Opinion ID: 1571354
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Constitutionality of Florida's Death Penalty Statute as Applied

Text: We turn next to Grossman's claim that the Florida death penalty statute is arbitrary and capricious as applied to him, in violation of Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972), because (1) the court and jury did not hear all available mitigating evidence at the penalty phase; (2) the State violated Giglio by presenting the false testimony of witness Charles Brewer; and (3) Grossman has not had the opportunity to present newly discovered evidence in clemency proceedings. In the first of these three claims, Grossman merely reasserts the same allegations we rejected above as procedurally barredthat the trial court and jury were not able to consider all possible mitigating evidence at the penalty phase. Therefore, we do not further address this subclaim.
Grossman alleged in his third successive postconviction motion that the State violated Giglio by presenting the false testimony of witness Charles Brewer. Specifically, Grossman contended that his death sentence is arbitrary and capricious because he is being treated differently than another death row inmate, Paul Beasley Johnson, whose sentence of death was recently vacated by this Court due to prosecutorial misconduct resulting from a Giglio violation. [6] See Johnson v. State, ___ So.3d ___, 2010 WL 121248, 35 Fla. L. Weekly S43 (Fla. Jan. 14, 2010). We conclude that summary denial of this claim was proper. Johnson is distinguishable and applied well-established precedent to the unique facts of that case. There, a successive rule 3.851 motion presented newly discovered evidence that the State committed a Giglio violation by knowingly presenting false testimony: Specifically, we conclude that newly disclosed evidence shows the following. First, after Johnson was arrested and counsel was appointed, the State intentionally induced Johnson to make incriminating statements to a jailhouse informant in violation of Johnson's right to counsel. Because Johnson's statements were impermissibly elicited, the informant's testimony concerning those statements was inadmissible under United States v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264, 100 S.Ct. 2183, 65 L.Ed.2d 115 (1980). Second, although the prosecutor at Johnson's first trial knew that Johnson's statements were impermissibly elicited and that the informant's testimony was inadmissible, he knowingly used false testimony and misleading argument to convince the court to admit the testimony. And third, because the informant's testimony was admitted and then later used at Johnson's 1988 trial, and because the State has failed to show that this error did not contribute to the jury's advisory sentences of death, we must vacate the death sentences under Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 92 S.Ct. 763, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972), and remand for a new penalty phase proceeding before a new jury. Johnson, ___ So.3d at ___, 2010 WL 121248, 35 Fla. L. Weekly at S43. In Grossman's original postconviction motion, he raised a claim of prosecutorial misconduct regarding Brewer's testimony. Following the 1995 evidentiary hearing on that claim, the trial court denied relief, finding that there was no evidence that the State knew Brewer's testimony was false at the time of trial and further found that, in any event, Grossman had not shown how Brewer's allegedly false testimony affected the judgment or sentence in Grossman's case. In his third successive postconviction motion, Grossman does not provide any new evidence or indication that prosecutorial misconduct occurred. Therefore, unlike in Johnson, Grossman's claim is successive, and we deny relief on that basis.
Grossman next argued in his third successive postconviction motion that the death penalty is arbitrary and capricious as applied to him because he had a clemency proceeding in October 1988, but has not had an opportunity to present further information about his life in a recent clemency proceeding. He asserted that newly discovered evidence would explain why he acted impulsively at nineteen years of age when he committed the murder. He further contended that the clemency procedures are impermissibly arbitrary. We conclude that the trial court properly denied this claim without an evidentiary hearing. This Court recently rejected an identical claim in Johnston v. State, 27 So.3d 11 (Fla. 2010): Johnston contends that his original clemency hearing was inadequate to protect his rights because it was conducted before his full life history and mental illness history were developed. We rejected a similar argument in Bundy that time must be given to prepare and present a case for clemency in a second clemency proceeding before the death sentence may be carried out. Bundy[v. State], 497 So.2d [1209] at 1211 [(Fla. 1986)]. We also noted in Marek v. State, 14 So.3d 985 (Fla.2009), after Marek raised a second challenge to the clemency process, that five justices of the United States Supreme Court concluded [in Ohio Adult Parole Authority v. Woodard, 523 U.S. 272, 118 S.Ct. 1244, 140 L.Ed.2d 387 (1998)] that some minimal procedural due process requirements should apply to clemency ... [b]ut none of the opinions in that case required any specific procedures or criteria to guide the executive's signing of warrants for death-sentenced inmates. Marek, 14 So.3d at 998. We again conclude that no specific procedures are mandated in the clemency process and that Johnston has been provided with the clemency proceedings to which he is entitled. Further, we decline to depart from the Court's precedent, based on the doctrine of separation of powers, in which we have held that it is not our prerogative to second-guess the executive on matters of clemency in capital cases. Johnston has not provided any reason for the Court to depart from its precedents or to hold that an additional clemency proceeding is required before a death warrant is signed. Because these same claims have been raised and ruled on in the Court's prior precedents, and Johnston has provided no reason for the Court to depart from those precedents, relief is denied. Johnston, 27 So.3d at 25-26, 2010 WL 183984, 35 Fla. L. Weekly at S69; see also Marek, 14 So.3d at 998; Bundy, 497 So.2d at 1211. Similarly, Grossman has not provided any reason why this Court should depart from its well-established precedent on this issue, and we thus deny relief on this claim.