Case Title: Demps v. State

Citation: 515 So. 2d 196

Docket Number: 

State: florida

Court: Florida Supreme Court

Date: 1987-11-04T00:00:00Z

Document:
515 So. 2d 196 (1987)
Bennie DEMPS, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 71402.

Supreme Court of Florida.
November 4, 1987.
Larry Helm Spalding, Capital Collateral Representative, and Mark Evan Olive, Chief Asst., Office of the Capital Collateral Representative, Tallahassee, and Robert A. Harper, Tallahassee, for appellant.
*197 Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and Mark C. Menser, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellee.
PER CURIAM.
Bennie Demps, under sentence of death and execution warrant, appeals the trial court's summary denial of post-conviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850 and stay of execution. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.
This is Demps' second death warrant and fifth appearance before this Court. We affirmed his conviction for first-degree murder and sentence of death in Demps v. State, 395 So. 2d 501 (Fla.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 933, 102 S. Ct. 430, 70 L. Ed. 2d 239 (1981). We reversed the trial court's summary denial of a motion for post-conviction relief under rule 3.850, Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure, and remanded for an evidentiary hearing in Demps v. State, 416 So. 2d 808 (Fla. 1982). We subsequently affirmed the trial court's denial of post-conviction relief in Demps v. State, 462 So. 2d 1074 (Fla. 1984). Demps recently petitioned this Court for habeas corpus relief which we denied. Demps v. Dugger, 514 So. 2d 1092 (Fla. 1987).
Demps filed with the trial court an emergency motion to vacate judgment and sentence with special request for leave to amend, motion for stay of execution, and request for continuance of evidentiary hearing. The court issued the following order denying all relief:
Demps' was required under the rule to request post-conviction relief by January 1, 1987, since his conviction and sentence became final prior to January 1, 1985. Relief is now procedurally barred unless Demps alleges facts previously unknown and not discoverable, or raises a newly established fundamental constitutional right. Rule 3.850.
Demps argues that relief should be granted because the trial court denigrated the jury's role in violation of the United States Supreme Court's recent decision in Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320, 105 S. Ct. 2633, 86 L. Ed. 2d 231 (1985). Caldwell is not a sufficient change in the law to overcome a procedural bar. Copeland v. Wainwright, 505 So. 2d 425 (Fla. 1987); Aldridge v. State, 503 So. 2d 1257 (Fla. 1987).
Demps next alleges that, after repeated requests, the state withheld evidence *198 impeaching witness Hathaway's credibility. He claims that he only recently obtained the information after invoking the Florida Public Records Act, Chapter 119, Florida Statutes (1985). The act was equally available to Demps prior to January 1, 1987, the cut off date for post-conviction relief in the instant case. Rule 3.850 bars an untimely petition based on information previously ascertainable through the exercise of due diligence. Further, Demps argued on direct appeal and in his first proceeding for post-conviction relief that the state induced Hathaway's trial testimony. These issues are now barred.
Demps also claims that he was denied notice and an opportunity to rebut a presentencing investigation report, and that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to impeach Hathaway and for failing to present certain mitigating evidence. These issues could have and should have been raised either on direct appeal or in Demps' first request for post conviction relief, and are therefore procedurally barred. See Rule 3.850; Quince v. State, 477 So. 2d 535 (Fla. 1985).
Accordingly, we approve the trial court's order and deny all relief. No petition for rehearing will be entertained.
It is so ordered.
McDONALD, C.J., and OVERTON, EHRLICH, SHAW and GRIMES, JJ., concur.
KOGAN, J., concurs specially with an opinion, in which BARKETT, J., concurs.
KOGAN, Justice, specially concurring.
I concur in the conclusion that the trial court's denial of appellant's most recent 3.850 motion should be affirmed. However, I adhere to the views expressed in my dissent in Demps v. Dugger, 514 So. 2d 1092 (Fla. 1987).
BARKETT, J., concurs.