Wright v. State

• Decision Date: 03 July 2003
• Docket Number: No. SC01-2866., No. SC00-1389
• Citation: Wright v. State, 857 So. 2d 861, 2003 WL 21511313 (Fla. 2003)
• Parties: Joel Dale WRIGHT, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. Joel Dale Wright, Petitioner, v. James V. Crosby, Jr., etc., et al., Respondents.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

857 So.2d 861

Joel Dale WRIGHT, Appellant, v.STATE of Florida, Appellee.

Joel Dale Wright, Petitioner, v.James V. Crosby, Jr., etc., et al., Respondents.

Nos. SC00-1389, SC01-2866.

Supreme Court of Florida.

July 3, 2003.

Rehearing Denied October 10, 2003.

Martin J. McClain, Special Assistant CCRC-South, Brooklyn, NY, and Neal Andre Dupree, CCRC-South, Office of the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel for the Southern Region, Fort Lauderdale, FL, for Appellant/Petitioner.

Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, and Judy Taylor Rush and Douglas T. Squire, Assistant Attorneys General, Daytona Beach, FL, for Appellee/Respondent.

PER CURIAM.

Joel Dale Wright(Wright) appeals an order entered by the trial court denying his second motion for postconviction relief pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850.He also petitions this Court for a writ of habeas corpus.We have jurisdiction.Seeart. V, § 3(b)(1), (9)Fla. Const.For the reasons discussed below, we affirm the trial court's denial of postconviction relief, and we deny Wright's petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The facts at trial have been thoroughly presented by Justice Blackmun in his dissent from the United States Supreme Court's denial of certiorari.The facts are:

On February 6, 1983, a woman was found murdered in the bedroom of her home.She apparently had died the previous night after being raped and stabbed.All the doors to her home were locked, but a back window was found open.Several weeks later, Charles Westberry told his wife that petitionerJoel Wright had come to Westberry's trailer shortly after daylight on the morning of February 6 and had confessed to killing the victim.Wright lived with his parents near the victim's home.Westberry's wife notified the police, and Wright was arrested and tried for the crime.At trial, Westberry was the State's principal witness.He testified that Wright had told him on the morning of February 6 that Wright had entered the victim's house through the back window to steal money, that the victim had discovered him as he was wiping his fingerprints from her purse, and that he had killed her because he did not want to return to prison.According to Westberry, Wright counted out $290 he claimed to have taken from the victim's home, and he asked Westberry to tell the authorities that Wright had spent the previous night at Westberry's trailer.Another witness [Paul House] for the State testified that, approximately one month before the murder, he and Wright had stolen money from the victim's home after entering through the window later found open on February 6.The jury also was told that a fingerprint identified as Wright's had been found on a portable stove in the victim's bedroom.

Wright took the stand and denied involvement in the murder.He testified that he had returned home from a party at approximately 1 a.m. on February 6, but had found himself locked out.He claimed that he then had walked along Highway 19 to Westberry's trailer, where he had spent the night.He also presented a witness who testified that, late on the night of February 5 and early in the morning of February 6, he had seen a group of three men, whom he had not recognized, in the general vicinity of the victim's home.

After the close of evidence but prior to final arguments, the defense moved to re-open the case in order to introduce the testimony of a newly discovered witness, Kathy Waters.Waters apparently had read newspaper accounts of the trial, had listened to parts of the testimony, and had discussed the trial with friends in attendance.She offered to testify that, shortly after midnight on February 6, she had seen a person who could have been Wright walking along Highway 19, and had also observed three persons she did not recognize near the victim's home.Waters claimed that she had not realized she possessed relevant information until the morning her testimony was proffered, and that she had come forward of her own volition.The trial judge denied Wright's motion, noting that Florida's sequestration rule would be rendered "meaningless" if, after discussing the case with others, a witness were permitted "to testify in support of one side or the other, almost as if that testimony were tailor-made."[Wright v. State,]473 So.2d 1277, 1279( [Fla.]1985).Although the State acknowledged that the violation of the sequestration rule had been inadvertent, it argued that the prosecution"could very well be substantially prejudiced" if Waters were permitted to testify.Id., at 1280.Wright was convicted and sentenced to die.

On appeal, the Supreme Court of Florida held that the trial judge's rigid application of the State's sequestration rule was inconsistent with Wright's Sixth Amendment right to present witnesses in his behalf.The court affirmed the conviction, however, because it deemed the error harmless.

Wright v. Florida,474 U.S. 1094, 1094-95, 106 S.Ct. 870, 88 L.Ed.2d 909(1986)(Blackmun, J., joined by Brennan, J., and Marshall, J., dissenting).Procedurally, the case progressed as follows:

Joel Dale Wright was charged with killing a seventy-five-year-old Palatka school teacher.On September 1, 1983, he was convicted of first-degree murder, sexual battery, burglary of a dwelling, and grand theft.The jury returned an advisory sentence of death and the trial court, in accordance with that recommendation, imposed the death sentence.This Court affirmed the convictions and the sentence of death in Wright v. State,473 So.2d 1277(Fla.1985), cert. denied,474 U.S. 1094, 106 S.Ct. 870, 88 L.Ed.2d 909(1986).

Wright v. State,581 So.2d 882, 882(Fla.1991).In February 1988 Wright filed his first motion for postconviction relief, and the trial court granted an evidentiary hearing.The trial court issued a detailed order denying relief.After the trial court denied relief, but while the case was still pending on a motion for rehearing, Wright filed a supplement to his 3.850 motion alleging that his public defender's status as a special deputy sheriff created a conflict of interest.The trial court considered the substance of Wright's supplemental claim, finding the claim identical to a claim made by a different defendant in the Seventh Judicial Circuit, which had been denied.The trial court ordered Wright to furnish any evidence that had not been considered in the Seventh Circuit case.When Wright failed to respond, the trial judge adopted the Seventh Circuit court's findings and entered an order denying relief.

Wright appealed.We affirmed the trial court's denial of relief on most of the claims, but remanded the case for an evidentiary hearing on the claim of conflict of interest due to his public defender's service as a special deputy.SeeWright,581 So.2d at 886(citingHerring v. State,580 So.2d 135(Fla.1991)).We explained:

While it may seem to be a total duplication of effort, it is clear that the trial judge in this case cannot adopt the factual findings of a trial judge in a different case involving a different defendant, even though those findings concern the same issue.

Wright,581 So.2d at 886.We granted Wright permission to consolidate his claim with the claims of other defendants who also argued that Assistant Public DefenderHoward Pearl's status as a special deputy sheriff affected his ability to provide effective legal assistance.These claims were dubbed the "Pearl" claim, and heard in December 1992 by Judge B.J. Driver.

Prior to the December 1992 hearing, Wright again amended his postconviction motion based on documents provided by the Putnam County Sheriff's Department after a public records request under chapter 119, Florida Statutes.Judge Driver severed Wright's new claims from the Pearl claim because Judge Driver was appointed to hear only the Pearl claim, and these new claims were outside the scope of his appointment.Judge Driver denied relief on the Pearl claim, finding that Assistant Public DefenderHoward Pearl's status as a special deputy sheriff did not affect his ability to provide effective legal assistance.During the postconviction hearing on the Pearl claim, Judge Robert Perry, who presided over Wright's trial, testified.Wright alleges he learned that Judge Perry also had special deputy appointments in Duval, Volusia, and Orange Counties, but Judge Perry testified that he did not recall whether he had a special deputy appointment in Putnam County, where Wright was tried.

After Judge Driver denied relief on the Pearl claim, Wright sought a hearing on the claims raised in the supplemental 3.850 motions which had been severed from the Pearl claim.The case was reassigned and an evidentiary hearing was held in March 1997, which was continued and completed in December 1997.In addition to the issues heard, the trial court reconsidered Wright's Pearl claim based on this Court's decision in Teffeteller v. Dugger,676 So.2d 369(Fla.1996), which held that the December 1992 consolidated hearing violated due process.Wright now appeals the trial court's order denying relief on his second postconviction motion.

MOTION FOR POSTCONVICTION RELIEF

Wright's theory at trial was that someone else committed the murder.In both his first and second postconviction motions, Wright asserted that the police failed to adequately investigate other leads which would have shown that someone else committed the murder.In this appeal of his second postconviction motion, Wright argues that (1) in the first postconviction proceeding in 1988, the trial court made false findings of certain facts and this Court erroneously adopted those false facts on appeal, the State failed to disclose exculpatory evidence as required under Brady v. Maryland,373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215(1963), and there was newly discovered evidence of innocence admissible under Jones v. State,591 So.2d 911(Fla.1991);(2) Wright's appointed trial counsel, Howard Pearl,...