Title: Pagan v. State

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

Supreme Court of Florida 
 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC17-872 
____________ 
 
ALEX PAGAN,  
Appellant, 
 
vs. 
 
STATE OF FLORIDA,  
Appellee. 
 
[February 1, 2018] 
 
PER CURIAM. 
 
Alex Pagan appeals an order of the circuit court denying his motion to 
vacate his sentence of death under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851.  We 
have jurisdiction.  See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.  We vacate Pagan’s death 
sentence and remand for a new penalty phase consistent with Hurst v. State, 202 
So. 3d 40 (Fla. 2016), cert. denied, 137 S. Ct. 2161 (2017). 
 
Pagan was convicted of the murders of Michael Lynn and Freddy Jones, the 
attempted murders of Latasha and Lafayette Jones, the robbery of the Joneses’ 
home, and the theft of their vehicle.   Pagan v. State, 830 So. 2d 792, 798-802 (Fla. 
2002).  The jury recommended death by a vote of seven to five, and the trial court 
 
 
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sentenced Pagan to death for each of the murders.  Id.  This Court affirmed Pagan’s 
convictions and sentences and denied rehearing on November 7, 2002.  Id.  The 
United States Supreme Court denied certiorari on June 9, 2003.  See Pagan v. 
Florida, 539 U.S. 919 (2003).  This Court affirmed the denial of Pagan’s initial 
postconviction motion and denied his simultaneously filed writ of habeas corpus.  
See Pagan v. State, 29 So. 3d 938 (Fla. 2009).  Pagan’s federal habeas petition was 
subsequently denied, and the Supreme Court denied certiorari.  See Pagan v. 
Tucker, 568 U.S. 1093 (2013). 
 
Pagan appealed the denial of his first successive postconviction motion to 
vacate his death sentence, seeking relief under Hurst v. Florida, 136 S. Ct. 616 
(2016), and Hurst v. State, 202 So. 3d 40 (Fla. 2016).  On June 9, 2017, this Court 
issued an order to show cause asking the State to demonstrate why relief should 
not be granted in Pagan’s case in light of Hurst, Davis v. State, 207 So. 3d 142 
(Fla. 2016), cert. denied, 137 S. Ct. 2218 (2017), and Mosley v. State, 209 So. 3d 
1248 (Fla. 2016).  Because the jury recommended death by a vote of seven to five 
and because Pagan’s sentence became final after the United States Supreme 
Court’s decision in Ring v. Arizona,1 his sentence is the result of Hurst error.   
                                          
 
 
1.  Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002). 
 
 
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In considering whether the error was harmless, we decline the State’s 
invitation to model our Hurst harmless error analysis after the Supreme Court’s 
recent analysis of procedural default in Jenkins v. Hutton, 137 S. Ct. 1769 (2017).  
The State has not demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the error in this 
case did not contribute to the sentence.  See Armstrong v. State, 211 So. 3d 864, 
865 (Fla. 2017).  While the aggravation in Pagan’s case is substantial, we cannot 
determine whether the jury would have unanimously found that the aggravation 
outweighed the mitigation.  Id.  Accordingly, the Hurst error was not harmless 
beyond a reasonable doubt.  We reverse the postconviction court’s order and 
remand for a new penalty phase.  See Hurst, 202 So. 3d at 69. 
It is so ordered. 
LABARGA, C.J., and PARIENTE, LEWIS, and QUINCE, JJ., concur. 
CANADY, J., dissents. 
POLSTON, J., dissents with an opinion. 
LAWSON, J., dissents with an opinion.  
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, 
IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
 
POLSTON, J., dissenting. 
 
I dissent to the majority’s decision to remand for a new penalty phase.  First, 
Hurst does not apply retroactively to this case.  See Mosley v. State, 209 So. 3d 
1248, 1285 (Fla. 2016) (Canady, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).  
Second, because the prior violent felony and during the course of a felony 
 
 
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aggravators are supported by jury findings, I do not believe a Hurst error is present 
in this case even if Hurst applied retroactively.  See Hurst v. State, 202 So. 3d 40, 
82 (Fla. 2016) (Canady, J., dissenting).  Third, for the reasons explained by Justice 
Lawson in his dissenting opinion, Pagan would not be entitled to relief under a 
proper harmless error analysis.  The majority inexplicably has converted Hurst 
error into per se reversible error despite the fact that the United States Supreme 
Court remanded Hurst back to this Court for a harmless error analysis.  See Hurst 
v. Florida, 136 S. Ct. 616, 624 (2016).       
LAWSON, J., dissenting. 
 
I agree with the State that if this Court were to apply a proper harmless error 
analysis to the facts of this case, Pagan would not be entitled to relief on his claim 
of Hurst error.2  In Hurst, we held that error resulting from “the judge rather than 
the jury ma[king] all the necessary findings to impose a death sentence, is not 
structural error incapable of harmless error review.”  Hurst, 202 So. 3d at 67.  
Relying on United States Supreme Court precedent, we further recognized that 
whether Hurst error is harmless requires this Court to determine whether there is a 
reasonable doubt that a properly instructed, “rational” jury would have made the 
                                          
 
2.  Hurst v. State, 202 So. 3d 40 (Fla. 2016), cert. denied, 137 S. Ct. 2161 
(2017).  Although I adhere to my view that this Court’s Hurst decision was 
incorrectly decided, Okafor v. State, 225 So. 3d 768, 775-76 (Fla. 2017) (Lawson, 
J., concurring specially), I have elected to follow the Hurst precedent for the 
reasons explained in Okafor. 
 
 
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findings necessary to impose death.  Id. (quoting Galindez v. State, 955 So. 2d 517, 
522 (Fla. 2007) (quoting Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 18 (1999))); cf. 
Jenkins v. Hutton, 137 S. Ct. 1769, 1772 (2017) (recognizing that the proper focus 
in an instructional error case is on whether a properly instructed, reasonable jury 
could have recommended death).  
In practice, however, the majority has replaced the proper harmless error 
analysis with the same per se reversible error rule that Hurst rejected, finding Hurst 
error harmful in every case in which the jury did not unanimously recommend 
death—because the jury’s recommendation was not unanimous.  See, e.g., Kopsho 
v. State, 209 So. 3d 568, 570 (Fla. 2017) (holding Hurst error was not harmless 
after explaining that all that can be determined from the jury’s 10-2 death 
recommendation is “that the jury did not unanimously recommend a sentence of 
death”). 
Rather than find Hurst error harmful because there was Hurst error, I would 
apply the proper rational jury test.  Judged by this standard, the Hurst error in 
Pagan’s case is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.  Pagan’s case presents some 
of the weightiest aggravation in Florida’s capital sentencing scheme: prior and 
contemporaneous violent felonies, all of which were found by unanimous juries; 
the in the course of a felony aggravator—two felonies, in fact, both of which were 
unanimously found by Pagan’s jury; and the cold, calculated, and premeditated 
 
 
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aggravator, which inescapably flows from the evidence of Pagan’s planned 
execution of a six-year-old child and his father, in the presence of his wife, whom 
Pagan also shot along with the couple’s eighteen-month-old other child.  That these 
aggravators are established, sufficient, and substantially outweigh the scant 
mitigation presented are findings that no objectively reasonable jury, properly 
instructed, would have failed to unanimously make in support of a unanimous 
death recommendation. 
Accordingly, because the Hurst error in Pagan’s case is harmless beyond a 
reasonable doubt, I respectfully dissent.  
An Appeal from the Circuit Court in and for Broward County,  
Edward H. Merrigan, Jr., Judge - Case No. 061993CF003648B88810 
 
James Vincent Viggiano, Jr., Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, Maria E. 
DeLiberato, Julissa R. Fontán, and Chelsea Shirley, Assistant Capital Collateral 
Regional Counsel, Middle Region, Temple Terrace, Florida, 
 
 
for Appellant 
 
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, and Donna M. Perry, 
Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, Florida, 
 
 
for Appellee