Case Name: Victor Marcus FARR, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1995-05-04
Citations: 656 So. 2d 448
Docket Number: No. 82894
Parties: Victor Marcus FARR, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: GRIMES, C.J., and OVERTON, SHAW and HARDING, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 656
Pages: 448–453

Head Matter:
Victor Marcus FARR, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 82894.
Supreme Court of Florida.
May 4, 1995.
Rehearing Denied June 21, 1995.
Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender and W.C. McLain, Asst. Public Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen. and Barbara J. Yates, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellee.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
We have on appeal the sentence of the trial court imposing the death penalty upon Victor Marcus Farr. The facts of the case are stated in our prior opinion, in which we remanded for a new penalty phase. Farr v. State, 621 So.2d 1368 (Fla.1993). We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.
This appeal again poses a question we often have faced in recent years: Whether the death penalty is "reliably" imposed in those cases in which the defendant does not oppose or actually requests death by execution. The essential facts before us today are that Farr forbade his attorney to present a case for mitigation on remand and that Farr himself took the witness stand and systematically refuted, belied, or disclaimed virtually the entire case for mitigation that existed in the earlier appeal. Appellate counsel now asks us to reject Farr's testimony as self-serving and unreliable, and he further argues that more recent opinions of this Court have modified our earlier holding in Hamblen v. State, 527 So.2d 800 (Fla.1988).
On the first point, we find no error in the trial court's rejection of the case for mitigation. At the trial level, the defendant is entitled to control the overall objectives of counsel's argument. Hamblen. Here, Farr himself controverted the case for mitigation, which was his right. Id. It is within the trial court's discretion to reject either opinion or factual evidence in mitigation where there is record support for the conclusion that it is untrustworthy. Walls v. State, 641 So.2d 381, 390 (Fla.1994), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 943, 130 L.Ed.2d 887 (1995). That being the case here, the trial court did not err.
On this second point, counsel's argument essentially is that our opinion in Klokoc v. State, 589 So.2d 219 (Fla.1991), effected a modification of Hamblen. It is true that the Klokoc trial court exercised its own independent discretion and appointed special counsel to present a case for mitigation after Klokoc forbade his own attorney to do so. Id. at 220. However, nothing in Klokoc modified the core holding of Hamblen: that there is no constitutional requirement that such a procedure be used. While trial courts have discretion to appoint special counsel where it may be deemed necessary, there is no error in refusing to do so. Compare Klokoc with Hamblen. We thus find no error in the fact that no special counsel was appointed in this ease.
It deserves emphasis, however, that the ability of a capital defendant to restrict counsel's argument is not without limit. It is true that the right to counsel embodies a right of self-determination in the face of specific criminal charges. Traylor v. State, 596 So.2d 957, 968 (Fla.1992). At the trial level, this certainly means that "defendants have a right to control their own destinies" when facing the death penalty. Hamblen, 527 So.2d at 804 (citing Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975)). Nevertheless, there are countervailing interests that must be honored.
In Klokoc, for example, we addressed the problem that can arise when a death-sentenced defendant attempts to restrict the argument of appellate counsel in this Court. The Florida Constitution imposes upon the Court an absolute obligation of determining whether death is a proportionate penalty. Art. I, § 17, Fla. Const.; Tillman v. State, 591 So.2d 167, 169 (Fla.1991). For that reason, appeals from death penalties are both automatic and mandatory, and cannot be rendered illusory for any reason. Thus, the Klokoc Court held that appellate counsel must proceed with a proper adversarial argument notwithstanding the defendant's instruction to dismiss the appeal or to acquiesce to the death penalty. Klokoc, 589 So.2d at 222.
We acknowledge that this is a troubling area of the law. On a case-by-case basis, we have attempted to achieve a solution that both honors the defendant's right of self-determination and the constitutional requirement that death be imposed reliably and proportionately. While there are no simple solutions, we do strongly believe that trial courts would be wise to order presen-tence investigations in at least those eases in which the defendant essentially is not challenging imposition of the death penalty. Nevertheless, the failure to order one cannot be considered error in light of a defendant's refusal to seriously challenge death as a penalty.
For the foregoing reasons, the sentence of death is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
GRIMES, C.J., and OVERTON, SHAW and HARDING, JJ., concur.
ANSTEAD, J., concurs specially with an opinion, in which SHAW and KOGAN, JJ., concur.
KOGAN, J., concurs in part and dissents in part with an opinion, in which ANSTEAD, J., concurs.
WELLS, J., concurs in result only.
. Counsel has raised two other arguments that are procedurally barred, because they were considered and rejected in the previous direct appeal. These are: (1) that the Court should recede from Hamblen v. State, 527 So.2d 800 (Fla.1988); and (2) that the trial court improperly found aggravating factors.