Opinion ID: 1644833
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: ABA Report

Text: Tompkins next raises a claim of newly discovered evidence based on the ABA report issued on September 17, 2006, which he alleges identifies numerous defects and flaws in Florida's capital sentencing scheme that inject arbitrariness into the decision-making process. We conclude that the trial court did not err in summarily denying this claim, as this Court has repeatedly rejected the claim that the ABA Report in question is newly discovered evidence. This Court most recently addressed this issue in Power v. State, 992 So.2d 218 (Fla.2008): Finally, Power argued at the circuit court that the ABA report entitled Evaluating Fairness and Accuracy in the State Death Penalty System: The Florida Death Penalty Assessment Report, published September 17, 2006, constitutes newly discovered evidence proving that imposition of the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Power correctly and candidly acknowledges that we rejected this argument in Rolling and Rutherford [v. State, 940 So.2d 1112 (Fla.2006) ]. In both cases, we concluded that this very same ABA report did not constitute newly discovered evidence and that nothing in the report would cause this Court to recede from its past decisions upholding the facial constitutionality of the death penalty. Rolling, 944 So.2d at 181 (citing Rutherford, 940 So.2d at 1118). Furthermore, as in Rolling and Rutherford, Power has not allege[d] how any of the conclusions in the report would render his individual death sentence unconstitutional. Rolling, 944 So.2d at 181; see also Rutherford, 940 So.2d at 1118. For these same reasons, we affirm the circuit court's summary denial of Power's claim. Power, 992 So.2d at 222-23. Tompkins attempts to differentiate his case from Power, Rolling, and Rutherford by arguing that he can demonstrate that his death sentence was imposed on an arbitrary basis. He contends that when this Court reversed the trial court's order granting a new penalty phase in Tompkins IV, [9] it acted arbitrarily in requiring him to show something that had not been required in the prior cases [10]  [he] was required to `demonstrate[ ] that he was denied a neutral, detached judge or that Judge Coe failed to independently weigh the aggravating and mitigating circumstances at the time the sentencing order was prepared.' Tompkins's claim fails for two reasons. First, this is merely an attempt to relitigate the issue of whether or not Tompkins was denied a fair sentencing proceeding as a result of the ex parte communication between the sentencing judge and the prosecutor. This claim was already decided adversely to Tompkins in Tompkins IV. See 872 So.2d at 244-45. In Diaz v. State, 945 So.2d 1136 (Fla.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 850, 166 L.Ed.2d 679 (2006), this Court rejected a similar attempt to relitigate prior claims under the ABA Report: Unlike Rutherford, Diaz did allege that many of the failures of the Florida death penalty system cited in the ABA Report were applicable in his case. However, this does not change the conclusion that the report is not newly discovered evidence. Furthermore, the failures that Diaz cites as applying to his case either have been or could have been litigated by him in his direct appeal and postconviction proceedings. Thus, we affirm the circuit court's summary denial of this claim. Id. at 1146. The second reason this claim fails is that Tompkins IV is distinguishable from Roberts, Riechmann, and Card. In Roberts, Riechmann, and Card, this Court determined that the sentencing judge failed to conduct an independent review of the aggravating and mitigating factors by engaging in ex parte communications with the State and adopting the State's sentencing order. See Roberts, 840 So.2d at 972-73 & n. 4; Riechmann, 777 So.2d at 351; Card, 652 So.2d at 345-46. In contrast, in Tompkins IV, this Court concluded, Tompkins has not demonstrated that he was denied a neutral, detached judge or that Judge Coe failed to independently weigh the aggravating and mitigating circumstances at the time the sentencing order was prepared. 872 So.2d at 247. Accordingly, we reject Tompkins's argument.