Case Name: Walter Gale STEINHORST, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1997-06-05
Citations: 695 So. 2d 1245
Docket Number: No. 86109
Parties: Walter Gale STEINHORST, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: OVERTON, GRIMES, HARDING and WELLS, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 695
Pages: 1245–1253

Head Matter:
Walter Gale STEINHORST, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 86109.
Supreme Court of Florida.
June 5, 1997.
Stephen D. Alexander and Lisa R. Kiebel of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, Los Angeles, CA, for Appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General and Barbara J. Yates, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
We review an order denying relief to Walter Gale Steinhorst, a prisoner under three sentences of death. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.
Steinhorst was convicted on four counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for three of those murders. This Court affirmed the convictions and sentences on direct appeal. Steinhorst v. State, 412 So.2d 332 (Fla.1982). Steinhorst's first 3.850 motion alleged, among other issues, Brady and Hitchcock violations. That motion was denied following an evidentiary hearing before Judge W. Fred Turner in 1987. This Court affirmed. Steinhorst v. State, 574 So.2d 1075 (Fla.1991). Steinhorst subsequently filed a second motion for postconviction relief seeking to have the judgment on the first 3.850 hearing rendered null and void due to Judge Turner's undisclosed conflict of interest. Specifically, before becoming a judge, Judge Turner had represented and advised the estate of one of the murder victims. As a result, Judge Turner recused himself from the trial of one of Steinhorst's codefendants, Charles Hughes, after informing Hughes' counsel of the conflict. According to Stein-horst's counsel, neither Judge Turner nor the State disclosed the conflict. Judge Turner's recusal order was first discovered in 1991 during a review of the court ease files in preparation for Steinhorst's federal habeas corpus petition.
Judge Don T. Sirmons summarily denied Steinhorst's motion on procedural and substantive grounds. On appeal Steinhorst contended that the recusal order was not found during a 1986 review of the court case files because of clerical error on the part of the clerk's office below. We held that if the information regarding the conflict was not reasonably available to Steinhorst and could not have been ascertained by the exercise of due diligence, then it would qualify as newly discovered evidence sufficient to require a new 3.850 hearing. On the other hand, if the information was reasonably available and Steinhorst did not move to recuse the judge, the right to recuse was waived. Accordingly, we remanded for a factual determination of whether the information regarding Judge Turner's conflict was known by either Stein-horst or his attorney, and if not, whether the information could have been ascertained by the exercise of due diligence. Steinhorst v. State, 636 So.2d 498 (Fla.1994).
Following an evidentiary hearing, Judge Sirmons entered an order denying Stein-horst's motion to set aside the 3.850 judgment entered by judge Turner. The court concluded that while neither Steinhorst nor his attorney had actual knowledge, the fact of Judge Turner's recusal in Hughes' case could have been ascertained by the exercise of due diligence. With respect to the recusal order itself, the court found that Steinhorst's lawyers and their staff simply overlooked the recusal order during their earlier review of the court files in 1986. In support of this finding, the court noted that prior to 1988, all of Steinhorst's and his codefendants' pleadings were kept in one filing system chronologically without reference to an individual defendant's name. According to the court, there was no basis to find that the relevant records had ever been misplaced by the clerk's office.
Steinhorst contends on appeal that the court erred in finding that the recusal order was present in the court files during the 1986 review. At the evidentiary hearing, he presented the testimony of Christian Cox, the paralegal who reviewed the court files in 1986 in preparation for the evidentiary hearing on Steinhorst's first 3.850 motion. Cox testified that she thoroughly reviewed the files and never saw the recusal order. Stein- horst posits that the recusal order was not in the files given to Cox in 1986. He argues that it was located in the basement vault, to which, according to the State's witness Reena Goss Baker, employees of the clerk's office would not have had access. In support of his argument that the recusal order was in the basement vault back in 1986, Steinhorst notes that the lawyer and paralegal who reviewed the court files in 1991 testified that they found the recusal order in some files that had been brought up from "downstairs" after their repeated requests for additional files.
However, there was also evidence presented suggesting a different explanation for why the Hughes recusal order may have come from the basement vault in 1991. State witness Gloria Tharpe, an employee of the clerk's office, testified that before 1988, all of the paperwork regarding Steinhorst and his codefendants, known as the Sandy Creek files, was kept together in a roughly chronological but otherwise unorganized fashion. She testified that these files were kept in a file room on the first floor next to the clerk's office. Tharpe further testified that in 1988, when it became necessary to prepare the record on appeal for Steinhorst's first 3.850 motion, she reorganized the Sandy Creek files by separating the paperwork according to individual defendant.
Reena Goss Baker corroborated Tharpe's testimony regarding the location of the Sandy Creek files. She testified that between 1985 and 1988, all the pleadings, motions, and orders for all the Sandy Creek defendants were kept on the first floor near the clerk's office. She further testified that only the State's exhibits were kept in the inaccessible basement vault during this time. It was only after the files were organized by individual defendant in 1988 that the files on inactive Sandy Creek defendants were placed in the basement vault.
When the evidence adequately supports two conflicting theories, this Court's duty is to review the record in the light most favorable to the prevailing theory. Johnson v. State, 660 So.2d 637, 642 (Fla.1995), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 116 S.Ct. 1550, 134 L.Ed.2d 653 (1996). Under that standard, we will not alter a trial court's factual findings if the record contains competent substantial evidence to support those findings. We conclude that the evidence in the record supports the trial court's finding that in 1986, when Steinhorst's attorneys were preparing for the first 3.850 evidentiary hearing, the Hughes' recusal order was in the same court file that contained Steinhorst's paperwork. We note that even Cox testified that during her 1986 review of the court files, she recalled seeing documents with the names of Steinhorst's codefendants. Her testimony was not inconsistent with Tharpe's and Baker's testimony that the pleadings of all eode-fendants were kept together before 1988.
We also find the record contains competent substantial evidence to support the trial court's finding that "at no time did defense counsel seek to talk directly by letter, phone or personally to the defense counsel who handled the Hughes case as to what happened in that ease." The following exchange took place during the cross-examination of Stephen Alexander, Steinhorst's primary postconviction counsel:
Q. Did you ever talk to any of the lawyers in the Charlie Hughes, the trial lawyer in Charlie Hughes' case?
A. Mr. Daniels?
Q. Yes.
A. No, I've never talked to him personally. I know that I attempted to reach him and people on my — that working for me attempted to reach him and I believe at the time I was told that he didn't want to cooperate.
Q. When was this?
A. I don't recall specifically. Now, it was sometime during the investigation period. We tried to attempt to reach every lawyer that had ever represented any of the co-defendants.
Q. All right. In the investigation period, do you know which period you're talking about?
A. We made an attempt to reach — and sometimes more than one attempt to reach every lawyer starting from when I got involved in the case probably early in 1983, up and including two weeks ago.
Q. All right.
A. I should say just to be complete, I personally did not talk with — Mr. Daniels, I believe, did speak with Ms. Jacobs sometime after September [1991].
Contrary to Steinhorst's assertion, Alexander's testimony does not unequivocally establish that he or his staff had attempted to reach Hughes' attorney before Ms. Jacobs did in 1991. Alexander indicated that the investigation period ran from 1983 all the way up until 1994. He testified that he learned that Hughes' lawyer did not wish to cooperate after Jacobs spoke with him in 1991. The trial court's finding that there was no attempt to contact Hughes' attorney clearly refers to the time before 1986, for that is the relevant time period for purposes of determining whether due diligence was exercised. It is irrelevant that Steinhorst's counsel attempted to contact Hughes' lawyer in 1991.
Having upheld the trial court's findings of fact, we conclude that the trial court did not err in denying Steinhorst's motion for relief. Accordingly, we affirm the denial of Stein-horst's second 3.850 motion.
It is so ordered.
OVERTON, GRIMES, HARDING and WELLS, JJ., concur.
KOGAN, C.J., dissents with an opinion, in which SHAW and ANSTEAD, JJ., concur.
ANSTEAD, J., dissents with an opinion, in which KOGAN, C.J. and SHAW, J., concur.
. The facts and procedural history of this case are available in Steinhorst v. State, 574 So.2d 1075 (Fla.1991) (affirming denial of first 3.850 motion); Steinhorst v. State, 498 So.2d 414 (Fla.1986) (remanding for evidentiary hearing on first 3.850 motion); Steinhorst v. Wainwright, All So.2d 537 (Fla.1985) (denying petition for writ of habeas corpus alleging ineffective assistance of appellate counsel); Steinhorst v. State, 412 So.2d 332 (Fla.1982) (direct appeal affirming convic tions and sentences); see also Steinhorst v. State, 438 So.2d 992 (Fla. 1st DCA 1983) (affirming order denying motion to substitute counsel for purposes of executive clemency application).
. Steinhorst received a life sentence for the fourth murder conviction.
. Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963).
. Hitchcock v. Dugger, 481 U.S. 393, 107 S.Ct. 1821, 95 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987).
. Judge Turner did not preside over the original trial.
. Although Steinhorst originally brought the motion pursuant to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.540, we determined on appeal that the motion should have been treated as one brought under rule 3.850 alleging newly discovered evidence. Steinhorst v. State, 636 So.2d 498 (Fla.1994).
. The events leading to the murders began at a site called Sandy Creek.