Woods v. State, 71523

• Decision Date: 14 July 1988
• Docket Number: No. 71523,71523
• Parties: 13 Fla. L. Weekly 439 Ronald WOODS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 79

531 So.2d 79

13 Fla. L. Weekly 439

Ronald WOODS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 71523.

Supreme Court of Florida.

July 14, 1988.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 12, 1988.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and John M. Koenig, Jr. and Edward C. Hill, Jr., Asst. Attys. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

Ronald Woods, a prisoner for whom a death warrant has been signed, appeals the trial court's denial of his motion for postconviction relief. We have jurisdiction pursuant to article V, section 3(b)(1) of the state constitution and Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. We affirm the trial court's order and lift the stay of execution.

While imprisoned at Union Correctional Institution, Woods and another inmate, Leonard Bean, stabbed four guards, one of whom died. In a joint trial the jury convicted Woods of first-degree murder, three counts of attempted first-degree murder, and possession of contraband, but convicted Bean of only one count of attempted first-degree murder as well as first-degree murder and possession. The trial court agreed with the jury's recommendations and sentenced Bean to life imprisonment and Woods to death. We affirmed Woods' convictions and sentences on appeal. Woods v. State, 490 So.2d 24 (Fla.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 954, 107 S.Ct. 446, 93 L.Ed.2d 394 (1986).

In early October Governor Martinez signed Woods' death warrant, effective from December 9 through 16, 1987, with execution scheduled for December 10, 1987. The Office of the Capital Collateral Representative (CCR) then filed a 3.850 motion with the trial court. This motion alleged four grounds for relief: 1) execution of an eighteen-year-old offender with the mental age of twelve is cruel and unusual punishment; 2) the trial court's failure to grant a continuance rendered counsel unable to prepare for sentencing and deprived Woods of a competent mental examination and, alternatively, counsel provided ineffective assistance by not discovering and presenting more mitigating evidence; 3) a pervasively prejudicial atmosphere violated Woods' right to a fair and impartial trial; and 4) the trial court improperly instructed the jury that it could consider Woods' mental problems in aggravation. After a hearing on this motion, the trial court found the first three issues procedurally barred and granted the state's motion for summary dismissal of those points. The court then scheduled an evidentiary hearing on the fourth issue for December 1, 1987.

At that hearing the court reporter responsible for Woods' trial testified and played a tape recording of the trial judge, R.A. Green, ¹ reading the instructions to the jury. The recording demonstrates that the first aggravating circumstance given as to Woods was that he was under sentence of imprisonment, not that his mental state could be considered in aggravation as reflected in the record filed here. After the hearing, the trial court held that the "tape speaks for itself, and it clearly and unequivocally shows the proper Jury instruction was given by the Trial Judge to the Jury" ² and denied the motion for postconviction relief.

At the December 1 hearing CCR presented an "amended emergency" motion for postconviction relief raising five new issues. These issues were: 1) the prosecutor improperly raised, and the court improperly considered, the victim's personal and professional relationship with the prosecution and the court in violation of Booth v. Maryland, 482 U.S. 496, 107 S.Ct. 2529, 96 L.Ed.2d 440 (1987); 2) the prosecutor improperly commented on Woods' failure to present any evidence in his defense and, alternatively, counsel's failure to object constituted ineffective assistance; 3) the court improperly relied on juvenile offenses and prison disciplinary reports to aggravate the sentence; 4) the prosecutor and court violated Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320, 105 S.Ct. 2633, 86 L.Ed.2d 231 (1985), by diminishing the jury's role in sentencing; and 5) Woods' trial counsel, Vipperman, should have argued that Bean's counsel, Replogle, had a conflict of interest in a joint trial because Replogle originally represented both Bean and Woods. CCR argued that the court could not apply the thirty-day limitation on filing motions for postconviction relief after a death warrant has been signed with execution set for at least sixty days in the future. Fla.R.Crim.P. 3.851. The state, on the other hand, argued that these issues could have been presented in the original motion and urged the court to hold them procedurally barred. The court reviewed the claims and, noting that its November 23 order denied CCR's request to amend the original motion, held:

These claims are based on information contained in the record. The same record the Petitioner reviewed and cited when it filed its original Motion. In both their original Motion, as well as the Amended Motion, the same transcript is cited, only different pages. Since the Amended Motion does not relate to the grounds raised in the original Motion, and since this Court finds no reason these claims could not have been raised within the time limits provided by the rules, the same is hereby DENIED. To permit the Petitioner to use this procedure of filing new Motions and calling them Amended Motions would create a situation that there never would be finality. This type of activity is the very reason the Rule [3.851] was created.

At the December 1 hearing CCR also filed another amended motion for postconviction relief. According to that motion, allowing the state to demonstrate at an evidentiary hearing that the transcript was in error regarding the instruction CCR complained about rendered the entire record unreliable. The court found nothing in the motion to demonstrate the transcript's incompleteness or inaccuracy. The court held that the "transcript appears to now accurately reflect what occurred during the trial" and that the record did not deny Woods any due process. ³

I. Original Motion

A. Error in Transcript

We agree with the trial court's resolution of this issue. The purpose of a 3.850 motion is to provide for inquiry into the alleged constitutional infirmity of a judgment or sentence. McCrae v. State, 437 So.2d 1388 (Fla.1983). Postconviction proceedings cannot be used as a substitute for an appeal, and, because they should be raised on appeal, claims regarding jury instructions are, in general, not cognizable in 3.850 proceedings. Raulerson v. State, 420 So.2d 567 (Fla.1982), cert. denied, 463 U.S. 1229, 103 S.Ct. 3572, 77 L.Ed.2d 1412 (1983); Merrill v. State, 364 So.2d 42 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978), cert. denied, 372 So.2d 470 (Fla.1979). Here, however, CCR claimed that the trial court instructed the jury to consider a statutory mitigating circumstance as an aggravating circumstance, thereby violating the eighth amendment. We find, contrary to CCR's contention, no error in the court's holding an evidentiary hearing on this claim.

The test for granting a postconviction motion is whether or not the defendant received a fair trial. Whether the trial court erred in the instructions could only be determined through an evidentiary hearing. The testimony and evidence given at the hearing clearly demonstrate that the trial court correctly instructed the jury and that there is no merit to the claim.

If CCR's purpose in making the misinstruction claim was to ascertain the truth about how the court instructed the jury, that purpose has been accomplished. We do not find, however, that this clarification of the record has impaired the credibility of the record as a whole. Nor do we find that the court erred in limiting the hearing to the claim made in the 3.850 motion. If CCR could have pointed out other specific errors in the transcript which, if truly errors, prejudiced Woods, inquiry into those areas would have been appropriate. The finding of one typographical error, however, does not authorize an undirected fishing expedition on undeveloped assertions when errors in the transcript could have been and should have been brought up on appeal. To hold as CCR urges--that the entire record is inaccurate--is unwarranted.

B. Other Issues

The trial court correctly found the other issues in the original motion to be procedurally barred.

1. Mental Capacity and Prejudice

The claim that executing an adult with diminished mental capacity is cruel and unusual punishment could have been and should have been raised, if at all, on direct appeal. Therefore, it is procedurally barred from postconviction consideration.

This Court considered the prejudice claim on direct appeal. That CCR has now thought of different grounds for raising the same issue is insufficient to overcome the procedural bar. See Christopher v. State, 489 So.2d 22 (Fla.1986).

2. Continuance

This Court also considered the trial court's refusal to grant a continuance on direct appeal. CCR now claims that not granting the continuance precluded trial counsel from conducting a reasonable penalty phase investigation and/or counsel unreasonably failed to discover and present mitigating evidence. CCR supplied Woods' school and medical records to two psychologists, one who testified at Woods' trial and one who is new to Woods' case, both of whom wrote reports back to CCR. According to CCR, a continuance and reasonable assistance by counsel would have resulted in more and better testimony regarding Woods and might have caused the jury to recommend life imprisonment rather than a death sentence. The grounds asserted do not overcome the procedural bar.

Woods' mother and a psychologist testified at Woods' sentencing as to his then-current status and his lifelong history of mental, emotional, and behavioral problems. According to his mother, Woods had seizures and convulsions from the time of his birth, which resulted in his being put on medication and his admission to a mental health center hospital when he was eight years old. His mother also testified that she...