Opinion ID: 1668296
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Materiality in This Case

Text: In the case at bar, Floyd maintained his innocence of the murder throughout the trial in his defense. There was no direct evidence of Floyd's guilt, such as eyewitness testimony or DNA blood evidence or fingerprint evidence at the victim's home. Rather, this was a circumstantial case in which the most damaging evidence was arguably Floyd's confession through a jailhouse informant. It is apparent that the Tina Glenn information would be of great importance to the defense because it identified other suspects and would have been consistent with Floyd's innocence defense. Although we upheld the defendant's conviction on appeal, Floyd v. State, 497 So.2d 1211, 1212 (Fla.1986), it is clear that the case against the defendant was not among the strongest we have encountered. The only physical evidence specifically linking the defendant to the crime was the victim's checkbook, which the defendant used to forge checks on the afternoon of the murder and again two days later. The remainder of the physical evidence only linked the defendant to the crime at a high level of generality. For example, the sock found in the defendant's jacket was stained with type O blood, which was the victim's blood type but is also the blood type of roughly 45 percent of the American population. [7] Similarly, the hair fragments found in the victim's bedroom were identified only as Negroid, which applies to a large percentage of the population. And the tire tracks on the victim's driveway were identified only as being similar to the treads of Japanese motorcycles, which were so popular in the mid-1980s that they became the target of a federal antitrust investigation. [8] The jury may have been justified in finding the defendant guilty of first-degree murder because all of this circumstantial evidence, together with the defendant's alleged confession and his false alibi, pointed uniformly in the direction of guilt, whereas very little (if any) evidence pointed in the direction of innocence. But that is no longer the case. The defendant has now identified important information that was withheld from him by the State and that would have been favorable to his defense. The most important evidence that the State withheld from the defendant is the eyewitness account of Tina Glenn, a neighbor of the victim who was interviewed twice only days after the murder. According to the report from the first interview, Glenn told a detective that she last saw the victim standing outside of her home at 11 a.m. on the day of the murder. Then, while watching the show All My Children between 1:30 and 2 p.m., Glenn heard a car pull up to the victim's house. Two white males emerged from the car and with a fast stride approached the house. They knocked on the door, and although [Glenn] did not see the victim they were led into the house. About thirty to forty-five minutes later, Glenn heard a door slam at the victim's house. She watched as the two males returned to their car and, after looking around suspiciously, sped off. The second interview, which was conducted at the police station, revealed slightly different information. According to the report, Glenn claimed that she heard a car pull up to the victim's house between 1 and 1:30 p.m. on the day of the murder. Two white males stepped out of the car, walked fairly fast to the front door of the house, and knocked. They then walked into the residence, although Glenn did not see the victim actually answer the door. Glenn then went outside to walk her dog, at which time she observed one of the men on the victim's back porch. She also heard what she called scrambling noises inside the victim's house, which sounded like people were going through drawers and other things in the house. About an hour after the two men arrived, Glenn heard the sound of the front door slamming (which she distinguished from the sound of the back door) and watched as the men went back to their car almost running and looking around very suspicious. One said to the other, Come on. Let's go. Glenn recalled that the vehicle sped off with its tires squealing, possibly running a nearby stop sign. [9] Glenn's eyewitness account is unsettling, given the circumstantial nature of this case. She places two white men in a car as contrasted with the defendant, a black man who was allegedly driving his motorcycle at the victim's house within the estimated time frame of the murder. She also identifies very suspicious behavior that would be consistent with the crime. In fact, all of the Brady evidence elicited below, including impeachment evidence of the jailhouse informant, could have been persuasive for the defense when weighed against the State's case, especially when considered in the light of the heavy burden upon the State to prove guilt in a criminal case beyond any reasonable doubt and the legal requirement that the jury's verdict be unanimous. In effect, this means that only one juror finding reasonable doubt would change the outcome. Glenn's evidence not only identified other suspects, but it also failed to include the defendant or anyone meeting his description as being present at the victim's residence at the time of the crime. The rest of the suppressed evidence is not as powerful, but does raise further doubts about the reliability of a crucial piece of evidence: the defendant's alleged confession. The only witness to that confession was the defendant's cellmate, Gregory Anderson. As the circuit court noted in its order denying relief, Anderson's credibility was undermined by defense counsel at trial: During a lengthy cross-examination, [defense counsel] aptly demonstrated to the jury that Anderson had lied to law enforcement by using different aliases in the past. [Counsel] also elicited testimony from Anderson indicating he lied about his origin/whereabouts to law enforcement on a previous occasion. Additionally, [counsel] brought out on cross-examination that Anderson harbored a certain animus toward black people. [Counsel] then impeached Anderson with prior inconsistent statements. Subsequently, [counsel] proceeded to quite effectively discredit Anderson by questioning him concerning his letter writing to Judge Walker [which contained statements that Anderson would do anything to get out of jail], his prior involvement as a snitch in other cases, and his apparent favorable treatment in prior cases. (Emphasis added.) The evidence suppressed by the State would have increased Anderson's credibility problem. Undisclosed letters that Anderson wrote to the prosecutor and to a detective reveal that he sought a reduction of his robbery charge in exchange for his testimony against the defendant, and that he claimed he would rather die [than] go to prison. Further, one reason that the defendant's confession carried some weight at trial, despite Anderson's lack of credibility, was the apparent discovery of corroborating evidence at the scene of the crime. The defendant allegedly confessed that he murdered the victim after she surprised him during the course of a burglary. Witnesses for the State testified that what appeared to be fresh pry marks were found on two window frames inside the defendant's bedroom, which seemed consistent with the surprise element of the defendant's confession. Witnesses also testified to the discovery of Negroid hair fragments in the victim's bedroom. These discoveries may have convinced the jurors that the defendant did, in fact, confess to the crime as Anderson claimed. However, suppressed police reports cast doubt on both of these corroborating discoveries. The police reports are entirely inconsistent as to whether fresh pry marks were found on either of the two window frames in the victim's bedroom. One report states that there are fresh pry marks on the [west] window but that pry marks on the north window did not appear to be as fresh. Strangely, the exact opposite conclusion appears in a report by the detective who testified to the fresh pry marks at trial. According to that report, the north window had fresh pry marks but the west window did not. This inconsistency has not been explained. The police reports also leave ambiguity as to whether the hair fragments in the defendant's bedroom could plausibly have come from the murderer. One report states that the FDLE lab located some negro body hair fragments on the sheet and the white bedspread in the victim's bedroom. But another report states that the victim's bed was fully made when her body was found lying on it. The defendant argues that the hair fragments on the sheet and bedspread must have come from someone other than the murderer, because the murder occurred while the bed was fully made. Although these suppressed police reports would not have refuted the evidence corroborating the defendant's confession, they at least would have given the defendant an avenue through which to challenge that evidence as being mixed or unreliable. With the corroborating evidence in question, it would have been even more difficult for the jurors to rely on the testimony of the jail cellmate, whose suppressed letters reveal that he may have been even less credible than the jury realized. After collectively examining the evidence suppressed by the State, it is apparent that it could have provided a basis for reasonable doubt in the minds of some jurors. The case against the defendant was, from the beginning, a circumstantial one. While at the time of trial, those circumstances may have seemed to point in the direction of guilt, the circumstances have been changed considerably by the suppressed evidence, which put[s] the whole case in ... a different light. Strickler, 527 U.S. at 290, 119 S.Ct. 1936 (quoting Kyles, 514 U.S. at 435, 115 S.Ct. 1555). The suppressed evidence not only identifies two other men acting very suspiciously at the location of the murder within the time frame of the murder, but also raises additional concerns about whether the defendant truly confessed to the crime. It therefore undermines our confidence in the defendant's conviction. [10] The State claims that this case is similar to Carroll v. State, 815 So.2d 601 (Fla. 2002), in which we held that the defendant was not prejudiced by evidence that another person might have committed the crime. We disagree. In Carroll, the physical evidence against the defendant was much stronger than here. [B]lood was found on [the defendant's] sweatshirt and genitalia, and semen, saliva, and pubic hair recovered from the victim were consistent with that of [the defendant]. Id. at 620. Moreover, hair and blood samples taken from the other suspect ruled out his involvement. Id. In this case, the physical evidence against the defendant is not as strong. Moreover, there is no evidence that rules out the involvement of the two white men whom an eyewitness saw at the victim's house around the time of the murder. This case is more closely analogous to Rogers v. State, 782 So.2d 373 (Fla.2001), in which we concluded that a defendant was prejudiced by the suppression of favorable evidence because that evidence could have been used to show that another person committed the crime, and also could have been used to directly impeach [the] testimony of a witness upon whom the States case for conviction was substantially predicated. Id. at 383. The suppressed evidence in this case could have been used to make essentially the same two points to the jury: first, that two unidentified men were acting suspiciously at the place and time of the crime, and second, that the testimony of the defendants cellmate regarding the defendants alleged confession was unworthy of reliance. [11] We conclude that our confidence in the defendant's murder conviction has clearly been shaken by the evidence that the State suppressed in this case. While there is not a smoking gun in the suppressed evidence that would completely exonerate the defendant, there was also not a smoking gun in the State's case against him. Just as irrefutable evidence of guilt is not required for a conviction, irrefutable evidence of innocence is not required for a conviction to be set aside under Brady. The United States Supreme Court has explained that suppressed evidence must be examined collectively, not item by item, to determine whether it prejudiced the defendant. Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. at 436, 115 S.Ct. 1555. Based on the above analysis, we conclude that the defendant's trial did not result in a verdict worthy of confidence.