Title: Suggs v. State

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

Supreme Court of Florida 
 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC16-576 
____________ 
 
 
ERNEST D. SUGGS, 
Appellant, 
 
vs. 
 
STATE OF FLORIDA, 
Appellee. 
 
[November 9, 2017] 
 
PER CURIAM. 
 
Ernest D. Suggs, a prisoner under sentence of death, appeals the circuit 
court’s denial of his successive motion for postconviction relief filed pursuant to 
Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851.  We have jurisdiction.  See art. V, § 
3(b)(1), Fla. Const.  We affirm for the reasons that follow. 
BACKGROUND 
 
We previously summarized the evidence presented at Suggs’s trial as 
follows: 
Pauline Casey, the victim, worked at the Teddy Bear Bar 
in Walton County.  On the evening of August 6, 1990, 
the bar was found abandoned, the door to the bar was 
ajar, cash was missing from the bar, and the victim’s car, 
 
 
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purse, and keys were found at the bar.  The victim was 
missing.  Ray Hamilton, the victim’s neighbor, told 
police that he last saw the victim shooting pool with an 
unidentified customer when he left the bar earlier that 
night.  Based on Hamilton’s description of the customer 
and the customer’s vehicle, police issued a BOLO for the 
customer.  Subsequently, a police officer stopped a 
vehicle after determining that it matched the BOLO 
description. 
 
 
The driver of the vehicle was identified as the 
appellant, Ernest Suggs.  Although he was not then under 
arrest, Suggs allowed the police to search his vehicle and 
his home.  While searching Suggs’ home, the police 
found, in a bathroom sink, approximately $170 cash in 
wet bills, consisting of a few twenty-, ten-, and five-
dollar bills and fifty-five one-dollar bills. 
 
 
Meanwhile, police obtained an imprint of the tires 
on Suggs’ vehicle and began looking for similar tire 
tracks on local dirt roads.  Similar tire tracks were found 
on a dirt road located four to five miles from the Teddy 
Bear Bar.  The tracks turned near a power line, and the 
victim’s body was found about twenty to twenty-five feet 
from the road.  The victim had been stabbed twice in the 
neck and once in the back; the cause of death was loss of 
blood caused by these stab wounds.  After the victim was 
found, Suggs was arrested for her murder. 
 
 
In addition to the cash and tire tracks, police 
obtained the following evidence connecting Suggs to the 
murder: one of the three known keys to the bar and a beer 
glass similar to those used at the bar were found in the 
bay behind Suggs’ home; the victim’s palm and 
fingerprints were found in Suggs’ vehicle; and a 
serologist found a bloodstain on Suggs’ shirt that 
matched the victim’s blood.  Additionally, after his 
arrest, Suggs told two cellmates that he killed the victim. 
 
 
In his defense, Suggs contended that he was 
framed and made the following claims: that he had small 
 
 
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bills because his parents had paid him in cash for 
working on their dock; that the money was wet because 
he fell in the water while working on the dock; that other 
vehicles have tires similar to the tires on his vehicle; that 
the tires on his vehicle leave a specific overlap pattern 
because of the wear on them and that no such overlap 
pattern was found at the scene; that the underbrush on his 
vehicle did not match any brush from the area of the 
crime scene; that no fibers or hairs from the victim were 
found in his vehicle; that the fingerprints in his vehicle 
could have been left at any time before the day of the 
murder; that the enzyme from the blood stain on his shirt 
matches not only the victim but also 90% of the 
population; that the shirt from which the blood was taken 
was not properly stored and that the stain could come 
from any bodily fluid; that the tests performed on the 
blood stain produced inconclusive results, including the 
fact that the stain could have been a mixed stain of saliva 
and hamburger; that a news conference was held 
regarding his arrest twenty-four hours before the bay 
behind his house was searched, which provided ample 
time for someone to deposit the key and glass there; and 
that his two cellmates lied, gave inconsistent testimony, 
and received reduced sentences because of their 
testimony.  Additionally, Suggs contended that both Ray 
Hamilton and Steve Casey, the victim’s husband, could 
have committed the murder (with Casey having life 
insurance as a motive), and that those individuals were 
being pursued as suspects until his arrest, but as soon as 
he was arrested, police dropped their investigation of 
those suspects. 
 
 
The State countered this defense by showing that 
the dock on which Suggs was purportedly working 
contained no new wood; that the tire tracks did in fact 
match Suggs’ vehicle; and that the enzyme from the 
blood did not come from Suggs. 
 
Suggs v. State, 644 So. 2d 64, 65-66 (Fla. 1994).  Suggs was convicted of first-
degree murder, kidnapping, and robbery.  Id. at 66.  
 
 
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We have previously summarized the penalty-phase evidence as follows: 
 
At the penalty-phase proceeding, one of Suggs’ 
cellmates testified that Suggs told him he murdered the 
victim because he did not want to leave a witness. 
Additionally, the State entered into evidence a book 
entitled Deal the First Deadly Blow, which they had 
taken from Suggs’ house.  The State used this evidence to 
show that Suggs planned how he would kill the victim. 
The State also introduced evidence that Suggs was 
convicted of first-degree murder and attempted murder in 
1979 and that he was on parole at the time of the murder 
in this case.  Id. at 66.   
 
After the penalty-phase proceeding, the jury recommended a death sentence 
by a seven-to-five vote, and the trial court sentenced Suggs to death, finding seven 
aggravating circumstances1 and three mitigating circumstances.2  Id.   
                                          
 
 
1.  The trial court found the following aggravating circumstances: 
 
(1) A capital felony was committed by Suggs while under sentence of 
imprisonment; (2) Suggs was previously convicted of another capital 
felony and a felony involving the use or threat of violence to the 
person; (3) the crime for which Suggs is to be sentenced was 
committed while he was engaged in the commission of the crime of 
kidnapping; (4) the capital felony was committed for the purpose of 
avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest; (5) the capital felony was 
committed for pecuniary gain; (6) the capital felony was especially 
heinous, atrocious, or cruel; (7) the capital felony was a homicide and 
was committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner 
without any pretense of moral or legal justification. 
 
Suggs, 644 So. 2d at 66 n.1. 
 
 
2.  The trial court found the following mitigating circumstances: 
 
(1) The capacity of Suggs to appreciate the criminality of his conduct 
or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was substantially 
 
 
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We affirmed Suggs’s conviction and death sentence on direct appeal.  Id.  
Thereafter, we affirmed the denial of his initial motion for postconviction relief.  
Suggs v. State, 923 So. 2d 419 (Fla. 2005).  Suggs now appeals the summary 
denial of his successive motion for postconviction relief, filed October 27, 2015, 
which raised five claims of newly discovered evidence or Brady3 violations 
concerning the following matters: (1) allegations that the victim’s husband, whom 
Suggs argued at trial may have murdered her, sexually abused the victim’s 
daughter; (2) activities and statements of law enforcement officers involved in the 
search of the bay; (3) recent statements by Suggs’s sentencing judge; (4) the 
involvement in Suggs’s case of FBI analyst Michael Malone, whose work has been 
discredited in other cases; and (5) an investigation of the Walton County Sheriff’s 
Department by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) during the 
period when Suggs was being investigated, along with evidence of misconduct by 
the Sheriff and Suggs’s prosecutor in a contemporaneous case. 
 
 
                                          
 
impaired (he had been drinking at the time of the incident); (2) Suggs’ 
family background (he came from a good family); and (3) Suggs’ 
employment background (he was a hard worker). 
Id. at 66 n.2. 
 
3.  Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). 
 
 
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ANALYSIS 
 
We review the circuit court’s summary denial of each of these claims in 
turn, followed by a conclusion as to Suggs’s argument that the cumulative effect of 
the new evidence requires a new trial, applying the de novo standard of review.  
Hunter v. State, 29 So. 3d 256, 261 (Fla. 2008).  This standard requires us to accept 
the allegations of Suggs’s motion as true to the extent that they are not 
conclusively refuted by the record and to uphold the circuit court’s ruling if 
Suggs’s claims are legally insufficient or their allegations are conclusively refuted 
by the record.  See id. 
1.  Newly Discovered Evidence of the Husband’s Motive 
 
Suggs’s first claim is based on information obtained from the victim’s 
daughter relating to alleged sexual abuse of the victim’s daughter by the victim’s 
husband, whom Suggs argued at trial could have been the real murderer.  To 
warrant relief, newly discovered evidence must “be of such nature that it would 
probably produce an acquittal on retrial.”  Jones v. State, 709 So. 2d 512, 521-22 
(Fla. 1998).  Suggs claims that the information concerning the alleged sexual abuse 
is newly discovered evidence of the victim’s husband’s motive for murdering her.  
However, Suggs’s allegations do not indicate that the victim knew about the 
alleged sexual abuse of her daughter or provide any connection between the 
alleged abuse and a motive to murder the victim.  Therefore, in a new trial, this 
information would be inadmissible as irrelevant and substantially more unfairly 
 
 
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prejudicial than probative.  See §§ 90.401, 90.403, Fla. Stat. (2017).  As a result, it 
would not “probably produce an acquittal on retrial,” see Jones, 709 So. 2d at 521-
22, and this claim was properly denied. 
2.  Brady Claim Concerning the Search of the Bay 
 
Suggs’s second claim is presented under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 
(1963), and concerns the discovery of the key during the search of the bay behind 
his house and information Suggs has recently obtained from Deputy Wyatt 
Henderson of the Walton County Sheriff’s Department, who participated in the 
search as a diver.  The key was relevant not only because it fit a lock at the bar 
from which the victim was kidnapped, but also because a witness saw the victim 
place a key to that lock on the cash register earlier in the night, and no such key 
was found at the bar, among the victim’s belongings, or on the victim in the 
investigation. 
The search of the bay began on August 8, 1990, with the goal of finding the 
murder weapon, which was never recovered.  According to the trial evidence, the 
search was conducted methodically, with four divers positioned along a rope a few 
feet apart and moving in an arch pattern from a fixed point at one end of the rope 
and then extending the rope after completing a full sweep.  A drinking glass similar 
to the glasses used at the bar from which the victim was kidnapped was found on 
the first day.  That afternoon, Investigator Steve Sunday of the Walton County 
Sheriff’s Department obtained a key from the bar owner, stating in his report that 
 
 
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the key would be “used to give the divers and other officers a description of the 
key to look for.”  Henderson testified at trial that the dive team was not initially 
told to search for a key. 
Testimony at trial established that the search of the bay continued on the 
morning of August 9, 1990, at the request of Captain Brad Trusty of the Walton 
County Sheriff’s Department, even though the area had not been secured overnight 
on August 8, a press conference had been held naming Suggs as the suspect, 
Suggs’s home was identifiable, and the bay was accessible to anyone.  For the 
second day, the team used one additional diver.  All the divers who testified, 
including Henderson, explained that on the morning of August 9, the search 
proceeded continuously from the area that had been searched the day before, 
except that the divers backed up and searched an overlapping segment of the bay 
due to poor visibility during the latter part of the prior day’s search.  The bar key 
was found during the search of the overlapping section by the diver who was the 
farthest out into the bay.  That diver testified that the key was just beyond his 
position at the end of the rope. 
 
In Suggs’s successive motion for postconviction relief, he alleges that Wyatt 
Henderson has recently revealed that Captain Trusty told the dive team where in 
the bay to find the key; that Captain Trusty explained that Suggs had a water line 
on his pants during his interview, suggesting that evidence may be found farther 
out in the bay, even though Suggs was wearing black nylon shorts when he was 
 
 
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arrested; and that the divers were never shown the key that Investigator Sunday 
obtained on August 8.  Suggs argues that this new information obtained from 
Henderson shows a Brady violation.  We disagree because this information is not 
material under the Brady standard, which requires showing “ ‘a reasonable 
probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the 
proceeding would have been different.’ ”  Mordenti v. State, 894 So. 2d 161, 170 
(Fla. 2004) (quoting Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 280 (1999)).  To meet this 
standard, a defendant must demonstrate that the suppressed evidence “ ‘could 
reasonably be taken to put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine 
the confidence in the verdict.’ ”  Id. (quoting Allen v. State, 854 So. 2d 1255, 1260 
(Fla. 2003)). 
In reaching the conclusion that the information alleged to have been learned 
from Henderson is not material, we find it significant that Suggs’s successive 
motion merely summarizes Henderson’s recent statements, with no affidavit from 
Henderson.  The successive motion does not purport to quote Henderson and in no 
way indicates that Henderson has recanted his trial testimony.  Given these facts, 
the “new evidence” is clearly not material because it is consistent with the  
evidence at trial and would not be exculpatory. 
First, Henderson is purported to have said—in Suggs’s words—that Captain 
Trusty told the dive team where to find the key.  Captain Trusty testified at trial 
that he requested the continuation of the search after the first day.  Henderson and 
 
 
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others testified at trial that the search team essentially started back the second day 
where they had ended the search the night before, as darkness approached.  Then, 
the team quickly found the key near where they had stopped the search the night 
before, either a little farther out (and therefore deeper) in the bay or in an overlap 
area which had been searched on the last pass of the prior evening when sunlight 
was diminishing and visibility was poor.  Henderson is also alleged to have said 
that Trusty wanted the search to continue into deeper water because of a water line 
on Suggs’s pants.  Without a recantation of Henderson’s trial testimony, which 
indicates a natural progression of the search in the normal course of an 
investigation, and only a summary of this “new” information in Suggs’s words, we 
readily find these statements immaterial because they can be viewed in a manner 
that is completely consistent with the trial testimony and, without a recantation by 
Henderson, would necessarily have to be viewed that way.  In fact, Suggs explains 
that, if Henderson had “been asked about why the search was expanded, he would 
have testified to the information conveyed to him by Captain Trusty.” 
With respect to the water stain, Suggs suggests that this statement (attributed  
by Henderson to Trusty) could not be true (and, therefore, could have been used to 
impeach Trusty), either because a water stain could not be seen on black fabric or 
because a water line would not have reached the fabric of shorts.  The first 
inference cannot form a basis for relief because it is too speculative.  Seawater 
contains salts and “other substances, including dissolved inorganic and organic 
 
 
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materials” and particulates, Fred T. Mackenzie, et al., Seawater, Encyc. Britannica, 
http://www.britannica.com/science/seawater (last visited October 30, 2017), and 
salt dissolved in water crystallizes and remains behind as the hydrogen dioxide 
evaporates, see Noushine Shahidzadeh et al., Salt stains from evaporating droplets, 
Scientific Reports (2015), http://www.nature.com/articles/srep10335 (last visited 
October 30, 2017) (studying stain patterns left through this commonly observed 
phenomenon).  Further, depending on the composition of the bay water at the 
relevant location and time, it is possible that other solids would also remain after 
evaporation of the hydrogen dioxide, and either salt or other solids could be visible 
on dark fabric.  With respect to both inferences, even Suggs admitted that he had 
been in the bay, in his clothing, the night of his arrest—which is how the money 
found in his home became wet (indicating that he would have been deep enough 
for the water to reach the pockets of his pants).  Additionally, because Captain 
Trusty did not testify one way or the other about a water line, any impeachment 
value of this evidence would have to follow questioning by Suggs of Captain 
Trusty as to the reason he ordered the search to continue on the second day.  To 
determine whether this questioning would have any impeachment value at all, we 
would have to speculate as to how it would progress.  Therefore, the impeachment 
value of the water-line information does not create a reasonable probability of a 
different outcome.  Cf. Wright v. State, 857 So. 2d 861, 870 (Fla. 2003) (finding 
 
 
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no Brady violation where “the exculpatory effect” of the evidence was “merely 
speculative”). 
The fact that the bar key obtained by Investigator Sunday was not shown to 
the search team of divers is similarly immaterial because it is consistent with the 
trial testimony.  No one at trial testified that the key was shown to the divers, and 
the jury was aware that Investigator Sunday obtained a key from the bar owner the 
day before a key was found in the bay.  And, Investigator Sunday’s report does not 
say that he intended to show the divers the key; it states that he obtained the key to 
give the divers a description, and it notes the physical characteristics of the key as 
being silver with a round head. 
In short, Suggs’s new allegations concerning the key are consistent with the 
explanation of the search presented at trial and, therefore, our confidence in the 
verdict is not undermined.  See Mordenti, 894 So. 2d at 170 (explaining that 
alleged Brady evidence is material only if it is of such a nature that it “ ‘could 
reasonably be taken to put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine 
the confidence in the verdict’ ” (quoting Allen, 854 So. 2d at 1260)).  Accordingly, 
this claim was properly denied. 
3.  Newly Discovered Evidence Concerning Sentencing Judge 
Suggs’s third claim is that newly discovered evidence reveals that his 
sentencing judge failed to exercise her independent judgment over the decision to 
sentence him to death under the law as it existed when he was sentenced.  Suggs 
 
 
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quotes statements his sentencing judge made in a memoir and a letter to the 
Governor in support of commuting Suggs’s sentence to life, arguing that she not 
only deferred to the jury’s vote, contrary to section 921.141(3), Florida Statutes 
(1989), and Ross v. State, 386 So. 2d 1191 (Fla. 1980), but also that she shifted her 
responsibility to the appellate court, contrary to Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 
320 (1985).  This claim is meritless.  Suggs’s sentencing judge issued a detailed 
order showing the requisite findings, and her recent revelation of her thought 
process at the time is not the type of evidence that would probably change the 
outcome at a new sentencing proceeding, as it would not be admissible evidence.  
See Marek v. State, 14 So. 3d 985, 990 (Fla. 2009) (requiring that newly 
discovered evidence related to sentencing be of such a nature that it would 
“probably yield a less severe sentence”).  Moreover, the sentencing judge’s thought 
process inhered in her decision and is not subject to review.  Cf. Foster v. State, 
132 So. 3d 40, 64-65 (Fla. 2013) (explaining that jurors’ private thoughts inhere in 
the verdict).  For these reasons, Suggs’s claim is distinguishable from cases where 
relief has been warranted due to postconviction revelations that prosecutors drafted 
sentencing orders imposing death without input from the sentencing judges or after 
ex parte communications.  See Roberts v. State, 840 So. 2d 962, 972-73 (Fla. 
2002) (ex parte communication); Card v. State, 652 So. 2d 344, 345-46 (Fla. 1995) 
(lack of input).  Accordingly, this claim was properly denied. 
 
 
 
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4.  Brady Claim Concerning FBI Agent Malone 
Suggs’s fourth claim is that the State committed a Brady violation by using 
FBI Agent Michael Malone to test evidence for Suggs’s case and not notifying 
Suggs when Malone was later investigated and found to have performed unreliable 
work in numerous cases.  This claim, too, fails the Brady materiality requirement.  
Malone concluded that none of the hair found on the victim’s body matched 
Suggs’s hair, and Suggs was aware of this conclusion at the time of trial.  Given 
that Malone did not testify in Suggs’s trial, that Malone did not provide any 
evidence inculpating him, and that Suggs has not provided a non-speculative 
reason to believe that any hair other than the victim’s was found on the victim’s 
body, there is no reasonable probability that Suggs’s allegations concerning 
Malone would have produced a different verdict.  Therefore, our confidence in the 
verdict is not undermined.  See Bolin v. State, 184 So. 3d 492, 500-01 (Fla. 2015) 
(holding that Malone’s contamination of evidence in a separate case was not 
relevant in a case where Malone had the limited role of receiving evidence, 
checking for hair and fibers, and forwarding the evidence to other examiners and 
did not testify), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 790 (2016); Rhodes v. State, 986 So. 2d 
501, 506-08 (Fla. 2008) (finding a lack of Brady materiality in the revelation that 
Malone falsely testified that hairs in the victim’s hand belonged to the victim, 
where postconviction testing was unable to exclude either the victim or the 
defendant as the source of the hair).  Accordingly, this claim was properly denied. 
 
 
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5.  Brady Claim Concerning Misconduct of Sheriff’s Department and 
Prosecutor 
 
 
Suggs’s fifth claim is that the State committed a Brady violation by failing to 
disclose that the FDLE was investigating the Walton County Sheriff’s Department 
for misconduct during the period when Suggs was being investigated and 
prosecuted and that, according to testimony from collateral proceedings in another 
case, both the Sheriff and the assistant state attorney who prosecuted Suggs 
engaged in misconduct in a contemporaneous case.4  If Suggs had known of the 
FDLE’s investigation or the alleged misconduct by the Sheriff and prosecutor, that 
knowledge does not undermine our confidence in the verdict, as the related 
evidence would not have been admissible at Suggs’s trial as either substantive or 
impeachment evidence.  See §§ 90.404(1), (2)(a), Fla. Stat. (1989) (providing that 
evidence is inadmissible when its sole relevance is to prove bad character or 
propensity); Bogle v. State, 213 So. 3d 833, 840 (Fla.) (recognizing that “particular 
acts of misconduct” are inadmissible for impeachment purposes), petition for cert. 
filed, No. 17-6329 (U.S. Sept. 7, 2017).  Accordingly, this claim was properly 
denied. 
 
 
                                          
 
 
4.  Suggs has not alleged that the FDLE found misconduct in either his case 
or the contemporaneous case. 
 
 
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6.  Cumulative Effect of the New Allegations 
 
Finally, Suggs argues that when all the allegations presented in this 
postconviction proceeding are considered cumulatively with the trial evidence and 
other admissible evidence developed in prior postconviction proceedings, he is 
entitled to a new trial.  We disagree.  As explained above, the only additional 
evidence presented in this proceeding potentially admissible in any retrial is that 
regarding the key addressed in claim two, and there is no reasonable probability 
that, had this evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the trial would 
have been different.  Therefore, our confidence in the verdict is not undermined. 
CONCLUSION 
 
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the summary denial of Suggs’s 
successive motion for postconviction relief. 
 
It is so ordered. 
LABARGA, C.J., and PARIENTE, LEWIS, QUINCE, CANADY, POLSTON, 
and LAWSON, JJ., concur. 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, 
IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
 
An Appeal from the Circuit Court in and for Walton County,  
Kelvin Clyde Wells, Judge - Case No. 661990CF000338CFAXMX 
 
Robert S. Friedman, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, Dawn B. Macready, and 
Stacy Biggart, Assistant Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, Northern Region, 
Tallahassee, Florida, 
 
 
for Appellant 
 
 
 
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Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, and Lisa A. Hopkins, Assistant Attorney 
General, Tallahassee, Florida, 
 
 
for Appellee