Opinion ID: 74147
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sochor Claim

Text: 2 The claims are set out in an appendix to this opinion. 3 The others are briefly discussed in a footnote at the end of this opinion. 4 The State argues, and we agree, that a procedural default bars this claim. Following the unanimous jury recommendation of death, the resentencing court found that the State had proven five aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt, one of which was that King had knowingly created a great risk of death to many persons by setting fire to Natalie Brady’s house. The court rejected all asserted mitigating factors, both statutory and nonstatutory. On appeal, the Florida Supreme Court sua sponte addressed the sufficiency of the evidence to support the factors. The court concluded that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding of the creating- a-great-risk-to-many-persons aggravator. The court declined to vacate King’s sentence, however, explaining that “[a]fter striking this factor, however, we are left with four valid aggravating circumstances and no mitigating circumstances. We therefore affirm King’s sentence of death.” King v. State, 514 So. 2d 354, 360 (Fla. 1987). This is the disposition that King claims violates his Eighth Amendment rights. Although the asserted error occurred during direct review, King did not mention this treatment of his sentence in his petition for rehearing before the supreme court, and the sufficiency of this review was not a subject of his original petition for habeas corpus filed in the same court. Nor did it form the basis of a claim for relief in his 5 petition under Rule 3.850.4 Under our precedent, King’s failure to present this kind of claim to the Florida state courts bars it. See Davis v. Singletary, 119 F.3d 1471, 1481 (11th Cir. 1997). There is, however, a small complication here: the State concedes5 that the failure to challenge the supreme court’s harmless-error analysis in the Rule 3.850 petition does not bar the claim, because (according to the State) a trial court could not review a supreme court action for constitutionality. The State’s concession notwithstanding, we think that Davis’s rule still bars the claim. As the State goes on to point out, Florida law provides King with a viable means of raising this constitutional error before the Florida Supreme Court: an original habeas corpus proceeding before that court. The Florida Supreme Court indeed routinely entertains such petitions in death cases. See, e.g., Teffeteller v. Dugger, 734 So. 2d 1009, 1024- 4 King’s § 2254 petition at best hinted at this claim. It is not separately enumerated. There is only a single sentence, deeply embedded in his Espinosa claim, that “[o]n direct appeal, the Florida Supreme Court gave no consideration to the impact of these invalid aggravating factor[s] on the jury’s weighing. An adequate harmless error analysis was not conducted. See Sochor; Espinosa.” (R.1-1 ¶ 13, at 23.) Understandably, the district court did not detect or address so well-hidden a claim. Because we hold that the claim was procedurally barred under state law, in any event, we need not decide whether the claim was properly presented in federal court. 5 Possibly unnecessarily. See Mills v. Singletary, 606 So. 2d 622, 623 (Fla. 1992) (holding a failure-to-reweigh claim barred in part for failure to present it in Rule 3.850 motion). 6 29 (Fla. 1999); Van Poyck v. Singletary, 715 So. 2d 930 (Fla. 1998); Bottoson v. Singletary, 685 So. 2d 1302 (Fla. 1997); Dougan v. Singletary, 644 So. 2d 484 (Fla. 1994); Occhicone v. Singletary, 619 So. 2d 730 (Fla. 1993). So King had an avenue for relief in Florida courts on this claim. But King would now stumble on a bar to habeas corpus review by the Florida Supreme Court — that the issue could have been, but was not, raised in an earlier proceeding. See Teffeteller, 734 So. 2d at 1024. That bar was, indeed, the only one the supreme court mentioned in refusing to consider on habeas petition a claim identical to the one that King has made here; the petitioner had not made the claim in his earlier habeas petition. See Mills, 606 So. 2d at 622. Thus, King should have presented the claim in his petition for habeas corpus before the Florida Supreme Court. Because King failed to do so, the claim is procedurally barred. See Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 297-99, 109 S. Ct. 1061, 1068-69 (1989).