Opinion ID: 1561776
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Alibi Timeline

Text: Throughout the capital trial, Beasley maintained that he was innocent because on the day that murder was committed, he left Dundee on a trip to Miami. Defense counsel investigated the stops along Beasley's travel route to establish the timeline for his alibi. However, trial counsel was unable to recover any evidentiary proof of Beasley's trip. In his postconviction motion, Beasley contends that had counsel promptly investigated the route or established a general timeline, the defense could have presented a verified alibi to the jury, which would have a reasonable probability of changing the outcome of the trial. For each of these alleged errors, Beasley has not demonstrated deficient performance or prejudice. The postconviction court rejected this claim because the testimony of trial counsel established that the efforts to investigate were reasonable and diligent. In Strickland, the United States Supreme Court addressed defense counsel's duty to investigate: [C]ounsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary. In any ineffectiveness case, a particular decision not to investigate must be directly assessed for reasonableness in all the circumstances, applying a heavy measure of deference to counsel's judgments. The reasonableness of counsel's actions may be determined or substantially influenced by the defendant's own statements or actions. Counsel's actions are usually based, quite properly, on informed strategic choices made by the defendant and on information supplied by the defendant. In particular, what investigation decisions are reasonable depends critically on such information. For example, when the facts that support a certain potential line of defense are generally known to counsel because of what the defendant has said, the need for further investigation may be considerably diminished or eliminated altogether. And when a defendant has given counsel reason to believe that pursuing certain investigations would be fruitless or even harmful, counsel's failure to pursue those investigations may not later be challenged as unreasonable. 466 U.S. at 691, 104 S.Ct. 2052 (emphasis supplied). Trial counsel is not absolutely required to hire special investigators under all circumstances; trial counsel is only required to conduct a reasonable investigation. See Davis v. State, 928 So.2d 1089, 1117 (Fla.2005). With regard to the first alleged error, a delay in commencing an investigation may be unreasonable because it can lead to the destruction of corroborating evidence. Here, the murder occurred on August 21, 1995, but Beasley was not arrested until January of 1996. Ten months after the murder, in early June of 1996, lead counsel was appointed. An investigator was selected by late September of 1996. Several months later in mid-January of 1997, second-chair counsel was provided and was assigned primary responsibility for the investigation. The investigator allegedly did not begin his work until September of 1997, almost two years after the murder and fifteen months after counsel was appointed. Beasley maintains that the fifteen-month delay in commencing the investigation resulted in the destruction of records that would have validated and confirmed his travel itinerary. However, Beasley did not present any evidence to demonstrate that any records existed when lead counsel was appointed ten months after the murder, or that the records even existed at the time when Beasley was arrested, which was five months after the murder. Furthermore, Beasley did not present any evidence to establish that the investigation was dilatory. He also did not present any billing records of the investigator to establish when he engaged in any part of his work. Thus, the only evidence before the postconviction court was the testimony of defense trial counsel, and this testimony does not support Beasley's claim. During the postconviction hearing, the evidence disclosed that a tremendous amount of time was invested in investigating Beasley's alibi through the efforts of both counsel and the investigator. The evidence suggested that although the passage of time was a hindrance, there was not an inordinate delay in the commencement of the investigation: We did it as soon as we knew about it and had the resources to pursue it. . . . [W]e were not dilatory. [O]nce I was appointed to the case, [and] assigned . . . these investigative actions, I would have immediately taken them. I did not delay them. There w[ere] no[t] months and months that passed between the time I learned of them and the time we executed them. It would have been all within a fairly short period of time. Though Beasley asserts on appeal that counsel delayed beginning the investigation for eight months, there are no dates or documents in the postconviction record to refute the clear testimony to the contrary. In hindsight, counsel may have theoretically salvaged some evidence if the investigation was initiated immediately upon lead counsel's appointment rather than at the time that additional members of the defense team were appointed. However, it is speculative and highly unlikely that the trail would have revealed further evidence at that point because six months had already passed from the time of the murder until Beasley's arrest. Specifically, trial counsel testified with regard to the investigation that the first step was to confer with Beasley to establish his whereabouts during the murder and the subsequent days. Initially, Beasley informed counsel that he had arranged for a drug dealer to drive him from Dundee to Tampa just before the murder would have occurred. Beasley's explanation, however, left the time frame for when this drive occurred uncertain. Moreover, Beasley was reluctant to provide the name of the drug dealer allegedly due to fear of repercussions to his family. Once in Tampa, Beasley claimed that he rented a motel room. The following day, he traveled on a bus from Tampa to Miami with a stopover in Fort Myers. In Miami, Beasley resided with friends. Beasley did not keep any receipts for his travels, which required counsel to search for documentation of Beasley's travel route. Counsel attempted to reconstruct this journey by contacting the motel and the bus company for supporting documentation of Beasley's travel route. Once Beasley provided information with regard to his lodging on the night of the murder, counsel next attempted to establish whether a corresponding motel record existed. The motel was contacted both by telephone and in person, with the investigator having motel employees search through their records. The search was to no avail because the records were either purged or never generated. Counsel next attempted to retrieve bus records. The investigator traveled to the bus company's administrative headquarters to locate an itinerary through either a passenger manifest or any kind of ticketing information that might support Mr. Beasley's version of those events. The investigator also attempted to establish the bus schedules for Beasley's alleged travel dates. The defense team requested copies of any schedules or materials that could be utilized to establish that there were bus routes that would have taken Beasley along his claimed route. The predicament was that they could neither locate precise times to verify the specific buses on which Beasley traveled, nor could they obtain any ticketing information that would have corroborated Beasley's alibi. For the Miami portion of the trip, the defense team obtained evidence from witnesses with regard to when Beasley was transported from the bus station and where he stayed. Thus, defense counsel provided evidence of reasonable efforts to locate these documents, which was not refuted by any direct evidence from Beasley during the postconviction proceedings. The only support for the alleged ineffective assistance can be found in the mere argument of postconviction counsel. During this pre-trial investigation, trial counsel repeatedly explained to Beasley that it was vitally important to establish that Beasley departed Dundee at a certain time before the murder occurred and to provide the reason for Beasley's departure. Trial counsel testified that the defense team went down many rabbit trails where Beasley directed counsel to investigate a specific location, but upon doing so, counsel discovered there were no records establishing that Beasley had been there. After each attempt, counsel would question Beasley for additional information, but Beasley was reluctant to assist counsel in the investigation. Beasley provided only general, vague details of his itinerary, and he refused to shed light on any of the ancillary facts. For instance, Beasley declined to reveal the name of the person who allegedly drove him to Tampa. Defense counsel testified that it was clear Beasley did not want to discuss these details. Despite Beasley's reluctance, trial counsel continued to prevail upon him to provide more complete information. For example, counsel requested information concerning a person in Latin America who had a connection to the person who allegedly drove Beasley to Tampa. Contact information for this person would have helped counsel establish the identities of pivotal, potential witnesses and whether they could provide an alibi. If the person in Latin American had provided an alibi for Beasley, counsel reasoned that from this information they could have backtracked to establish the timeline. Though Beasley provided a telephone number in Colombia, it was disconnected, which resulted in another dead end because counsel did not know even the name of the potential witness to generate further investigation. Without Beasley providing names or more specific information, counsel could have reasonably concluded that further investigation would have been fruitless. A strategic decision to stop searching because of rabbit trails and vague information is not necessarily unreasonable. See Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374, 383, 125 S.Ct. 2456, 162 L.Ed.2d 360 (2005) ([T]he duty to investigate does not force defense lawyers to scour the globe on the off chance something will turn up; reasonably diligent counsel may draw a line when they have good reason to think further investigation would be a waste.). Here, Beasley had no receipts or any evidence with regard to his trip that may have aided the investigation, and he refused to provide specific information to aid counsel in collecting corroborating evidence of his travels. This lack of cooperation left counsel in the position of attempting to recreate the timeline based exclusively on Beasley's sparse details. The evidence presented during the evidentiary hearing demonstrated that counsel reasonably investigated all leads provided by Beasley, including questioning for additional information when encountering a dead end in the investigation, only to be met with Beasley's reluctance to provide anything more than vague details. Thus, the record contains competent, substantial evidence to support the postconviction court's determination that the performance of trial counsel was not deficient. Beasley also claims that even allowing for the passage of time, it would have been possible to present the amount of hours that it would have taken him to travel this route and that the buses departed along that route according to a set schedule. Despite asserting the ease of this demonstration, Beasley did not submit a general timeline during the evidentiary hearing to establish deficient performance. Further, Beasley did not present any evidence to refute the evidence which demonstrated that counsel attempted to establish a general route, but could not do so based upon the documentation available during the investigation. Beasley also cannot demonstrate prejudice for either claim because (1) trial counsel did not present a case-in-chief; thus, this evidence would not have had a forum in which to be presented, and (2) the timeline only provided a partial alibi. With regard to the former, trial counsel prepared for trial in anticipation that Beasley might choose not to testify. When Beasley declined to testify, the defense strategically decided not to present a defense case-in-chief to avoid relinquishing the primacy and recency effect in the closing argument sandwich or, in other words, the benefits inherent in giving both first and last closing argument. [5] This was a reasonable defense strategy based on the procedural rules in force at the time of trial. See Evans v. State, 995 So.2d 933, 945 n. 16 (Fla.2008) (counsel's strategic decision to take into consideration the opportunity to have opening and closing argument was reasonable); see also Van Poyck v. State, 694 So.2d 686, 697 (Fla. 1997) (concluding that there were tactical reasons for limiting the presentation of evidence, such as preserving the opportunity to give two closing arguments during the guilt phase). Thus, there would have been no forum available for the defense to present a generic timeline without abandoning a strategic procedural advantage. Furthermore, even if Beasley's counsel had presented evidence solely to establish the timeline, the general timeline had extremely weak probative and exculpatory value. In circumstances where the investigative delay was much longer than that here, this Court has held that a defendant did not suffer prejudice for counsel's failure to investigate evidence of a partial alibi. See Overton v. State, 976 So.2d 536, 557 (Fla.2007) (no actual prejudice from five-year delay because alibi witnesses would only provide an incomplete alibi at best). Similarly, Beasley did not establish that he suffered prejudice because the timeline only provided a partial alibi. The evidence during trial confirmed that Mrs. Monfort left the apartments where she was last seen alive between 5:30 and 5:45 p.m. on the evening of the murder. Beasley claimed that the drug dealer drove him to Tampa at 7 p.m. This left an hour unaccounted for in the timeline. Additionally, because Beasley refused to provide the drug dealer's name and refused to testify, counsel could not demonstrate that Beasley actually left town at 7 p.m. Therefore, even if bus records had been investigated in a more expedient manner and a general timeline had been presented, Beasley still had no alibi for the time between 5:30 and 7 p.m. Cf. Lott v. State, 931 So.2d 807, 815 (Fla.2006) (holding that the failure to investigate an alibi did not constitute ineffective assistance because even if the jury believed that Lott did speak with Jones on the Sunday afternoon in question, it still would have left plenty of room in the twenty-seven hour timeline for Lott to have committed the murder); Reed v. State, 875 So.2d 415, 429-30 (Fla. 2004) (holding that there was no deficient performance with regard to the failure to investigate the alibi claim because the available testimony provided, at best, an incomplete alibi, where the testimony still allowed for a two- to three-hour window for the defendant to commit the murder). Thus, sufficient time remained for Beasley to have committed the murder before he left Dundee based on the uncertain departure time provided by Beasley and the range in time of death provided by the medical examiner. In addition, whereas the timeline could have provided some evidence contrary to the State's case, it was refuted by a witness who testified that he saw Beasley drive the victim's vehicle on the night of the murder. As previously observed: There is no reasonable defense hypothesis which can reconcile a theory that Mrs. Monfort came home with her car after 7 p.m. on August 21 with the conclusion that a jury might fairly and reasonably infer from the evidence that Beasleywho was supposed to have left by thenwas seen by Robinson later that night driving Mrs. Monfort's car. There was substantial, competent evidence (in the form of the direct testimony of Dale Robinson) to support the conclusion that Beasley had Mrs. Monfort's car on the night of the murder. Beasley, 774 So.2d at 658. Next, admission of general bus records would not exculpate Beasley because unspecific records would not prove that he was actually present on the bus. Further, the bus records would have only established his actions on the day following the murder. Hence, the strategy for establishing the timeline was not to exculpate Beasley for the murder but to demonstrate that Beasley left Dundee to contact friends in Miami and was not fleeing because of consciousness of guilt from having committed this murder. This was necessary to refute the State's allegation that Beasley fled Dundee to escape arrest for the murder. Therefore, the impact of establishing the timeline through general itineraries is not so great that it undermines our confidence in the trial proceedings. Accordingly, we affirm the postconviction court's denial of this claim because Beasley did not establish that the performance of counsel was deficient or that the failure to present a timeline of Beasley's travel from Dundee establishes prejudice as required by law.