Opinion ID: 4534204
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Firearm Arguments During the Penalty Phase

Text: Smiley next argues that the penalty phase jury heard evidence contrary to the guilt phase verdict and that this constitutes reversible error. Specifically, Smiley argues that the trial court should not have allowed the State to argue to the penalty phase jury that Smiley was the shooter in the Drake murder. Smiley bases this claim on the fact that, in counts 2 (“Robbery with a Firearm”), 4 (“Aggravated Assault with a Firearm”), and 5 (“Burglary of a Dwelling with an Assault or Battery While Armed with a Firearm”), the jury failed to mark spaces on the verdict form that would have allowed it to make special findings about Smiley’s possession or discharge of a firearm during the commission of the crime charged in each of those counts. (Count 3, “Tampering with Physical Evidence,” is not at issue because the jury found Smiley not guilty as to that count.) This argument has no merit. The jury found Smiley guilty on count 1, “First Degree Felony Murder, as charged in the indictment.” Count 1 of the indictment - 25 - explicitly alleged that Smiley killed Drake by shooting him with a firearm. Moreover, the trial court instructed the jury that, in order to convict Smiley on count 1, it would have to find proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Smiley “was the person who actually killed Clifford Drake.” The jury’s guilty verdict on this count thus reflects a clear finding that Smiley shot and killed Drake. The jury’s verdicts on counts 2, 4, and 5 also reflect findings that Smiley had a firearm during the Drake murder. In count 2, the jury found Smiley guilty of “Robbery with a Firearm, as charged in the indictment.” In count 4, the jury found Smiley guilty of “Aggravated Assault with a Firearm, as charged in the indictment.” And in count 5, the jury found Smiley guilty of “Burglary of a Dwelling with an Assault or Battery While Armed with a Firearm, as charged in the indictment.” Smiley invokes Lebron v. State, 894 So. 2d 849 (Fla. 2005), but that case does not help him. In Lebron, the jury found the defendant guilty of felony murder, but also “determined” that the murder victim was “actually shot by someone other than” the defendant. Id. at 852. We held that, at sentencing, the State could not present a police officer’s testimony that “the investigation proved that Lebron shot the victim.” Id. at 855. Such testimony would be impermissible, we held, because it would be “directly and precisely to the contrary of a specific factual finding by a prior jury.” Id. at 854-55. - 26 - By contrast, the guilt phase jury in this case did not make a specific factual finding that someone other than Smiley shot Drake. On the contrary, by finding Smiley guilty on count 1, the jury found the opposite—that Smiley killed the victim. It is not clear why the jury chose not to make the special findings in counts 2, 4, and 5 as to Smiley’s possession or discharge of a firearm. A question from the jury during its deliberations raises the possibility that the jury believed that the special findings on those other counts related only to Mark Wilkerson—not Clifford Drake—as a victim. The jury might have thought the special finding questions were redundant, since the guilty verdicts on counts 2, 4, and 5 explicitly included language to the effect that Smiley committed each offense “with a firearm.” But we need not speculate about the jury’s thinking. In contrast to the facts of Lebron, the verdict form in this case does not reflect any specific factual finding by the jury that Smiley was not the shooter. Therefore, we deny this claim.