Opinion ID: 1715269
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: constitutionality of florida's death penalty scheme

Text: Belcher challenges the trial court's denial of the defendant's motion to declare sections 782.04 and 921.141, Florida Statutes (2002), unconstitutional under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments and the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000). Belcher claims that his death sentence should be vacated because (1) the indictment did not give notice of the aggravating circumstances on which the State would rely to attempt to establish eligibility for the death penalty; (2) the jury in this case was not told that the existence of any aggravating circumstance had to be agreed upon by all jurors; and (3) the jury's nonbinding recommendation was not unanimous. However, as the State points out, two of the three aggravators found in this case are exempted from an Apprendi analysis: prior violent felony and murder committed in the course of a sexual battery. Regarding the prior violent felony aggravator, in Apprendi, the U.S. Supreme Court exempted prior convictions from facts that must be submitted to a jury because they increase the penalty for a crime. Id. at 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348. The recent decision of Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002), did not disturb that particular holding. See id. at 597 n. 4, 122 S.Ct. 2428 (noting that Ring did not challenge Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 118 S.Ct. 1219, 140 L.Ed.2d 350 (1998), and that none of the aggravators in his case related to past convictions). Regarding the murder being committed in the course of a sexual battery aggravator, the fact remains that a unanimous jury found Belcher guilty of both murder and sexual battery, and therefore the guilt phase verdicts reflect that the jury independently found the aggravator of the murder being committed in the course of a sexual battery. As for Belcher's challenge to Florida's death penalty scheme and how it relates to the remaining aggravator of HAC, we find that Belcher is not entitled to relief under the holding of Ring. This Court addressed a similar contention in Bottoson v. Moore, 833 So.2d 693 (Fla.), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 1070, 123 S.Ct. 662, 154 L.Ed.2d 564 (2002), and King v. Moore, 831 So.2d 143 (Fla.), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 1067, 123 S.Ct. 657, 154 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002), and denied relief. We find that Belcher is likewise not entitled to relief on this claim.