Title: Merck v. State
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SC19-1864
State: Florida
Issuer: Florida Supreme Court
Date: July 9, 2020

Supreme Court of Florida 
 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC19-1864 
____________ 
 
TROY MERCK, JR., 
Appellant, 
 
vs. 
 
STATE OF FLORIDA, 
Appellee. 
 
July 9, 2020 
 
PER CURIAM. 
 
Troy Merck, Jr., appeals the circuit court’s order summarily dismissing his 
successive postconviction motion filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal 
Procedure 3.851.  We have jurisdiction.  See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.  For the 
reasons below, we affirm. 
BACKGROUND 
 
In 1993, Merck was convicted of the first-degree murder of James Newton 
and sentenced to death.  Merck v. State (Merck I), 664 So. 2d 939, 940 (Fla. 1995).  
We affirmed Merck’s conviction on direct appeal but remanded for resentencing at 
a new penalty phase.  Merck, 664 So. 2d at 944.  Upon resentencing in 1997, 
 
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Merck was again sentenced to death.  Merck v. State (Merck II), 763 So. 2d 295, 
296 (Fla. 2000).  However, we again remanded for a new penalty phase and 
resentencing on direct appeal from the resentencing.  Id.  At Merck’s third penalty 
phase in 2004, he was sentenced to death, and this Court affirmed.  Merck v. State 
(Merck III), 975 So. 2d 1054, 1058-59 (Fla. 2007), cert. denied, Merck v. Florida, 
555 U.S. 840 (2008).  We have since affirmed the denial of Merck’s initial motion 
for postconviction relief and denied his accompanying petition for writ of habeas 
corpus.  Merck v. State (Merck IV), 124 So. 3d 785, 790 (Fla. 2013). 
Most recently, we have affirmed the denial of Merck’s first successive 
motion for postconviction relief.  Merck v. State (Merck V), 260 So. 3d 184, 188 
(Fla. 2018).  While Merck V was pending, Merck filed his second successive 
postconviction motion seeking relief from his sentence of death pursuant to Hurst 
v. Florida, 136 S. Ct. 616 (2016), and Hurst v. State, 202 So. 3d 40 (Fla. 2016), 
receded from in part by State v. Poole, 45 Fla. L. Weekly S41 (Fla. Jan. 23, 2020), 
clarified, 45 Fla. L. Weekly S121 (Fla. Apr. 2, 2020), which the circuit court 
granted in 2017.  Although the State initially appealed the circuit court’s order, it 
voluntarily dismissed the appeal.  Accordingly, this Court never reviewed the 
propriety of that order, which is now final.  However, in Merck V, we held that the 
fact that Merck is awaiting resentencing does not deprive this Court of jurisdiction 
 
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over postconviction challenges to Merck’s “capital conviction for which a sentence 
of death was imposed.”  Merck V, 260 So. 3d at 188 & n.1. 
 
At issue in this appeal is Merck’s third successive motion for postconviction 
relief, which he filed on May 10, 2019.  In that motion, Merck argued that his 
conviction violates the Sixth Amendment pursuant to the United States Supreme 
Court’s decision in McCoy v. Louisiana, 138 S. Ct. 1500 (2018), because his 
appointed trial counsel refused to abide by Merck’s asserted objective of defense—
actual innocence—and instead conceded Merck’s guilt at trial by arguing the 
defense of voluntary intoxication.1  The circuit court dismissed Merck’s claim as 
untimely under rule 3.851(d)(2)(B) and in so doing stated that “even if Merck’s 
motion was timely filed, it likely would have been denied as without merit.” 
ANALYSIS 
 
We review the summary dismissal de novo, see Dailey v. State, 279 So. 3d 
1208, 1215 (Fla. 2019), and affirm because the record conclusively refutes 
Merck’s allegation that trial counsel conceded Merck’s guilt at trial.  Trial 
counsel’s concession of the defendant’s guilt is central to McCoy.  See McCoy, 138 
S. Ct. at 1507, 1509 (addressing the issue of “whether it is unconstitutional to 
 
 
1.  At the time of Merck’s trial, voluntary intoxication was a defense to 
specific-intent crimes.  See Gardner v. State, 480 So. 2d 91, 92 (Fla. 1985).  The 
Legislature has since abrogated this defense.  § 775.051, Fla. Stat. (2019); ch. 99-
174, § 1, Laws of Fla. (creating section 775.051, effective October 1, 1999). 
 
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allow defense counsel to concede guilt over the defendant’s intransigent and 
unambiguous objection” and holding that if a defendant “expressly asserts that the 
objective of ‘his defence’ is to maintain innocence of the charged criminal acts, his 
lawyer must abide by that objective and may not override it by conceding guilt” 
(quoting U.S. Const. amend. VI)).  In Merck’s case, as we have previously held, 
trial counsel “never admitted Merck’s guilt in advancing the intoxication theory.”  
Merck IV, 124 So. 3d at 794.  Because the record conclusively establishes that 
Merck is not entitled to relief, we affirm the circuit court’s order. 
It is therefore unnecessary to address the circuit court’s ruling that Merck’s 
motion was untimely under rule 3.851(d)(2)(B). 
CONCLUSION 
 
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the circuit court’s order dismissing 
Merck’s successive postconviction motion. 
It is so ordered. 
CANADY, C.J., and POLSTON, LABARGA, LAWSON, MUÑIZ, and 
COURIEL, JJ., concur. 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, 
IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
An Appeal from the Circuit Court in and for Pinellas County, 
Nancy Moate Ley, Judge - Case No. 521991CF016659XXXXNO 
 
Linda McDermott of McClain & McDermott, P.A., Estero, Florida, 
 
 
for Appellant 
 
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Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, and Stephen D. Ake, 
Senior Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, Florida, 
 
 
for Appellee