Case Name: Edwin TORO, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2003-11-07
Citations: 862 So. 2d 68
Docket Number: No. 5D03-902
Parties: Edwin TORO, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: THOMPSON, J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 862
Pages: 68–76

Head Matter:
Edwin TORO, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 5D03-902.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.
Nov. 7, 2003.
Rehearing Denied Jan. 9, 2004.
Brett McIntosh of Sypula — McIntosh, Sarasota, for Appellant.
Edwin Toro, Bushnell, Pro Se.
No appearance for Appellee.

Opinion:
MONACO, J.
In 1993, Edwin Toro was convicted of three counts of sexual battery, 28 counts of sexual activity with a child, and one count of battery. He was acquitted for four other charges. The victim was his minor stepdaughter. Mr. Toro's plenary appeal from his judgment and sentence was affirmed in Toro v. State, 642 So.2d 78 (Fla. 5th DCA 1994). In 1996, he filed a Rule 3.850 motion with the trial court asserting that his trial counsel conducted an inadequate pre-trial investigation. The trial court denied the motion, and this court affirmed. Toro v. State, 689 So.2d 1086 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997). A petition by Mr. Toro for a writ of habeas corpus was denied in 1998. Mr. Toro now appeals the order of the trial court summarily denying his second Rule 3.850 motion, in which he alleges that his sentence should be vacated in light of newly discovered evidence. Because the evidence is not newly discovered, we affirm.
At trial, Mr. Toro's stepdaughter testified in excruciating detail, covering at least 100 pages of transcript, concerning the sexual crimes purportedly committed by Mr. Toro and suffered by her from the time she was nine years old until she was 15 years old. She testified further that she had not been sexually active with any other person during that time. The defense brought forth evidence, however, that the victim had been sexually involved with a boyfriend. Specifically, a medical professional employed by the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services said that when the victim sought an abortion, the victim reported that she had sexual relations with a boyfriend. A second witness, an expert on sexual abuse, also testified that the victim told her she was having relations with a boyfriend. All of this testimony was before the jury when it evaluated the evidence.
In Mr. Toro's current Rule 3.850 motion he attaches a sworn statement from a gentleman named Oscar Ortiz acknowledging that Mr. Ortiz had a sexual relationship with the victim during a four month period near the end of the alleged abuse of the victim by Mr. Toro. Mr. Toro says in his motion that the affidavit shows that "someone other than the defendant could have been responsible for [the victim's] pregnancy," and that it is "directly inconsistent with [the victim's] statement that prior to her abortion in 1989, she had had no sexual relations with anyone other than the defendant."
The fact is that the victim in the present case was cross-examined by Mr. Toro's counsel regarding her other sexual activities, and other witnesses testified that she told them that she had relations with a boyfriend. Setting aside the fact that having sex with a boyfriend does not mean that Mr. Toro was not also forcing himself upon the victim, simply putting a name to that boyfriend, does not amount to new evidence.
Moreover, as the trial court pointed out, Mr. Toro fails to establish that the "newly discovered evidence" could not have been earlier ascertained through the exercise of due diligence. See generally, Jones v. State, 591 So.2d 911 (Fla.1991). Although Rule 8.850 claims that could have been raised in a prior postconviction motion are, as a general proposition, procedurally barred, the supreme court has held that a defendant may file successive postconviction relief motions that are based on newly discovered evidence. See White v. State, 664 So.2d 242, 244 (Fla.1995). In order for the purported evidence to be "newly discovered," however; a defendant must show that the facts upon which the motion is premised could not have been discovered with due diligence and raised in an initial Rule 3.850 motion. See Owen v. Crosby, 854 So.2d 182 (Fla.2003).
The record before us demonstrates that Mr. Toro was aware of the possible relationship between Mr. Ortiz and his stepdaughter as early as July of 1995. We know this because Mr. Toro's earlier Rule 3;850 motion asserted, that if his counsel had been more diligent in his pretrial investigation, he "would have discovered that [the victim] was sexually active with boyfriends Oscar Ortiz and Hilton Ayala at relevant times." Thus, the very issue now raised under the newly discovered evidence theory was considered and rejected by this court in 1996 under an inadequacy of counsel theory.
In the final analysis, the jury heard extensive testimony from the victim, the defendant, two witnesses who said the victim was having unprotected sex with other persons, a witness who saw Mr. Toro on top of his stepdaughter apparently having sex, and many others. The fact is that the jury believed the stepdaughter, despite the allegations of her other sexual activities, and did not believe Mr. Toro. Nothing Mr. Toro has brought to us in the current Rule 3.850 appeal compels us to second-guess the jury's determination at this late date.
AFFIRMED.
THOMPSON, J., concurs.
GRIFFIN, J., dissents with opinion.