Taylor v. State, SC06-615.
| Decision Date | 29 January 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. SC06-615.,No. SC07-1168.,SC06-615.,SC07-1168. |
| Citation | 3 So.3d 986 |
| Parties | Perry Alexander TAYLOR, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. Perry Alexander Taylor, Petitioner, v. Walter A. McNeil, etc., Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Perry Alexander Taylor, Petitioner,
v.
Walter A. McNeil, etc., Respondent.
[3 So.3d 990]
Bill Jennings, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, and David Robert Gemmer, Assistant CCR Counsel, Middle Region, Tampa, FL, for Appellant/Petitioner.
Bill McCollum, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, and Katherine V. Blanco, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, FL, for Appellee/Respondent.
PER CURIAM.
Perry Alexander Taylor appeals an order of the circuit court denying his motion to vacate his conviction of first-degree murder and sentence of death filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851 and petitions this Court for a writ of habeas corpus. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, §§ 3(b)(1), (9), Fla. Const. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the trial court's denial of Taylor's postconviction motion and deny Taylor's petition for writ of habeas corpus.
The facts are taken from this Court's opinions in Taylor's direct appeals.
Taylor was charged with the murder and sexual battery of Geraldine Birch whose severely beaten body was found in a dugout at a little league baseball field. Shoe prints matching Taylor's shoes were found at the scene. Taylor confessed to killing Birch but claimed that the sexual contact was consensual and that the beating from which she died was done in a rage without premeditation. Taylor testified that on the night of the killing, he was standing with a small group of people when Birch walked up. She talked briefly with others in the group and then all but Taylor and a friend walked off. Taylor testified that as he began to walk away, Birch called to him and told him she was trying to get to Sulphur Springs. He told her he did not have a car. She then offered sex in exchange for cocaine and money. Taylor agreed to give her ten dollars in exchange for sex, and the two of them went to the dugout.
Taylor testified that when he and Birch reached the dugout they attempted to have vaginal intercourse for less than a minute. She ended the attempt at intercourse and began performing oral sex on him. According to Taylor, he complained that her teeth were irritating him and attempted to pull away. She bit down on his penis. He choked her in an attempt to get her to release him. After he succeeded in getting her to release her bite, he struck and kicked her several times in anger.
Taylor v. State, 583 So.2d 323, 325 (Fla. 1991) (footnote omitted). "The jury convicted Taylor on both counts. Upon the jury's unanimous recommendation, the trial judge sentenced Taylor to death." Id.
On direct appeal, Taylor raised three issues related to the guilt phase of his trial. Id. at 326. First, that the trial court erred by failing to conduct an inquiry pursuant to State v. Neil, 457 So.2d 481 (Fla.1984), on the State's peremptory challenge of a black prospective juror. Taylor, 583 So.2d at 326. Second, that the trial court erred in excluding testimony that the victim had used crack cocaine. Id. at 328.
Third, that the trial court erred in denying his motion for judgment of acquittal because the State's circumstantial case was legally insufficient to prove sexual battery and premeditation. Id. We rejected these claims and affirmed Taylor's convictions.
Additionally, Taylor raised three issues related to the penalty phase of his trial, but we addressed only one. Id. at 329. We concluded that the prosecution overstepped the bounds of proper argument and we vacated Taylor's sentence and remanded for resentencing. Id. at 330.
At resentencing the jury again recommended death:
The new jury recommended death by an eight to four vote. The judge found the following aggravating factors: (1) Taylor had a previous felony conviction involving the use or threat of violence; (2) the capital felony occurred during the commission of a sexual battery; and (3) the capital felony was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel. The court found no statutory mitigators but did give some weight to Taylor's deprived family background and the abuse he was reported to have suffered as a child. The court considered but gave little weight to Taylor's remorse, to psychological testimony that while Taylor has above-average intelligence, he suffers from an organic brain injury, and to testimony concerning Taylor's good conduct in custody. The judge determined that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating factors and sentenced Taylor to death.
Taylor v. State, 638 So.2d 30, 31-32 (Fla. 1994). Upon review we affirmed Taylor's conviction and sentence. Id. at 33.
Thereafter, Taylor filed a postconviction motion to vacate his judgments of conviction and sentence on March 12, 1996. The trial court held hearings pursuant to Huff v. State, 622 So.2d 982 (Fla.1993), on November 25, 1998, and April 8, 2005. Evidentiary hearings were ordered on two of the claims set out in Taylor's third amended motion to vacate judgments of conviction and sentence and the trial court later issued an order denying all relief.
At the evidentiary hearings held on October 7, 2003, June 7, 2004, June 8, 2004, and March 3, 2005, testimony was heard from Mike Benito, the prosecutor at Taylor's trial; James McNally, Taylor's childhood social worker; Judge Manuel Lopez, penalty phase counsel; Nick Sinardi, trial counsel; Bill Brown, defense trial investigator; Dr. Ronald Wright, forensic pathologist; Dr. Catherine Lynch, obstetrician-gynecologist; Dr. Donald Taylor, adult psychiatrist; Dr. Henry Dee, clinical neuropsychologist; Stanley Graham, Taylor's brother; Edwina Graham, Taylor's mother; Charles Kelly, a jail deputy who had been physically assaulted by Taylor; Howard Ury, who had been a foster child in the same home as Taylor; Dr. Frank Wood, head of neuropsychology at Wake Forest; Dr. William Mosman, forensic psychologist; Dr. Lee Miller, medical examiner; Robert Norgard, mitigation expert; Dr. Jon Kotler, PET scan interpreter; and Dr. Helen Mayberg, PET scan interpreter.
In its sixty-nine page order denying relief, the trial court comprehensively treated each of Taylor's twenty-one claims.1 This appeal follows.
On appeal from the denial of rule 3.850 relief, Taylor first contends that the trial court erred in denying his claims of newly discovered evidence, ineffective assistance of counsel, and his Brady and Giglio claims.
Taylor raised multiple claims concerning Dr. Miller's trial testimony concerning the extensive injuries suffered by the victim. The trial court addressed these claims together, finding Taylor's allegations of recantation by Miller as to the victim's sexual injuries to be an inaccurate characterization of Miller's testimony. The trial court denied these claims, finding no newly discovered evidence, that trial counsel was not deficient, and that any possible deficiencies did not have the cumulative effect of denying Taylor a fair trial.
At trial, Dr. Miller testified that the injuries to the victim's vagina were, within a reasonable degree of medical probability, caused by something "inserted into the vagina which stretched the vagina enough for it to tear over the object that was inserted in there." Dr. Miller further testified that the injuries were inconsistent with someone having kicked the victim. Relying on this evidence, we noted on review that "the medical examiner's testimony contradicted Taylor's version of what happened.... The medical examiner testified that the extensive injuries to the interior and exterior of the victim's vagina were caused by a hand or object other than a penis inserted into the vagina." Taylor, 583 So.2d at 329.
At the postconviction evidentiary hearing, Dr. Miller testified that the injuries sustained were mostly confined to the labia minora and radiated inward, while some were inside the labia minora in "what anyone would describe as the vaginal canal." However, Dr. Miller further testified that the injuries could possibly have been the result of a kick if the blow had been struck where the toe of the shoe actually went into the vagina, stretching it, that any shoe would have been able to penetrate the victim's vagina due to extraversion, but that ultimately the injuries were caused by stretching and not direct impact. Miller testified that the possibility of a kick causing the injury was "a one in a million shot" and that his opinions as expressed at trial had not changed. He attributed any differences in his testimony to differences in the questions being asked and, in some instances more elaboration in exploring possibilities. Taylor contends that had Miller's testimony about a kick possibly causing the vaginal injuries been presented at trial he could not have been convicted of sexual battery or felony murder. Taylor alleges that (1) this is new evidence that requires a new trial, (2) the State withheld this evidence, (3) the State allowed Dr. Miller to present false testimony, or (4) his trial counsel was deficient for
not having discovered this evidence before trial.
In ruling on this issue, the trial court found Taylor's claim of a "supposed recantation" by Dr. Miller of his trial testimony was "not an accurate statement of [Dr. Miller's] testimony." Hence, the trial court concluded Taylor had not actually established the existence of important new evidence of his innocence of sexual battery. We agree.
To obtain a new trial based on newly discovered evidence, Taylor must meet two requirements: first, the evidence must be newly discovered and not have been known by the party or counsel at the time of trial, and the defendant or defense counsel could not have known of it by the use of diligence; second, the newly discovered evidence...
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