Opinion ID: 1611770
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Failure to Request a HAC Limiting Construction Instruction

Text: Cole asserts that trial counsel should have requested a limiting instruction for the heinous, atrocious, or cruel (HAC) aggravator. Cole contended in his rule 3.850 motion that actions taken after a victim becomes unconscious or after the victim dies cannot support the HAC aggravator. Cole maintains in the instant case that, although trial counsel raised the issue that John Edwards could likely have been unconscious when his throat was cut, counsel was ineffective to the extent that trial counsel did not present the trial court with case law that entitled Cole to an instruction that the jury could not consider actions after the victim was unconscious. Cole cites Jackson v. State, 451 So.2d 458, 463 (Fla.1984), to support his position. Cole is correct that we have held that events occurring after the victim's loss of consciousness or death are not relevant to the HAC aggravator determination. See Jackson, 451 So.2d at 463. The record reflects that trial counsel requested and the trial court instructed the jury that events occurring after the victim's death were not relevant for the HAC aggravator. Thus, Cole's ineffective counsel claim can only rest upon trial counsel's alleged failure to request a further limiting instruction that would have advised the jury that events occurring after the victim's loss of consciousness are not relevant for the HAC aggravator. However, as indicated by the trial court in denying this rule 3.850 claim, the trial court in its sentencing order found there to be sufficient acts that occurred while the victim was conscious for the HAC aggravator to be established beyond a reasonable doubt. This Court on direct appeal affirmed the finding of HAC beyond a reasonable doubt. See Cole, 701 So.2d at 852. In doing so, we quoted and adopted the trial court's factual finding that John Edwards was conscious at the time Cole slit John's throat and that John subsequently lived for several more minutes while gasping for air. See id. (John was conscious for several minutes while he gasped [for] air from a severed windpipe slow[ly] filling with blood.). Thus, again, we find no error in the trial court's granting no relief on this claim.