Opinion ID: 407646
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Absence of Presentence Investigation

Text: 21 The magistrate concluded that defense counsel erred by failing to request a presentence investigation report. Such investigation he found was necessary to provide information on appellant's character and background, on which no other information in the record had shed any light. Moreover, because the only view the jury and the judge had of the petitioner was the impersonal picture drawn by Dr. Crumbley of an obsessed killer, presentation to the sentencers of information about appellant's personality and characteristics could be critical. 22 The defense attorney's testimony at the evidentiary hearing on this point was as follows: 23 Q Do you believe there was a pre-sentence investigation? 24 A Should have been. 25 Q If there was not one, should you have asked for one? 26 A Should have been automatic. 27 Q Why would it be automatic? 28 A Well, let me put it this way. I know it's automatic now unless waived by statutory authority. Whether that statute was in effect at the time of Proffitt's trial, I can't tell you. But I do recall a pre-sentence investigation being run. 29 Q Did you recall that there was a pre-sentence investigation? 30 A I think so. 31 Q And if there hadn't been one, should you have asked for one? 32 A If there were such things as pre-sentence investigations then, and I think there were, I should have asked for one. 33 Transcript of Evidentiary Hearing 275-76. As the magistrate noted, the record indicates that no presentence investigation was conducted for Proffitt's trial. The magistrate's conclusion that counsel's failure to demand such an investigation constituted ineffective assistance rested partly on the magistrate's opinion that the Crumbley testimony, which presented a very negative picture of appellant's character, created a strong need for humanizing information about appellant. The magistrate also viewed the statement by the attorney at the evidentiary hearing that he should have asked for a presentence investigation as an admission that he erred in not doing so. 34 The district court judge, noting that the attorney's testimony was given from unaided memory more than five years after the trial, found it noteworthy that counsel in his testimony talked about 'now' as distinguished from 'then.'  The judge observed that the Florida rule governing presentence investigation reports in criminal cases was amended shortly before appellant's trial to extend authorization for trial courts to order presentence investigations from only cases in which probation is authorized by law to all cases in which the court has discretion as to what sentence may be imposed. Compare Rule 1.790, Fla.R.Crim.P. (adopted by Florida Supreme Court, 196 So.2d 124 (1967) (effective Jan. 1, 1968), as amended by 211 So.2d 203 (Fla.1968) and 253 So.2d 421 (Fla.1971) ) with Rule 3.710, Fla.R.Crim.P. (adopted by Florida Supreme Court, 272 So.2d 65 (Fla.1972); codified at 34 Fla.Stat.Ann. § 3.710 (West 1975) ). Although the language of the new rule seems to encompass capital cases (as compared with the old rule, which was expressly limited to cases in which probation could be granted), the Committee Note indicates it was not intended to cover capital cases. 24 The district court judge recognized that later cases have held Rule 3.710 neither requires nor precludes presentence investigations in capital cases, see Thompson v. State, 328 So.2d 1 (Fla.1976); Songer v. State, 322 So.2d 481 (Fla.1975); Swan v. State, 322 So.2d 485 (Fla.1975). Nonetheless, he found that at the time of Petitioner's trial in 1974, both historical as well as contemporary legal opinion and authority was to the effect that presentence investigation reports were not customary or necessary in capital cases; and, in fact, there was a serious question at the time that the use of a presentence report might even be error. 25 35 The district judge's disagreement with the magistrate on whether counsel's failure to request a presentence investigation constituted ineffective assistance directly concerns the attorney's testimony at the evidentiary hearing. In some sense, the disagreement can be viewed as a difference in interpretation of that testimony. The difference was not a matter of credibility, however. This is not a situation in which the magistrate believed the attorney was telling the truth but the district court disbelieved his testimony. Rather, the magistrate interpreted the attorney's statement as a simple admission that he should have requested a presentence investigation, while the district judge interpreted it as a conditional admission that he should have requested one if the law authorized such investigations at the time of Proffitt's trial. These circumstances thus present us with an issue we have not previously faced: whether the reasoning of Louis v. Blackburn, supra, requires that a district court judge conduct a new evidentiary hearing when the judge's interpretation of a witness's testimony differs from that of the magistrate on a point critical to decision of the issue to which the testimony is relevant. 36 The rationale for requiring district judges to rehear testimony before rejecting credibility choices made by a magistrate lies in the recognition that credibility choices frequently depend on the trier of fact's assessment of the witness's demeanor. Obviously, observation of such factors as witnesses' facial expressions and tone of voice cannot be observed by reading a cold and impersonal written transcript. See Louis v. Blackburn, 630 F.2d at 1110. These factors not only reflect on the witness's credibility (i.e., on his sincerity and the degree of certainty with which he asserts matters about which he testifies) but may also reflect on the meaning the witness intends by the words he uses when such meaning is unclear from the words alone. We thus do not hold that a judge need never rehear testimony when he attributes a different meaning to words uttered by a witness than the meaning ascribed to them by the magistrate. Unless the words spoken by the witness are inherently ambiguous, however, the decision whether a second hearing is necessary must be left to the sound discretion of the district judge. 37 In the case before us, the witness's testimony was not inherently unclear. The attorney's remark that if there were such things as pre-sentence investigations then, ... I should have asked for one, itself suggests that at some point relevant to the period in question there was a change either in the law or in practice with respect to conducting presentence investigations. The magistrate made no apparent attempt to decipher the attorney's ambiguous reference to change and interpreted the attorney's testimony without the benefit of such understanding. The district judge, on the other hand, determined what changes had occurred and took them into consideration in interpreting the attorney's testimony. When viewed in the context of the changes in Florida's law governing presentence investigations that occurred shortly after Proffitt's trial, the import of the defense attorney's statement becomes clear: if Proffitt's trial took place after the statute requiring presentence investigations in felony cases was enacted, see note 25 supra, then he should have requested such an investigation; if the trial took place before it became clear that such investigations were proper in capital cases, however, he was admitting to no such obligation. Since the defense counsel's testimony was not inherently vague, and since any uncertainty it presented was resolvable by reference to matters within the judicial notice of the court, J. M. Blythe Motor Lines Corp. v. Blalock, 310 F.2d 77 (5th Cir. 1972) (federal courts will take judicial notice of state laws without requiring proof thereof), the district judge did not abuse his discretion in rejecting the magistrate's interpretation of that testimony without rehearing the witness. 38