Opinion ID: 1561583
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Seek Exclusion of a Portion of Smithers' Confession

Text: Smithers alleged that defense counsel Daniel Mario Hernandez was ineffective for not making a motion to exclude a portion of Smithers' confession. During the guilt phase, Detective Dorothy Flair, also known as Detective Martinez, testified that she interviewed Smithers on the night that the bodies were discovered and on the following day. She testified to the substance of both interviews, including the following description of Smithers' statements about the murder of Denise Roach: Q. Okay. What was his response to her hitting him on the shoulder or the arm? A. He told her that she wasn't going to hit him and he said he got upset about it. Q. Did he tell you whether or not he hit her in any part of her body? A. He said he hit her several times with a fist, with his first [sic]. Q. And did he tell you where on the body? A. In her face and head. Q. Did he tell youDid he make any comments as to whether or not he had hit her again? A. After that, yes. Q. Yes. Did anything kick in that make hermade him hit her again? A. He said that some prejudice may have set in so he hit her again. Q. And this is because she was black? A. Yes. Q. After he hits her again does he tell her that he is going to call the police? A. Yes. Q. And does he tell you how she reacts? A. She throws the planter against his truck. (Emphasis added.) After this exchange, Detective Flair testified concerning Smithers' statements about the additional injuries he inflicted on Roach. During the postconviction evidentiary hearing, trial counsel Hernandez testified that at the time of trial, he considered the fact that Smithers may have been prejudiced against the victim to be inextricably intertwined with the facts of the case. He explained that it was only in retrospect that he recognized that he could have filed a nonfrivolous motion to exclude the prejudice comment on the basis that the danger of unfair prejudice outweighed the probative value. Because the postconviction court found that it was reasonable professional judgment of counsel to believe the racial bias was inextricably intertwined with the crime charged, the court concluded that trial counsel was not deficient. The postconviction court also concluded that Smithers did not establish that the admission of the statement was so prejudicial that confidence in the outcome was undermined. Even if an objection to the admission of this portion of Smithers' statement would have been meritoriouswhich we do not decidewe conclude that Smithers has not established the requisite prejudice under the Strickland standard. Considering the totality of the evidence, we conclude that Smithers has not met the burden of showing that the decision reached would reasonably likely have been different absent the admission of Smithers' comment regarding his racial prejudice. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 695-96, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Detective Flair's testimony about Smithers' statement to law enforcement officers spanned nearly thirty pages in the record. Detective Flair testified that Smithers admitted to beating and killing Roach and Cowan and to attempting to dispose of their bodies in a pond. The challenged comment was only a few lines of the testimony about Smithers' detailed admission. In addition, other evidence connected Smithers to the murders. Smithers and Cowan were seen together on a convenience store videotape filmed about an hour before Whitehurst discovered the pool of blood in the carport. Shoe prints by the pond matched the shoes found in Smithers' home. Smithers' fingerprint was found in the kitchen of Whitehurst's house, and Smithers could not be excluded as the contributor of a semen stain that was found in the house. Smithers, 826 So.2d at 919. Furthermore, the State did not mention the possible racial motivation for the murder during its guilt-phase closing argument, and thus the jury was not reminded of the challenged testimony before deliberating. Given the persuasive evidence that Smithers committed the murders and the fact that the State did not emphasize the challenged testimony during closing, there is no reasonable probability that the jury improperly convicted Smithers of either murder due to his expression of racial bias, rather than properly convicted him based on the evidence of his guilt. Trial counsel's alleged deficiency does not undermine confidence in the verdict. As for sentencing, the State alluded to the evidence of racial bias once in its penalty-phase closing argument. The prosecutor used the phrase I guess prejudice set in when paraphrasing Smithers' statement about the Roach murder. Smithers asserts that the evidence influenced at least one juror's decision to recommend death. In Robinson v. State, 520 So.2d 1, 7 (Fla.1988), a direct appeal, we stated that the risk of racial prejudice infecting a criminal trial takes on greater significance in the context of a capital sentencing where the jury is called upon to make a highly subjective evaluation. The facts presented in Robinson were, however, very different from the facts presented here. In Robinson, we concluded that the prosecutor's examination of [a] witness was a deliberate attempt to insinuate that [the defendant] had a habit of preying on white women and thus constituted an impermissible appeal to bias and prejudice. Id. at 6. We further concluded that the error could not be deemed harmless because we could not presume that the prejudicial testimony did not remain imbedded in the minds of the jurors and influence their recommendation. Id. at 8. The passing reference to Smithers' statement concerning his prejudice is of a different character than the prosecutor's calculated attempt in Robinson to play on any racial prejudice held by the jurors. Our decision in State v. Davis, 872 So.2d 250 (Fla.2004), is also readily distinguishable. In Davis, defense counsel, during voir dire of a panel of prospective jurors, said: Sometimes I just don't like black people. Sometimes black people make me mad just because they're black. Id. (emphasis removed). We concluded that Davis was entitled to postconviction relief because the expressions of racial animus voiced by trial counsel during voir dire so seriously affected the fairness and reliability of the proceeding that our confidence in the jury's verdicts of guilt [wa]s undermined. Id. at 253. The improper and inflammatory comments made by defense counsel in Davis are very different from the comment made by Smithers which is at issue here. Moreover, Smithers does not address how the comment could have affected the evaluation of the aggravating and mitigating factors by the jury or the sentencing court. See Jones v. State, 998 So.2d 573, 585 (Fla.2008) (`Prejudice . . . is shown where, absent the errors, there is a reasonable probability that the balance of aggravating and mitigating circumstances would have been different or the deficiencies substantially impair confidence in the outcome of the proceedings.' (quoting Gaskin v. State, 737 So.2d 509, 516 n. 14 (Fla.1999))). As discussed above, admission of the evidence of racial bias does not undermine confidence in either of the contemporaneous murder convictions that supported the prior violent felony aggravating factors, and the evidence has no bearing on whether the aggravating factor of cold, calculated, and premeditated (CCP) was applicable to the Cowan murder. And while the comment may have supported the conclusion that Smithers acted from a particularly wicked or vile motive in the Roach murder, the comment was immaterial to whether the killing was unnecessarily torturous to the victim. Fla. Std. Jury Instr. (Crim.) 7.11 Penalty ProceedingsCapital Cases (defining heinous, atrocious or cruel aggravating factor). In short, there is no reasonable probability that absent the admission of Smithers' comment concerning his racial prejudice, the balance of aggravating and mitigating circumstances would have been different in the eyes of either the jurywhich unanimously recommended death for the murdersor the sentencing court. Jones, 998 So.2d at 585. In conclusion, the postconviction court did not err in concluding that Smithers was not entitled to relief on this claim.