Opinion ID: 4534204
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The State’s Comments

Text: Smiley challenges a raft of statements by the prosecutor during the penalty phase closing argument, some of which were objected to but many of which were not. Objected-to comments are reviewed for harmless error, and unobjected-to comments for fundamental error. Fundamental error is error that reaches down into the validity of the trial itself to the extent that the jury’s recommendation of - 27 - death could not have been obtained without the assistance of the alleged error. Card v. State, 803 So. 2d 613, 622 (Fla. 2001). In Card, another case involving a defendant’s challenge to a mix of objected-to and unobjected-to statements from closing argument, we observed that we do not review challenged comments only in isolation. Rather, we consider the closing argument as a whole and determine whether the cumulative effect of any errors deprived the defendant of a fair penalty phase hearing. Id. Our review is framed by the background principle that “attorneys are generally afforded wide latitude while presenting closing statements to the jury.” Fletcher v. State, 168 So. 3d 186, 213 (Fla. 2015). Some aspects of this claim merely rehash arguments that we consider and reject elsewhere in this opinion. For example, there is no merit to Smiley’s arguments that it was improper for the State to argue that Smiley was the shooter or, relatedly, that the State invited the jury to “rethink or ignore the determinations of the guilt phase jury.” Nor, as we explain later, did the State’s unobjected-to treatment of the prior violent felony aggravating factor fatally skew the jury’s weighing of aggravators and mitigators. Some of Smiley’s arguments mischaracterize the prosecutor’s statements or the law. For example, based on our review of the State’s closing argument, there is no merit to Smiley’s assertions that the State: denigrated Smiley’s exercise of his right to a penalty phase jury trial; argued for an uncharged aggravating factor; - 28 - “obfuscated” relevant facts; or likened Smiley’s actions to Jeffrey Dahmer’s (the prosecution mentioned Dahmer only to make the point that the death penalty is not limited only to the most horrible murderers). Nor do we find any unfair prejudice in the prosecutor’s unobjected-to statement that: “The death penalty, like any punishment, is a deterrent.” We also reject Smiley’s claim that the State made an impermissible “golden rule” argument by saying that Smiley “has an utter disregard for not only . . . the security of your home, of Drake’s home, of Ms. Riley’s home, but also he has an utter disregard for the sanctity of human life.” In contrast to the State’s comment, prohibited golden rule arguments are ones that ask the jurors to put themselves in the victim’s position and to imagine the victim’s pain and terror. See Allen v. State, 261 So. 3d 1255, 1278 (Fla. 2019). The prosecutor here did not do that. Similarly unavailing is Smiley’s argument that the State erred by telling the jury that their decision “to impose the death penalty on Mr. Smiley cannot be based on sympathy for Mr. Smiley. And the law says so. . . . To base your decision on sympathy for this defendant would be to forget the person who lost his life innocently at the hands of this defendant.” Our precedent establishes that it is permissible to tell the jury that it should not base its decision on sympathy for the defendant. See Zack v. State, 753 So. 2d 9, 23-24 (Fla. 2000). - 29 - Finally, we also are unpersuaded by Smiley’s claim that the prosecution impermissibly misstated the law on mitigation, denigrated his mitigation evidence, or sought to treat Smiley’s mitigating evidence as a nonstatutory aggravating factor. This claim centers on the State’s attempt to anticipate Smiley’s arguments about the effects of the brain aneurysms that Smiley suffered as a twenty-year-old, the year before the Drake and Riley murders. Among other things, the State said: “There’s no dispute this defendant suffered a brain aneurysm. So what? People suffer brain aneurysms all the time . . . and they manage to go on with life without murdering people.” The State rhetorically asked whether Smiley “should not be put to death simply because he suffered a brain aneurysm? I would submit to you that one has nothing to do with the other.” And the State argued to the jury that, even prior to the aneurysm, Smiley had engaged in bad behavior: “the fights, the being kicked out of his home for not following the rules, the run-ins with the law, the smoking, the drinking, all of those things.” We rejected nearly identical arguments in Fletcher v. State, 168 So. 3d 186 (Fla. 2015). The defendant in that case faulted the prosecution for saying: “[T]he defendant has suffered from a chronic addiction to drugs in the past. I submit to you a lot of people have drug addictions. Most of them do not murder other people.” Id. at 214. The prosecution in Fletcher also had said: “Now there’s a lot of people who come from tough circumstances, abusive families, but they, too, - 30 - most of them, do not go and murder other people.” Id. This Court found the comments permissible, reasoning that they were proper arguments going to the weight that the jury should assign to the asserted mitigation. Id. at 215. The Court contrasted statements like these with ones that simply characterized mitigation evidence as “invalid or excuses.” Id. The logic of Fletcher defeats Smiley’s claim that he was unfairly prejudiced by the comments at issue here. Nor did the State improperly convert mitigation into an uncharged aggravating factor. Viewing the prosecution’s comments in context, the State did not argue that the jury should punish Smiley for any pre-aneurysm misbehavior or treat Smiley’s intelligence as an aggravating factor. Rather, the prosecution was making a valid argument—the persuasiveness of which was for the jury to decide—that the aneurysm could not explain Smiley’s actions during the Drake murder and that, instead, Smiley’s actions were knowing and deliberate. In sum, we have carefully reviewed the State’s entire closing argument in light of the allegedly improper comments identified by Smiley, and we find no error or collection of errors that warrants reversal for a new penalty phase.