon race or racial discrimination and, consequently, I will deny any motion for a mistrial or more properly, probably, a motion to strike the entire panel, but, at any rate, I deny the motion on that basis.

Reed, 560 So.2d at 205. Reed argues that, after the prosecutor gave nonracially prejudicial reasons for the strikes, his trial counsel rendered deficient performance by not following up and pointing out that the prosecutor's reasons were illogical. However, it is clear from the above summary of these proceedings that trial counsel objected to the strikes, and the trial court took the objection into consideration. Although Reed alleges his counsel did not make a strong enough argument that the jurors were challenged because of their race, the trial court apparently assumed arguendo that that a prima facie showing had been made and nonetheless found the prosecutor's reasons sufficient. Furthermore, Reed raised the issue on direct appeal, arguing the prosecutor's reasons did not meet the race-neutral test mandated in Neil. Reed's brief to this Court challenged the validity of each of the specific reasons given by the prosecutor, and this Court found the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Reed's motion for mistrial. Thus, this issue has been litigated and was properly found to be procedurally barred, "even if couched in ineffective assistance language." Johnson v. Singletary, 695 So.2d 263, 265 (Fla.1996).

Reed's second claim is that the circuit court erred in finding no ineffective assistance of counsel regarding his trial counsel's failure to retain a hair expert. With regard to this and all other ineffective assistance claims, the test to be applied by the circuit court is two-pronged: the defendant must show both that trial counsel's performance was deficient and that the defendant was prejudiced by the deficiency. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Additionally, this Court's standard of review is two-pronged: (1) this Court must defer to the circuit court's findings on factual issues so long as competent, substantial evidence supports them; but (2) must review de novo ultimate conclusions on the deficiency and prejudice prongs. See Stephens v. State...