Sweet v. State, SC00-1509.

• Decision Date: 31 January 2002
• Docket Number: No. SC00-1509.,SC00-1509.
• Citation: 810 So.2d 854
• Parties: William Earl SWEET, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

810 So.2d 854

William Earl SWEET, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC00-1509.

Supreme Court of Florida.

January 31, 2002.

Michael P. Reiter, Capital Collateral Counsel-Northern Region, John M. Jackson, Assistant CCRC, and Kimberly L. Sharkey, Assistant CCRC-Northern Region, Tallahassee, FL, for Appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and Barbara J. Yates, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, for Appellee.

PER CURIAM.

William Earl Sweet appeals the trial court's denial of postconviction relief after an evidentiary hearing. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons stated below, we affirm the trial court's order denying Sweet postconviction relief.

Sweet, who was twenty-three years old at the time of the offenses, was convicted of first-degree murder, three counts of attempted first-degree murder, and burglary. See Sweet v. State, 624 So.2d 1138, 1139 (Fla.1993)

. The facts of the crime are detailed in this Court's opinion on direct appeal.

On June 6, 1990, Marcine Cofer was attacked in her apartment and beaten and robbed by three men. She could identify two of the men by their street names. On June 26, 1990, she was taken by Detective Robinson to the police station to look at pictures to attempt to identify the third assailant. When Robinson dropped Cofer off at her apartment, William Sweet was standing nearby and saw her leave the detective. Unknown to Cofer, Sweet had previously implicated himself in the robbery by telling a friend that he had committed the robbery or that he had ordered it done. Cofer asked her next-door neighbor, Mattie Bryant, to allow the neighbor's daughters, Felicia, thirteen, and Sharon, twelve, to stay with Cofer in her apartment that night. Mattie agreed, and the children went over to Cofer's apartment around 8 p.m.

At approximately 1 a.m. that evening, Sharon was watching television in the living room of Cofer's apartment when she heard a loud kick on the apartment door. She reported this to Cofer, who was sleeping in the bedroom, but because the person had apparently left, Cofer told Sharon not to worry about it and went back to sleep. Shortly thereafter, Sharon saw someone pulling on the living room screen. She awakened Cofer. The two then went to the door of the apartment, looked out the peephole, and saw Sweet standing outside. Sweet called Cofer by name and ordered her to open the door.

At Cofer's direction, Felicia pounded on the bathroom wall to get Mattie's attention in the apartment next door, and a few minutes later Mattie came over. The four then lined up at the door, with Cofer standing in the back of the group. When they opened the door to leave, Sweet got his foot in the door and forced his way into the apartment. Sweet's face was partially covered by a pair of pants. He first shot Cofer and then shot the other three people, killing Felicia. Six shots were fired. Cofer, Mattie, and Sharon were shot in the thigh, ankle and thigh, and buttocks, respectively, and Felicia was shot in the hand and in the abdomen.

Id. The jury recommended a sentence of death by a vote of ten to two, and the trial court followed this recommendation. See id. The trial court found four aggravators¹ and no statutory mitigators, but found as a nonstatutory mitigating circumstance that Sweet "lacked true parental guidance as a teenager." Id. at 1142.²

On direct appeal, this Court affirmed Sweet's convictions and sentence of death. See id. at 1143.³ Sweet timely filed a motion for postconviction relief on August 1,1995, and filed an amended motion on June 30, 1997, raising twenty-eight claims.⁴ A Huff⁵ hearing was held on February 20, 1998. The trial court granted an evidentiary hearing, which was held from January 25 through January 28, 1999, on the following four claims: (1) trial counsel, Charlie Adams, failed to investigate and present evidence of other suspects; (2) Adams failed to present, as potentially mitigating evidence, Sweet's background history; (3) Adams failed to present background information to the mental health experts; and (4) the mental health experts conducted an inadequate evaluation. The trial court summarily denied Sweet's remaining claims. After the evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied relief on the four remaining claims. Sweet now appeals the trial court's denial of postconviction relief, raising six issues for this Court's review.⁶

1. INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL DURING GUILT PHASE

In order to establish an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, a defendant must prove two elements:

First, the defendant must show that counsel's performance was deficient. This requires showing that counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the "counsel" guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment. Second, the defendant must show that the deficient performance prejudiced the defense. This requires showing that counsel's errors were so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable. Unless a defendant makes both showings, it cannot be said that the conviction or death sentence resulted from a breakdown in the adversary process that renders the result unreliable.

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984); see also Rutherford v. State, 727 So.2d 216, 219-20 (Fla.1998)

. To establish deficiency, "the defendant must show that counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness" based on "prevailing professional norms." Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688,

104 S.Ct. 2052. To establish prejudice "[t]he defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome." Id. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Ineffective assistance claims present a mixed question of law and fact which is subject to plenary review. See Stephens v. State, 748 So.2d 1028, 1032 (Fla.1999). "This requires an independent review of the trial court's legal conclusions, while giving deference to the trial court's factual findings." State v. Riechmann, 777 So.2d 342, 350 (Fla.2000). Moreover, because the "Strickland standard requires establishment of both prongs, where a defendant fails to make a showing as to one prong, it is not necessary to delve into whether he has made a showing as to the other prong." Waterhouse v. State, 792 So.2d 1176, 1182 (Fla.2001).

In Sweet's first claim, he asserts that the trial court erred in denying his ineffective assistance claim during the guilt phase with regard to Adams' failure to investigate and present evidence of other suspects and individuals who would have refuted the State witnesses' identification of Sweet as the shooter. Sweet contends that his theory of defense was that he was innocent and that the State's witnesses misidentified him as the shooter. Sweet claims that three witnesses—Dale George, Jesse Gaskins, and Anthony McNish—were available to either identify other individuals as the shooter or to establish that Sweet was not the shooter, and that trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to utilize these witnesses at trial.

As to Dale George, Sweet contends that Adams rendered ineffective assistance in failing to investigate George as a suspect. George was Marcine Cofer's boyfriend, and he lived with Cofer at the time of the shooting. Sweet maintains that Adams rendered ineffective assistance in failing to investigate George as a possible suspect for several reasons. First, Adams had police reports containing several domestic violence petitions that Cofer filed against George, alleging that George had threatened to kill her and that Cofer feared for her life. Second, the evidence at trial showed that in the afternoon preceding the night of the shooting, George took the clip out of Cofer's gun. Third, evidence was presented at trial that George was involved in drug-dealing activity with Cofer, and Sweet alleges that this could have provided an alternative motive for the shooting. Fourth, the State's theory of prosecution in this case originated with George, and Sweet contends that this should have raised a red flag that a potential suspect was trying to shift the blame to another.

Although Adams' theory of defense in this case was that someone else killed the victim, Adams never put on evidence of other suspects at trial. At the evidentiary hearing, Adams admitted that evidence of other potential suspects would have been helpful. However, Adams stated that he never considered George a suspect because there was no credible reason why Cofer and her neighbor, Sharon Bryant, could not identify George if he was the shooter. Bill Salmon, who was accepted at the evidentiary hearing as an expert on capital cases, stated that the failure to investigate George as a suspect presented a "close question" as to whether Adams acted deficiently. Salmon ultimately concluded, however, that Adams should have presented George to the jury as an alternative suspect. At a minimum, Salmon concluded, Adams should have investigated and considered George before making the determination of whether George should take the stand.

In rejecting Sweet's contention that Adams rendered ineffective assistance in failing to investigate George as a potential suspect, the trial court explained:

In the defendant's second claim under this ground, he alleges that counsel failed to investigate other possible suspects who would have had a motive to kill Marcine Cofer.... The only other person that the defendant suggests had a motive to kill Cofer was Dale George. Dale George was not only Cofer's boyfriend, he lived with Cofer, and he was known to Sharon Bryant. There was no evidence presented as to why George would have had any problem getting into the home that he lived in, as did the murderer, nor why either

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