Wallace v. State
Decision Date | 02 July 2003 |
Docket Number | No. 3D02-2630.,3D02-2630. |
Citation | 851 So.2d 216 |
Parties | Jeffrey Wade WALLACE, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Bennett H. Brummer, Public Defender and Howard K. Blumberg, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General and Frank J. Ingrassia (Fort Lauderdale), Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and GODERICH and GREEN, JJ. SCHWARTZ, Chief Judge.
After a jury, on overwhelming, essentially undisputed evidence, and over a rather specious defense of insanity, found Wallace guilty of one count of first degree murder and four counts of attempted first degree murder and his convictions and consecutive life sentences were affirmed in Wallace v. State, 766 So.2d 364 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), review denied, 786 So.2d 581 (Fla. 2001), the defendant filed the present 3.850 motion for post conviction relief. The trial court, in an extensive opinion, denied the motion and we affirm.
Although Wallace asserted numerous grounds, mostly related to alleged ineffective assistance of trial counsel, only one set of contentions deserves analysis and discussion. It is the claim, raised for the first time in the post-conviction motion, that a statement of the trial court that Wallace and counsel could not confer during a lunch recess taken while he was on the witness stand amounted to a deprivation of his sixth amendment right to counsel which, even in the admitted absence of any cognizable prejudice, constituted an irremediable defect in the trial requiring a new one. Essentially because neither the record of the trial1 nor any other showing made by the defendant establishes or even intimates that either counsel or the defendant had any desire to consult during the critical time, so that his sixth amendment rights were not affected, much less diminished by the court's observation, we disagree.
The defendant's primary reliance is on the Supreme Court's decision in Perry v. Leeke, 488 U.S. 272, 109 S.Ct. 594, 102 L.Ed.2d 624 (1989), which indeed stated that a trial court's unjustified interference with the right to confer with counsel during a constitutionally recognized period2 during trial constituted a so called "structural defect" which required reversal even though no prejudice, stemming either from the contents of the forbidden consultation or the ultimate outcome of the trial had resulted. We are inclined to believe, moreover, unlike Perry, in which a fifteen minute recess during the course of the defendant's examination was held not to reach constitutional dimensions, that the lunch recess in this case did so qualify. See Bova v. State, 410 So.2d 1343 (Fla. 1982); Amos v. State, 618 So.2d 157 (Fla. 1993). Neither of these conclusions however even comes into play in this case in the absence of any demonstration that anything that the trial court did affected anything, including the exercise of sixth amendment rights, that Wallace or his counsel did or wanted to do.
This court expressed just this holding in Recinos v. State, 420 So.2d 95 (Fla. 3d DCA 1982)(rehearing en banc), which involved the same circumstances and contentions:
[i]n this case, the erroneous statement of the law was not shown to have constituted or led even to the sine qua non of any kind of error, harmless or otherwise: the existence of an allegedly adverse "ruling." This is because ... there is no indication that counsel or Recinos had any desire further to speak to the other which was precluded by the court's announcement. Under these circumstances, the remark in question was no more than an academically incorrect observation about the law. We know of no instance in which a statement, however textually erroneous, which has no causative impact on what actually happened or did not happen below, can justify a reversal. We ... believe that, in this context, the answer to Bishop Berkeley's conundrum about the tree and the forest is that the court's incorrect comment meant nothing.
Recinos, 420 So.2d at 98. Accord Stubbs v. Bordenkircher, 689 F.2d 1205, 1206-1207 (4th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 461 U.S. 907, 103 S.Ct. 1879, 76 L.Ed.2d 810 (1983)3Bailey v. Redman, 657 F.2d 21, 24 (3d Cir.1981)(affirming Bailey v. Redman, 502 F.Supp. 313 (D.Del.1980)), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1153, 102 S.Ct. 1024, 71 L.Ed.2d 310 (1982)4; see also People v. Stewart, 161 Ill.App.3d 99, 103, 112 Ill.Dec. 655, 514 N.E.2d 51, 54 (1987)() , appeal denied, 118 Ill.2d 550, 117 Ill.Dec. 230, 520 N.E.2d 391 (1988); Annot., 95 A.L.R. Fed. 601, 619 (1989).
Although these cases predate Perry, it is clear that the application of the principle they enunciate is unaffected by that decision. It is vitally important first to observe that in the Perry case itself, in direct contrast to the cited cases and to this one, the issue was directly raised by defense counsel who unsuccessfully moved for a mistrial on the ground that the court's instruction erroneously interfered with his client's rights. See Perry, 488 U.S. at 274, 109 S.Ct. at 596. That Perry does not affect cases in which the issue was not presented is conclusively demonstrated by several post Perry cases which squarely so hold. Thus, in State v. Baldridge, 857 S.W.2d 243 (Mo.App. W.D.1993) the court said:
Baldridge, 857 S.W.2d at 252; accord Commonwealth v. Glashauser, 8 Pa. D. & C. 4th 325, 336-337 (Pa.Com.Pl.1990)() ; see also Haney v. State, 603 So.2d 368, 378 (Ala.Crim.App. 1991)...
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...to the instruction indicates that, "absent the court's instruction, Defendant would have met with his counsel." Wallace v. State , 851 So.2d 216, 220 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App.) (quoting State v. Baldridge , 857 S.W.2d 243, 252 (Mo. Ct. App. 1993) ), review denied , 860 So. 2d 980 (Fla. 2003), ce......
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...See Clark, 255 Md.App. at 362-64, 279 A.3d at 1141-42 (Nazarian, J., dissenting). Similarly, the dissent distinguished the facts of Wallace, 851 So.2d 216, because the instruction to not communicate in that applied to a lunch recess that was more like Perry's 15-minute break than the overni......
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LEERDAM v. State, 2D03-3894.
...counsel requested the opportunity to consult with him during the recess in this case. See Amos, 618 So.2d at 161; cf. Wallace v. State, 851 So.2d 216, 221 (Fla. 3d DCA) (finding no deprivation of the right to counsel when the record failed to suggest that the defendant, or counsel on the de......